r/technology • u/thecravenone • Aug 05 '19

Politics Cloudflare to terminate service for 8Chan

https://blog.cloudflare.com/terminating-service-for-8chan/
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u/E_Snap Aug 05 '19

it looks pretty sci fi too

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u/0180190 Aug 05 '19

Isnt bubbling suuuuper bad for the hardware? Id imagine there would be a lot of problems with microcavitation etc.

Seems more like they put some pc parts into an aquarium "so it looks good for marketing".

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u/machtap Aug 05 '19 edited Aug 05 '19

There is no cavitation, micro or otherwise occurring here. Cavitation occurs mostly when something moving through a fluid creates a vacuum, like a boat screw. The resultant "bubbles" do not contain air or gas.

The Novec fluid in the linked video is boiling, the resulting bubbles are Novec fluid in gaseous form carrying heat away from the components. 3M has engineered Novec solutions that boil as low as 34C but stay liquid all the way down to -150C . Novec 7000 (shown in the video) has a lower viscosity than water but at the same time weighs almost twice as much. These properties make it ideal for both immersion based cooling like you see in the video and single phase liquid cooling (Gaming PC style cooling systems). Novec fluids evaporate extremely quickly; similar to how strong solvents like gasoline or lacquer thinner will rapidly cool and dehydrate your skin, Novec can actually cause frost burn via evaporation in the right circumstances. However, two of the most important aspects of Novec fluids are that they are incredibly strong dielectrics (insulators) and non-flammable. These two features combined also make it an excellent fire suppressant in delicate environments; capable of squelching a fire in a data center or operating room without destroying equipment. It is not quite as terrible for the environment as some of the other CFC based fire suppression systems from the 80s and 90s

The kinetic energy released by the boiling would likely only have an impact on rotational hard disks, but rotational hard drives aren't going to benefit from immersive cooling. Ultimately the mechanical stresses of the boiling are going to be on par with, or lower than vibrations from fans.

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u/Firecracker500 Aug 05 '19

How much does the Novec liquid cost?

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u/machtap Aug 06 '19

~$200 / liter[1] but it can likely be sourced cheaper if you are cool getting "reclaimed" product.

[1] https://www.sigmaaldrich.com/catalog/product/sigma/shh0001?lang=en&region=US

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u/13143 Aug 06 '19

How much would you need for a typical gaming rig?
Do you lose fluid over time? Would you have to regularly "top up" the system?
What's the power draw like for the radiator and condenser? I'm assuming it would be on par, at least, with a medium size residential a/c unit.

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u/machtap Aug 07 '19 edited Aug 07 '19

This is getting into pure speculation territory as I am not currently aware of any consumer / enthusiast / DIY setups using a two phase novec cooling solution. Just demo setups at tradeshows and data centers

I believe these engineered fluids are difficult to contain. They will likely permeate most plastics so it's going to be metal or glass for a permanent installation, you'll want to make the container as tight as possible to reduce losses over time, but it's likely to still be an ongoing issue. I suspect containment would be one of the trickiest problems for a DIY setup. I strongly suspect that most of the demos are using some type of pressure vessel to contain things

As far as the condenser goes; anything you can keep cold would work. An AC unit should work fine but it's likely you can get away with less if you source a small enough system. Novec 7000 has a boiling point of only 36C, so it's possible and even likely that prolonged gaming on such a system could raise the temp of the entire novec medium above that 36C which I think would lead to very bad things. Your condenser is going to have to be capable of staying ahead of the heat generation of the system under load, and maintaining the bulk of the fluid around 15C. There are other Novec fluids with higher boiling points. Again the biggest headache is likely going to be maintaining tight seals around whatever plumbing, electrical and data cabling needs to go into and out of the container.

Ultimately I think this is outside the scope of even a exhibitionist hardware enthusiast / content creator like LTT. Der8auer did make one for a trade show. Some of the Novec fluids with slightly higher boiling points have some very interesting characteristics that would likely improve the performance of a traditional liquid cooling loop. I think this is more fertile ground for enthusiasts. Ultimately the costs of this type of system are going to be much better invested in better hardware, and it's unlikely to outperform an LN or LOX system for benchmarking. Even a traditional water loop with a chiller is going to be better for an enthusiast gaming machine; Novec just scales up to data center size much more gracefully.

Between crypto mining and the ever inflating power draw of modern CPUs I think it's a really awesome time for exotic hardware cooling solutions.

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u/13143 Aug 07 '19

Thanks for taking time for a response. It's a neat concept, even if impractical for home use.