[Beowulf] liquid cooling for HPC

[Jörg Saßmannshausen]

Dear all,

I am sure the subject has been covered a number of times, however, I have been 
to the Machine Evaluation Workshop last week here in Liverpool and this 
company here
http://www.iceotope.com/
done something which I found rather unusual. Rather then using pipes to cool 
the CPUs or dipping the whole node into silicon oil (messy) or water, they are 
using a hydrofluoro carbon compound to move the heat from the motherboard to a 
chilling plate. There are pros and cons of course. As the whole motherboard is 
sealed into the box you cannot change it yourself. It needs to be send back to 
them. On the flip side, it appears the the excess heat could be used a bit more 
efficiently.
I was wondering whether somebody has some experiences with 'water' cooling in 
HPC and would like to share it with me? I am thinking of getting something 
like that or similar (no decision has been made right now) for the next server 
I am getting. However, as that is new technology to me (the 'water' cooling), 
before I venture into that I would like to hear some first hand experiences, 
not necessarily with the company/product mentioned above which is only an 
example here.

All the best from a wet London

Jörg

-- 
*************************************************************
Jörg Saßmannshausen
University College London
Department of Chemistry
Gordon Street
London
WC1H 0AJ 

email: j.sassmannshausen at ucl.ac.uk
web: http://sassy.formativ.net

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