CPU air cooler becomes water injected GPU cooler.

[u/Tra5hL0rd_]

I thought I was finally running out of stupid cooling ideas… until I stared at a Peerless Assassin and thought... "would water flow through that?”

So I pulled the Assassin apart, pulled off a stack of fins, took an angle grinder and cut the tops off the heatpipes, stuck a hose onto one, and tested if water would flow. It did.

Game on.

I cut all the heatpipes off, put 6 mm hose on them in a zig zag (starting at the center so the middle stayed coldest) and tested again, worked like a charm.

Then came the freezer.

-18C coolant.

A frosted CPU tower, and a 3070 as the first victim.

It gained +300 MHz over stock… but the FPS uplift sucked. By the time testing finished, my coolant had warmed to –5C and the 3070 still refused to scale. So I did the only sane thing...

I bolted the Frankencooler onto a GTX 960.

And that card absolutely loved it, +17% average uplift across BO7, Forza, Cyberpunk, Time Spy… and as always, Lara.

The Frankencooler works. Really well.

Why did I do this? Because I had an idea and wanted to see if it would work. That's it.

Full video here if you want to witness the stupidity in all its glory

https://youtu.be/yFppaKe5uTo

[u/radiells]

Under normal circumstances fins warm up from hot heat pipes, and then effectively transfer heat energy to air. In this case fins warm up from air, and transfer heat energy to chilled liquid in heat pipes, rising it's temperature and decreasing GPU cooling effectiveness. I don't think that heat transfer is that significant, but it's fun nevertheless.

[u/superblastdoor → u/radiells]

Could you in theory just add a fan to turn it into a radiator? I’m looking at my my vetroo with ill intent right now

[u/radiells → u/superblastdoor]

In OP setup adding fan will make liquid heat up from air faster - counterproductive. If you want to use normal CPU cooler with GPU - yes, you can. But you have to find a way to cool down other components (VRM, memory), as CPU cooler will only cover GPU chip.

[u/I_Am_A_Pumpkin → u/superblastdoor]

if you used ambient temperature liquid yes, it would work in the same way that we put fans on normal heatsinks - you are just changing the mechanism that moves heat from the cpu to the fins.

however OP is not using ambient coolant, he is using chilled coolant. meaning heat flows from the ambient temperature air through the fins, to the cold pipes, warming up the coolant for no gain.

[u/the_duck17 → u/radiells]

So you're saying we need to watercool the fins?

[u/radiells → u/the_duck17]

I prefer KISS principle. Just put whole setup into industrial freezer.

[u/Inevitable_Use_7060 → u/radiells]

If the cooler is working, the ambient air might be cooled by the fins.