Watercooling 201: The Waterblock

Assembling the perfect block

Now that we have looked at some of the biggest and best blocks in the industry, it's easy to see the theory that we learned being put into practice. Each of the blocks on the preceding pages has weaknesses and strengths, but each is able to be summed up by the theories of physics and thermodynamics.

And since we are now rich in the knowledge of laminar flow, boundary layers and thermodynamic properties of liquid cooling in general, it's time to let you loose to your own cooling devices. The next article in this series is going to cover applying these designs to build one of your own blocks – tools and equipment to do it both on the cheapest of cheap and on the most expensive.

The thing is, if you've learned what you need to from this article, you should be able to build a block that can perform at least in a league with these blocks (we'll say about three to five degree difference). And you should be able to build it out of nothing more than a copper plate, a copper cap, a foot or so of copper pipe and some rudimentary tools (solder, snips, etc).

In the meantime, if you have already created a block of your own design, why don't you show us your best effort?

For the less adventurous...

If building a block isn't your thing and you're more interested in understanding what to look for in a good block to buy, we may have just the thing you're looking for.

You may have been noticing through the course of this article that I have been giving prices of the blocks over at Aqua-PCs. We have a good relationship with Pascal over there, and he's a pretty avid reader of bit-tech. So, he kindly dropped us a coupon code to pass on to all of you readers.

If you use the code bitaqua10, you'll get a great discount through until February 28th – 10 percent off your entire order. Or, if you purchase the EK Supreme waterblock, you can enjoy free shipping worldwide. For those of you not in the EU, make sure you get the VAT-free option!

We'll be looking forward to bringing you promotions like this all year long, from Aqua-PCs and other great retailers supporting the modding world, so make sure you stay tuned.

Conclusion

Watercooling is probably one of the most misunderstood things in enthusiast computing. It's fraught with misconceptions, brand loyalty and nebulous (and sometimes outright misleading) measurements. Often, the best way to understand what's going on in a block is to look at it – and understand what you're looking at.

With that in mind, I hope that this article has helped to fit the bill, and that you've enjoyed this look into the physics behind the waterblock. If you are interested in building your own, make sure you stay tuned to the next part of this series...but even if not, I hope you've found something that you can use to better understand your current or future cooling solutions.

So, until next time, stay cool and thanks for reading!