Inexpensive hardware is currently in short supply and therefore the next upgrades for many PC gamers are likely to be delayed indefinitely.
Fortunately, overclocking can tease out even more performance from most systems without having to pay moon prices. This is also what the latest project on the YouTube channel wants Tech Ingredients to prove in an unusual way.
With the help of an unused air conditioning system for the window and a little creativity, the team at Tech Ingredients has designed a cooler that is supposed to keep even the waste heat of heavily overclocked hardware in check. But that’s not all: According to the moderator, the self-made cooling solution is also able to protect the PC from dust and condensation.
In this article we take a look at how the construction works and tell you whether the whole thing is only for ambitious do-it-yourselfers or is also suitable for continuous use at home. That much has already been said, the cooling system does a lot, but it is not free from disadvantages.
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How does the air conditioner cool the PC?
Basically, the concept is very simple. Tech Ingredients uses a self-created connector made of wood to guide the cold air from a window air conditioner into a PC.
Mind you, the air conditioning is not installed in a window, but is together with the connector on a pedestal behind the PC. The latter can therefore simply be pushed under the wooden structure.
Thanks to a grille on the top of the PC case, cold air can get inside the system. There it first makes its way through the heat exchanger of an AiO water cooling system that takes care of the built-in Ryzen 7 3800XT.
The fans of the PC are all disconnected during this time, so that the cold air can only escape through the excess pressure that develops in the housing over time. Ultimately, the housing almost becomes a refrigerator, which the Youtubers demonstrate by placing drinks in it (not recommended for imitation!).
According to the moderator, the cooling system has several advantages:
- The PC does not have to be modified.
- The coldest point of the cooling circuit is on the air conditioning system, which means that condensation water only occurs there and the PC should remain dry.
- The air conditioning system has a filter and therefore only supplies the PC with dust-free air.
- The overpressure in the housing prevents the entry of dust from the environment.
- Due to the high cooling capacity of an air conditioning system (in this case 1,500 watts), the air can still cool the remaining components such as the GPU even after contact with the heat exchanger.
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Impressive test results
In a CPU stress test, Tech Ingredients took a closer look at whether the unconventional cooling system actually delivers what it promises in theory. All eight cores of the aforementioned Ryzen 7 3800 XT were overclocked from 3.9 to 4.6 gigahertz.
Then the CPU was made to sweat for five minutes with the powerMax program from CPUID. The air from the air conditioning system was 0 degrees Celsius, while the ambient temperature was around 21 degrees.
At the standard clock rate, the use of the air conditioning system makes the CPU over 20 degrees cooler! The exact values at a glance:
- During the stress test with standard cycle and without air conditioning (system fan switched on) a maximum of 58 degrees was measured. The system temperature was 28 degrees.
- With standard cycle and use of air conditioning the maximum temperature of the CPU was around 36 degrees. The system temperature leveled off at around 14 degrees.
- When testing with overclocking and using the air conditioning the CPU reached a maximum temperature of about 56 degrees. Continuous use of the device has even reduced the system temperature to around 10 degrees.
In the video embedded below with numerous interesting explanations of the physical processes you can take a look at the cooling system and the test in detail. Tech Ingredients also provides the dimensions of the self-made connector in the video description.
But before you consider building your own variant, we give you a little warning in the last section.
Link to YouTube content
Caution: cost trap – an overview of the disadvantages
Although the cooling system may sound very tempting due to the positive properties mentioned above, we advise against continuous operation. Besides the most obvious disadvantage in the form of the volume Above all, there is one factor that causes us great concern that you would probably only notice on your next electricity bill.
The air conditioning system draws significantly more electricity than conventional cooling methods. In the Tech Ingredients example, that’s around 400 watts – that’s more than an entire PS5 used under load. In addition, there is also the increased power consumption due to overclocking
At the end of the day, this harms both your wallet and the environment. Admittedly, the experiment is very interesting and gives a glimpse of what is possible with a little creativity. In the vast majority of cases, however, we believe that the increase in performance should not outweigh the increased costs.
