Original subtitles

In this lesson, we're going to talk

all about liquid cooling.

Now, liquid cooling is something that is very popular

with high end gaming PCs and other machines

that produce an excessive amount of heat.

Now, these are more complicated to install

than using simple active cooling with fans

and using passive cooling with heat sinks and thermal paste

but liquid cooling can dispense a lot more heat

with less power and less noise

which is why it's popular with a lot of gamers.

Now, when I talk about liquid cooling systems,

there's really two different types.

We have what's known as a closed loop system

and an open loop system.

First, let's talk about closed loop systems.

When you're dealing with a closed loop system,

these are very simple systems for liquid cooling,

because they're only going to be cooling a single component

such as your processor or your graphics card.

By doing this, it's essentially going to be

a self-contained system for that single component.

For example, if you're using a closed loop system

to cool your processor, there might be a heat sink

that has a radiator cooling tube

that's going through that heat sink.

And instead of using a fan to cool off the heat sink,

you're using that liquid inside the liquid cooling system

to take the heat away from the heat sink,

pump it out to a radiator

and then cool that in the radiator.

It works essentially like an air conditioning system does

in your house but for your processor.

Now, while closed loop systems are easier to install

and operate, they are not nearly as popular

as an open loop system.

Now an open loop system is a liquid cooling based system

that's going to have several different components

and be able to cool several components across your system

including your processor, your graphics card

and other components like that

all at the same time, using a single system.

When you're dealing with a liquid based cooling system,

this is any system that is pumping water

or liquid around the chassis to remove that heat.

And the reason that liquid cooling systems work so well

is because water and liquids are a more effective coolant

than air convection is.

And this means you can pump that water through this radiator

and through those heat sinks to be able to get more heat

into the liquid than you could by pushing air

over those heat sinks.

This allows you to cool down a system much quicker

and much more quietly.

Now, when you're dealing

with an open loop liquid based cooling system,

you're going to have several different components

including the water loop or tubing

that's going to allow the water and liquid

to move around the system, as well as a pump

that's going to help push that coolant, water,

or liquid around the system.

In addition to that, you're going to have a liquid reservoir

to hold all this liquid as it expands and contracts

inside of the system, because most liquids

will expand and contract as they heat up or cool down.

And then we're also going to have what's known

as a water block or water bracket.

These are going to be attached to each device

to help remove the heat by using convection

and putting the liquid against that different device.

For example, if you have a processor that is being attached

as part of this open loop system,

you're going to have this water block or bracket

on top of the processor

instead of using a traditional heat sink with thermal paste.

And then instead of putting air over it,

you're going to be pumping liquid in

and out of this water block

which is going to go across the top of the processor

and cool it down.

Finally, you need to have a radiator

that's a way to start cooling down this liquid or coolant

as it's coming away from the processor.

So as the processor heats up, that heat is being transferred

into this liquid, through the water block or bracket,

and then it's pumped over through the water loop

or tubing over to this radiator.

As it passes over the radiator,

that coolant is then going to be cooled down

as air passes over the radiator

and all of its thin and exposed surface area

much like a heat sink and that cools down the liquid,

and then that liquid is now cold and it goes back

towards the processor to remove more heat.

And this is how a basic open loop

liquid based cooling system works,

by having this water loop or tubing,

this pump to push the cooling around,

a reservoir to add more coolant,

and have a room for expansion and contraction,

and then having the water blocks that attaches

the coolant directly to the components to be cooled,

and finally, those radiators to remove the heat

from the coolant, since that coolant just got heated up

by touching all those different components.

And this happens again and again in a circle

over and over as we try to maintain a lower temperature

for all of our devices while they're operating.

Now, when you think about liquid cooling,

I want you to think about high performance systems.

Most of the time, this is going to be associated

with 3D gaming, CAD machines

or really high-end video editing machines.

In general, most of us are not going to be using liquid cooling

in our systems because it's more expensive

and it's harder to work with.

Active cooling using fans is a much easier way of doing it

and active cooling has been around for much longer.

Traditionally, we've been using fans and active cooling

as our method of cooling down computers

pretty much since the invention of personal computers

and liquid cooling is a newer variant

and it really is reserved for high end gaming machines

at this point in time.

Now, if you're working in a corporate environment,

you are likely not going to be using liquid cooling

for pretty much anything, but if you're working

on some custom PC for gamers or building one for yourself,

then you may want to use liquid cooling

in your particular build.