Air cooling radiator or water cooling radiator a read!
Speaking of CPU radiator, the most commonly used is air cooling and water cooling, and now many people will choose water cooling radiator when installing, because the effect is better. But in fact, air cooling and water cooling can not be said who is better, but depends on their own needs. Today we will talk about some common sense and use differences between air cooled and water cooled radiators.
The principle of air cooling is very simple, that is, the heat is absorbed through the bottom and then transferred to the heat sink, and the heat is blown away by the fan. Therefore, the air-cooled heat-absorbing base is very important. The heat-absorbing bottom is usually made of pure copper material, because copper has good heat-absorbing and heat-conducting properties.
The endothermic bottom is usually designed as a whole copper bottom, and there are also some direct contact schemes for heat pipes. Heat pipe direct contact about 2007~2012 is quite popular, according to the saying at that time between the base and the heat pipe because it is hard contact, so it will produce a certain loss, let the heat pipe direct contact with the CPU top cover is to reduce the loss of a ring, this concept was very popular, so that a number of air-cooled brands launched the same concept products, the name is also varied.
However, after a long time, some people found the shortcomings of the heat pipe direct contact, mainly the heat pipe itself is relatively thin, and then it is even thinner after being forced to use the milling cutter to deal with the flat, at this time the heat pipe has two problems. First, the strength of the heat pipe is affected, and the heat pipe may be deformed and lead to poor contact for a long time on the main board, and the heat dissipation effect is naturally out of the question. Second, the size of the CPU top cover is different, some large cpus can make the base fully covered, encounter a smaller CPU, the heat pipe may not be complete contact with the heat source, in contrast to the pure copper base does not have these problems, so now the high-end air cooled radiator mostly changed back to the pure copper base.
After the base completes the heat absorption through the pure copper heat conduction tube to the heat dissipation FIN, the heat conduction efficiency here is related to many factors, such as the heat sink and heat pipe contact with FIN, fin and reflow, it is generally believed that reflow effect is good, but the specific also depends on the actual process level. In addition, the heat pipe, heat pipe more and more thick is almost a measure of thermal conductivity common sense, the high-end radiator is generally 6 heat pipes, high-end there are 7 to 8, the more heat pipe distribution heat conduction effect is better, of course, specifically look at the heat pipe bending and layout.
The final step in air cooling is heat dissipation, allowing the fan to blow away the heat accumulated on the surface of the heat sink. Performance is related to fan blade design, speed, etc., some fans pursue quiet, low speed and weak wind, some focus on wind pressure, emphasizing that it can blow through the whole radiator from the front, if necessary, it can also add a suction fan on the back to help take away the heat on the heat sink, thereby reducing the CPU temperature.
Air cooling wants to have a good effect, in the final analysis, the heat dissipation area is large, so many high-end radiators are either large single tower, or 14cm fan + twin tower structure, but the air-cooled radiator from the current point of view, the development space is not large, mainly because the radiator area will be limited by the height of the chassis side panel, the main board MOS heat sink and memory, and the graphics card space. How to maximize the performance in the limited space will be the future research direction of major air cooling plants.
The water-cooled radiator is also called the liquid-cooled radiator, because the inside is filled with special coolant. The working principle of water cooling is not very different from that of air cooling, mainly through the heat absorption box in the cold head, transferring the CPU heat from the top cover to the inside of the cold head.
The water cooling liquid transfers the heat through the water pipe to the heat exchange exhaust, and the fan blows off the heat on the cold exhaust, and the water cooling liquid after cooling enters the cold head again through the pump and begins to circulate. The biggest advantage of the water-cooled radiator is that the water-cooled liquid has a large specific heat capacity and a large heat dissipation area.
The thermal conductivity of water-cooled liquid is about 4 times that of air, through the flow of water-cooled liquid can quickly transfer heat, and the problem of heat dissipation area has been said in the above air-cooled, 240, 280 and 360 cold row use, heat exchange area is much larger than ordinary air-cooled, and is not limited by the space of the motherboard, so the heat dissipation effect is much better. Of course, if it is 120 cold rows, it is really not as good as mid-end air cooling.
In general, air-cooled water cooled each has its own advantages, and there is no absolute advantage. The strength of air cooling is durability, at least the buckle can be used all the time, at most change the fan. However, the shortcomings of air cooling are also obvious, the volume occupies a large place, the memory is blocked, the graphics card and M.2 are difficult to remove, and the performance ceiling is not as high as water cooling. The advantages of water cooling are better performance, beautiful appearance, cold head does not occupy space, and easy installation of cold head. The disadvantage is that once the leakage is very troublesome, it will cause other equipment damage and other problems.
