There are as many ideas about the best way to cool a computer as there are enthusiasts who try to make them go faster.

I have been running a slightly-overclocked i7 6700k for a few months and have developed a plan of attack for making it go faster.

Don’t get me wrong, this machine is pretty fast.

I had decided before I put it together that I’d wait to develop the feeling I needed more speed before I’d go to more expensive cooling. (As an example, I haven’t developed the “need” for a better guitar because I’m such a Klutz playing it.) But I overdrive the processor on a number of daily tasks, such as malware scans and video processing. Not your ordinary stuff like streaming Netflix. I had been concerned that I would waste money on making a super gaming machine and then not like gaming, so my “hot rod” would just “sit in the garage”. This is, of course, a realistic concern about “boys and their toys”.

I’ve found a liquid “closed-loop” cooler that is supposed to work great and operate fairly quietly and not break the bank. It is an ID-Cooling Frostflow 240L CPU Liquid Cooler. Closed-loop systems come assembled and are never taken apart and tend to not have leakage problems. The most popular ones, by far, come from Corsair, which also makes the computer case I use, a 200r case.

This particular cooler has a very dense radiator and two high pressure fans. The trick with radiators is getting the air through them and having enough liquid flow through them for a good thermal exchange to happen.

The fans are capable of forcing air through the radiator with a high “static pressure” of 3.2 “inches of water”. HUH? When it is blocked it will build up pressure equivalent to a force that would lift water 3.2 inches. That’s how air delivery is often rated. Saying how fast it moves or how much volume it moves per minute doesn’t say how it reacts to trying to push it through a radiator. You need high static pressure and somewhat high CFM “cubic feet per minute” to get the job done.

High speed fans that have low static pressure just make noise from the fan blades and the air “escaping” because it can’t go through the radiator. Do you sort-of get it? If you do, you’re WAY AHEAD of most people.

This is why some buildings have noisy heating and cooling systems and some are very quiet. It’s because they chose air speed over static pressure. I personally HATE the cheap fan hood over my kitchen stove because it makes lots of noise and doesn’t exhaust much air, the one thing it is supposed to do.

Some of the less restricted cooling in the computer box just relies on air exchange such as the air to the graphics processing unit, the video card. Here you want air that isn’t just static; you want a little breeze so the box isn’t full of hot air.

Computer cases typically have a fan going in and a fan going out for this exchange. If you force a lot more air out with these two added high pressure fans (and remove the fan and radiator directly connected to the top of the processor) there may be a shortage of pressure (a partial vacuum) in the computer case. (That “sucks!”) It might suck cat hair and dust in through the CD openings and all the little holes around the case. There would probably be less air movement on the GPU and other components, like the RAM sticks.

I hope that doesn’t surprise you. You just removed a great big fan from the computer board and replaced it with two fans way at the top of the case. The air flow will be a lot different if you don’t compensate.

Here, I’m not sure. My “gut feeling” is that I should add a little pressure to the case, as popular wisdom seems to favor a slightly pressurized case over a slight vacuum, for dust reasons. Whether those anecdotes are true or not is yet to be discovered.

My first stab at this balancing act will be to replace the front intake fan with the relatively high pressure CPU fan (that would be removed) and take the former front intake fan and add it to the side. This is just a guess, as the front position is more restricted, necessitating more pressure, and the air exchange is lateral, which LOOKS LIKE how the lateral cooling fins on the GPU seem to be aligned. Also the re-positioned fan on the side might divert the air flow THROUGH the case and out the back or top. A little encouragement to keep moving in the front-to-back direction.

The concept of flows and diverting flows is a fascinating one that is hardly taught in school directly. Archaeologists are “fascinated” that Incas could build such simple and effective water works. Few people understand tubes or transistors, that a little flow diverts a huge flow. That’s why cows can be so easily be herded. It’s just NOT taught.

If I had a “clean room fogger” I could test my “laminar (non-turbulent) airflow theory (he says with a straight face…..). But, for now, that’s my gut feeling.

The overall theory for computer cooling is that good heat exchange at the radiator shouldn’t require high air speeds and should be both effective and quiet.

Wish me luck. I’ll report back next month.