TLDR: How Heatpipes & Air Coolers Work (w/ animation)

Рет қаралды 189,983

7 жыл бұрын

We shot and produced this video back in April, but only just finalized the animation for it. This video explores heatpipes and CPU coolers, discussing how air & metal combine to dissipate heat on a CPU or GPU.
Ancient article with more: www.gamersnexus.net/guides/981...
Other source: Frosty-Tech composite heatpipe tear-down - www.frostytech.com/articleview...
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Host: Steve Burke
Video & Animation: Andrew Coleman
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Пікірлер: 287

@kejunius 6 ай бұрын

7 years later, the quality of the explanation is still very much relevant.

@ers-br 5 ай бұрын

Yeah! lol ... I did not know those pipes were filled with liquid/gas. :o

@IsaacFNghost 2 ай бұрын

Yeah I had no idea there was any liquid inside those pipes either lol. Super interesting how this all works man!

@963Fam_Ururu 7 жыл бұрын

I really love this kind of contents talking about the principles of PC parts which is really fun and great. Hope to see lots more of them!

@GamersNexus 7 жыл бұрын

Thanks! Remember to share :)

@propelproject 2 жыл бұрын

I like turtles!

@jilliansala139 9 ай бұрын

Purchased: August 2022 - still works GREAT! kzfaq.infoUgkxxsUnXhGsSJLim_XnMHyQK0u3XVaW-CGn I live in a studio and during the summer it gets scorching hot - really old building with no ac units. I can’t express how EASY it was to install.This unit has been a life savior during the summer and some days during other seasons where it can still be a bit warm at night. In this small place is my friend, a husky, poodle mix and myself. We need AC - lolI don’t use the dehumidifier option - I’m not sure if it will leak in my house, since I did not install the small draining hose that came with it. May look into it late but I don’t worry about much humidity in the apartment.I don’t understand why the negative reviews since all things mentioned, I personally did not find issues with. Definitely worth it!

@dinxsy8069 7 жыл бұрын

I've said it before and i'll say it again, Steve brings out content that makes the 200k+subbed "tech/PC" channels look inferior. He's never constantly pushing the latest and greatest hardware/peripherals on us solely because he's paid to, i won't name drop but they're out there. I hate not being able to support the channel by being a patron or donate one way or another, sharing is caring i hope.

@GamersNexus 7 жыл бұрын

Sharing is huge. Our biggest hurdle is visibility. Thanks for your ongoing support, Dinxsy! We know you around here :)

@dinxsy8069 7 жыл бұрын

Gamers Nexus I pretty much share every video on Twitter, i don't have a huge amount of followers yet some of your vids get retweeted and liked. Been great to see the huge leap in subs on the channel, not forgetting the likes you receive with no dislikes up to an astonishing amount, as i'm typing this you have 622 likes and no dislikes on the video, very very rare to see that. Hard work is greatly appreciated by many.

@ifirekirby7498 2 ай бұрын

@@dinxsy8069This aged well. Kinda.

@guapscotch9029 3 жыл бұрын

technology is so crazy, like who comes up with this stuff we use on an everyday basis. Amazing man. Great vid

@GamersNexus 7 жыл бұрын

We actually shot and scripted this video back in April -- crazy how much presentation style changes in five months. But, as this was a complex animation with a lot of light/shading going on, it took us a while to figure out how to optimize the animation and render it in a reasonable amount of time. We finally got render times down from 3 hours+ per frame to about 30 minutes per frame, and rendered it over the course of a few weeks. Anyway, this may become a series -- though Andrew and I already have plans to improve the next one (one being natural improvement in presentation since April, our lighting is also now better, and we have some animation ideas). Density of the content will likely be slightly reduced or the video slightly (~1 minute) lengthened in the future. The goal of these content pieces is to provide educational, animated looks at internals to visualize components that might not be visible to the human eye (like the phase change liquid in this animation). We're also trying to fill Andrew's workload while the rest of the team works on benchmarking and the website, and animations are a productive way to reduce the human resource bottleneck. ^SB

@storm_rl 7 жыл бұрын

3 HOURS PER FRAME!? ._.

@GamersNexus 7 жыл бұрын

Andrew can explain this more... but we were originally bouncing light between all those fins, and tracing that light. It looked fantastic, but was taking eternity to calculate (even on GPUs). There are 3300 frames, so we eventually simplified the image to be more opaque at times.

@aidendudley6581 7 жыл бұрын

What were you using?!

@GamersNexus 7 жыл бұрын

Blender for the software (I'll have Andrew chime in). 4960X + Titan XM for the render system.

@aidendudley6581 7 жыл бұрын

That is some dedication man :) Great animation though :)

@vedo94x82 5 жыл бұрын

Well explained and nicely edited.

@gurkiratsingh8747 3 жыл бұрын

It's amazing that outro hasn't changed in so many years. And steve has changed from similing in the beginning to straight face.

@ahsankarim9602 7 жыл бұрын

Love the information videos hope to see more in the future!

@MrMoxes 7 жыл бұрын

Very fascinating, no BS. One of the few Channels that goes very in depth into the science of what is going on inside of our rigs. Please do more. maybe even comparisons of the way GPU cool, i.e. 9 series Nvidia cards VS 10 series GPUs. Do the FE actually cooler better than the reference of older cards? Interesting...

@MrLoverThe 7 жыл бұрын

These are great for someone like me who's curious about this but doesn't care to read the in-depth article. Plus those sometimes go over my head a little bit ;) Great content!

@SandipanBasak 3 жыл бұрын

Excellent explanation that is short and .... not dumbed down, which is what I liked.

@0Wayland 7 жыл бұрын

Very quality animations, wow!

@JeetSingh-cp5kx 6 жыл бұрын

fantastic stuff man keep it up

@ellyrion8173 7 жыл бұрын

Great video! Really helped to clear up some misconceptions I had about air coolers...

@skarin1138 2 жыл бұрын

big thanks for the article

@karenzhengyu9165 3 жыл бұрын

Excellent explanation! It's been very useful to me.

@luketerrance 5 жыл бұрын

Excellent overview.

@MarceloAX 7 жыл бұрын

Awesome video! Good job!!

@ironman6527 7 жыл бұрын

Great content, great job with the animations too.

@killerspetsnaz 7 жыл бұрын

You guys make the best goddamn educating videos i have ever seen! Good thing i found out your channel. Keep up the good work! :)

@ibesoggy 3 жыл бұрын

Thank you for getting straight to the point, my curiosity filled brain appreciates that.

@mibo747 4 жыл бұрын

Great video!

@mithunweerasingha993 5 жыл бұрын

This is the video i hoped . Nice brooo

@max_yt4 7 жыл бұрын

Really, really nice video. Good job.

@jamesmartin6713 2 жыл бұрын

Super efficient presentation.... not a wasted second. Others should try to emulate your concise presentation style.

@amjad488 7 жыл бұрын

That was very educational and tbe animation really helped. Looking forward to more like this. I'm gonna start sharing your video on FB 👍

@il2xbox 7 жыл бұрын

I saw Fourier's law and was like "Brace yourselves, calculus is coming" lol, kinda glad you didn't go too far into the details of heat conduction.

@malamri424 7 жыл бұрын

awesome illustrations

@steamwalker 7 жыл бұрын

Awesome video!

@tursu27 7 жыл бұрын

Excellent video.

@temporayaccoun 7 ай бұрын

Excellent explained

@kittysox8463 7 жыл бұрын

fantastic video!

@FaizCaliph 3 жыл бұрын

Fantastic video

@musclesmouse 6 жыл бұрын

nice explaination. How about heat sink orientation. how does it affect the liquid

@mystery2kmusic 7 жыл бұрын

Very well done, thanks!

@fardeen6747 7 жыл бұрын

great video.. seriously! that was tottaly impressive... it has 0 dislikes.... what else do u guys need more than that but some subscribers will do...:) keep it up nexus

@Capt_Leksurs 3 жыл бұрын

Great video gz!

@slavichwalker9856 3 жыл бұрын

great video, just what i needed to wrap my head around heat pipes

@baconpancakes8899 4 жыл бұрын

I love this video so much!

@sean2mush 7 жыл бұрын

Really informative, thanks.

@byCDMC 7 жыл бұрын

do more TLDR content like this. its simple and is very informative.

@Trustachio 7 жыл бұрын

so glad i found this channel, such fantastic content. Well done!

@danestallings2090 3 жыл бұрын

This is honestly so dope I just build my first Pc and this opened my eyes a lot

@SSJChar 7 жыл бұрын

does orientation (vertical/horizontal) make a big difference in air coolers as the liquid may not be where the coldplate is?

@ryanhosein7640 2 жыл бұрын

I have the same question and really want to know too.

@kcvriess 7 жыл бұрын

That was awesome....and fast! :)

@venettore3601 7 жыл бұрын

I love this channel so much, and I'm glad I subbed months ago. Steve, you've gotten so much better at being engaging! Before, your videos were just some of the most educational tech videos on YT, but now they're also some of the most entertaining!

@frenezif7728 6 жыл бұрын

Amazing thing to see

@tomeg1370 6 жыл бұрын

Give me more videos like this. this is awesome.

@rdariusm 7 жыл бұрын

Man 62k is just not fucking fair. The content is top quality and the fact that Steve got so much knowledge and he actually KNOWS what he is talking about rather than do only some benchmarks like most of chanels do *cough* 300k+ chanels *cough* it's pathetic. Wish he'll get bigger soon :)

@ZahirUddin89 7 жыл бұрын

Educational indeed, thanks a lot :D

7 жыл бұрын

this needs more views

@laquanakaonyx 7 жыл бұрын

well done

@jacoblandfield2526 6 жыл бұрын

Love it Steve. Is there an accessible list of devs who use different styles of heatpipes?

@Tokuhashy 7 жыл бұрын

I rarely comment videos, but i am so glad this channel exists.

@GamersNexus 7 жыл бұрын

Thanks for making the exception for us!

@harrisonglenn5829 7 жыл бұрын

You're videos are so amazing and in depth, I learned so much in just 5 minutes. Keep it up :)

@liethrabi9685 7 жыл бұрын

quality stuff right there.

@alexkelly5554 7 жыл бұрын

Awesome work.

@kaloyan2778 3 жыл бұрын

great video

@Khalizhan 3 жыл бұрын

Thanks, I have just learned something else today.

@slayerwasco 7 жыл бұрын

nice video! i actually have that ETS-40 but the white one in my build. nice coincidence! Its always cool to see and apply my thermodynamics and fluid mechanics classes

@Zarcondeegrissom 7 жыл бұрын

BTW, gravity can help or impede that wicking in the heatpipes. Just something to keep in mind as some coolers don't work well at all upside down.

@Anzomia 6 жыл бұрын

Fucking Awesome! Thanks Steve & Andrew!

@AAYMF 7 жыл бұрын

excellent excellent work❤🤘

@deathraytower1078 2 жыл бұрын

extremely relevant video

@APOCRYPHAL 7 жыл бұрын

Can't wait for the liquid cooler video

7 жыл бұрын

Great vid, gj

@SWEbear021 7 жыл бұрын

awesome video,had no clue it was liquid inside the pipes:)

@robertdelpino1975 5 жыл бұрын

Thanks wow very good video

@OxKing 7 жыл бұрын

Nice work Jon Snow! :)

@unwantedcrap1489 7 жыл бұрын

simple yet very professional, great video, keep it up guys

@ryanhosein7640 2 жыл бұрын

Hi and great explanation. Wish I can get a response to my question. Can you overcool a CPU tower heatsink with heat pipes as used in you demonstration here? My scenario is different where I'm using the CPU cooler with Peltier's module. The hot side is on the heatsink cooled by two fans. I noticed when I shut down the fans, the cold side of the Peltier got colder until the heatsink heats up to over 40 deg. C. Then I will turn on the fan to cool back down to about 32 deg. C and it will continue cooling the cold side more(colder). So are there a kick in and kick out temperature for optimal performance of the CPU cooler. Wish I can really get an understanding of this.

@indexMemories 5 жыл бұрын

That blender work though. On point.

@juno1597 7 жыл бұрын

very nice

@davidmcgrew3837 4 жыл бұрын

I deal with heat exchangers and oil and water seperators at a chemical plant. I never knew these pipes had liquid in them. I thought it was a dry hot to cold heat exchange. Learn something new everyday

@s0urce29 7 жыл бұрын

Best pc gaming channel on the interwebs

@flawns 5 жыл бұрын

I always wanted to know .... how are those fins stacked so cleanly apart from each other. what is the mechanism?

@ragzard 7 жыл бұрын

This kind of video is just awesome!!!!!! Looking forward for a lot more.

@atNguyen-cc9wl 4 жыл бұрын

great! thanks

@richgolfs 2 жыл бұрын

Good information in article that you read. But, what sort of temperatures can you expect with a heat pipe?

@fanriadho 4 жыл бұрын

does gravity affect liquid inside ? 2:04 because we mount on the right side motherboard and the CPU doesn't on bottom of heatpipe illustrated

@nindajuka8427 4 жыл бұрын

can you clarify that direct heatsink cooler at bottom should be faster on transfering the heat?

@PaolochazGomez 6 ай бұрын

Nice video veery educational, but would you say u ot tower style is better over the low profile type? those top fans blows the heat out and through the Ram

@darkatlantian 7 жыл бұрын

This video was educational.

@alexeykh.3884 7 жыл бұрын

best channel!

@sammyfb488 4 жыл бұрын

Great video. Never knew about the heat pipe internals and the resulting capillary forces. I do have one question though: I can see both types of heat pipe & fin stack coolers working perfectly (full size like the Hyper 212 EVO and low profile like the GeminII M5), when used on a test bench where the motherboard is laying horizontally, and the fin stacks are above the CPU. That being said, I can't understand how these coolers work in actual builds where they are attached to a motherboard mounted vertically in a case, especially for the low profile ones! In that situation, the fluid inside the heat pipes would just move down to the lowest point of the heat pipe when cool. When the fluid inside heats up and evaporates, it rises and there is nothing stopping it from moving up in the heat pipe towards the CPU, rather than towards the heat dissipating fin stacks. When this happens, you now have vapor locked heat pipes against the CPU that are only going to get cooled down from passing air, rather than from the intended fin stack section. I'm not trying to say these are garbage, because they clearly work. I found this video because I want a low profile heat pipe cooler in my build, so I'm not bashing them. I'm just genuinely curious about how these actually work when mounted in a case. If anybody can provide a little insight, it would be greatly appreciated!

@kennethflorek8532 4 жыл бұрын

In principle, the method of heat travel in heat pipes is independent of gravity. Heat rises and cold sinks by gravity, so that doesn't matter for the same reason. Heat pipes are used in space, at zero G, too. Heat does not rise in 0 G. Start by forgetting the usual way of thinking about a gas. Air is also a gas, and its thermal conduction is terrible. The speed of conduction in heat pipes is very high because the gas is so rarefied that the molecules travel long distances with few collisions (ideally none) with the other molecules, exactly the opposite of how air conducts. The temperature gradient within the heat pipe, in the gas, will be very low. The actual problem is getting the molecules hot, and therefore moving fast. That is what all the change of phase from a liquid to a gas and back, and the wicking, and surface area is for. The way this video has it, it looks like liquid is going to a gas in one place, and gas is going to a liquid somewhere else. This is not true. The phase change is at an equilibrium, approximately, everywhere in the tube. The phase transition is happening everywhere in the tube. Basically the inside of the tube is closer to a vacuum than a gas. It only has enough liquid added so that it will evaporate (due to low vapor pressure), and still the gas molecules will be so rare that the gas molecules will seldom get in each others way. The amount of heat moved is in how fast the molecules move, rather then in the number of molecules moving.

@Theodoric99 3 жыл бұрын

@@kennethflorek8532 Your reply made me even more confused

@OmerTheGreatOne 7 жыл бұрын

watching this vedio reduced the temperature of my CPU. thanks Steve!

@davidmcgrew3837 4 жыл бұрын

So these types of coolers like the ryzen wraith cooler doesnt cool as well in a normal side position in a tower like it would sitting directly on top of the motherboard in where the pipes are going up and down instead of sideways correct?

@yadfaruq5294 5 жыл бұрын

I have a question could I use that heat pipes for the heating surface inside mold without using fun?! I mean that liquid inside the tube will be cycling again if I didn't use fun I just want to heat to transfer for the surface?

@Soundlmpact 5 жыл бұрын

so will a cooler work upside down? planning to use one for the gpu

@Coolio_Ash 4 жыл бұрын

This is so cool

@Coolio_Ash 4 жыл бұрын

Believe it or not i didnt intend to make a pun

@DjTinnio 2 жыл бұрын

So, can the cooler boil dry, if it is facing sideways ? I have it like that in my built. I built it before knowing about that liquid inside the pipes, and now i am worried. Maybe i just build a wooden stand for my pc, that gives it a little angle, so the vape moves away from the cpu ? Is that a good idea ?

@IT10T Жыл бұрын

Its actually amusing watching how much Steve's head wobbles about in these early videos, I wonder if he has started to finally like the level of recognition he receives or if he just learned to control his mannerisms, because he looks like he can't wait to get this over with lol

@bocetet 7 жыл бұрын

What happens with the gas when heat pipes are horizontal? After all, they are horizontal for most tower CPU coolers and GPU coolers in a standard, vertical mobo case.

@orenji13 4 жыл бұрын

@@mehulmonisha said it has a liquid, well liquid follows gravity right?, if the cooler is horizontal, the liquid will be on the lowest part of the tube?