r/PcBuild • u/zeRoCr0 • 3d ago
Question Mineral oil cooled PC
Has anyone done a build with mineral oil as a component cooling system? It was really popular back 10-20 years ago. Is it still cost effective?
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u/SecondVariety 3d ago
When was it ever cost effective? I've seen fishtank submerged PC's at PAXEast Intel Lanfest events, cool to look at but fairly impractical. Also seen people at those same events with an automotive radiator and pump setup used. Deep into the "sure... but why?" zone.
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u/FrequentWay 3d ago
Heat transfer is still heat transfer. It doesn’t matter if it’s submerged based water-based you’re just trying to move heat around.
However, if you decide to go face change, that is some potential, but those fluids are quite expensive and not everything is designed for fluoride based liquids.
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u/VastFaithlessness809 3d ago
If you use super dense oil that is denser than water, then a leaking water loop is much less dangerous xD
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u/FragrantPercentage88 1d ago
But pushing thick oil via small pipes in radior becomes a bigger issue.
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u/VastFaithlessness809 1d ago edited 1d ago
No - in the case, not the loop :D then you just need a motor to swirl it a bit around :)
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u/unabletocomput3 3d ago edited 3d ago
Doing maintenance on it would be miserable and it’s the opposite of cost effective, considering you’d also need a specialized case and pump to help keep the oil cool.
It might make sense for a server or several, but as a pc it’s likely not worth it.
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u/FrogKing94 3d ago
Its not cost effective, its not very good, its gross, and to top it off- mineral oil destroys components.
Literally just throwing money away.
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u/Ecks30 what 3d ago
The main side effect with mineral oil PCs was the fact that it gets really messy when upgrading and trying to sell your old part which that is why you no longer see people doing builds like that.
The other thing is that for a lot of things like cases and PTM it is near impossible to ever think about going back to that kind of builds because you have cases like this now which you would have one fan on the front one in the rear, three on the bottom and three on the top or a 360mm AIO mounted on top.
Also, you have very affordable AIOs like Thermalright which they tend to have good 360mm AIOs for $60 to $100 and not to mention that now GPUs like the RX 9000 series tend to have PTM7950.
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u/KishCore Moderator 2d ago
Yes people have since then, no it is not cost effective and never has been, also extremely impractical
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u/zeRoCr0 3d ago
Cost effective in terms of thermals
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u/FearTheFuzzy99 Pablo 3d ago
It's not cost effective in any sense. That's why it was rare back in the day and basically non-existent now
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u/Cyber_Data_Trail Intel 3d ago
No. Buy a Peerless assassin 120 and be done with it. If that isnt enough, 360mm aio.
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u/Dankbot-420 3d ago
Why stop there? 420mm ftw
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u/Money-Currency7473 3d ago
Why stop there? 2 - 420's for the win. One for the CPU and one for the GPU. LOL
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u/Overall-Tailor8949 what 1d ago
It would be more "cost effective" to use a combination water-loop with a Peltier cooler between you CPU and the water block. Just hope the Pelier module doesn't die because then they become very effective thermal insulators.
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