 To answer the question once and for all whether you can water cool an air cooler Hold on. We got to get all the fins Alex. What'd we get? Nice What kind of motherboard has nowhere to install a CPU? Well, no motherboard all motherboards need a CPU because otherwise what would do the processing but if you look at this one There's something a little unusual about it, right? You got your PCI Express sockets. You got your memory slots and you got just a blank metal plate That's because the CPU socket is on the back But why? Well as it turns out this motherboard was designed with some pretty unique cooling concepts in mind and I for one cannot wait to try it out and I can't wait to tell you about our sponsor Dot Tech dot Tech domains and Namecheap are donating 100% of all sales proceeds from dot Tech domains sold until July 5th To code.org to help make computer science education more accessible. Check out go dot tech slash LTT to learn more Other than the CPU socket being on the opposite side the Anktek rev Q270 is a pretty standard looking industrial motherboard What I can't say the same about is the heatsink that they designed for it and in order to explain Why they thought that this was the best solution? I think we're gonna have to back up Anktek is a spin-off company of EDAC Electronic Technology Co who specializes in inspection equipment for electronics manufacturers Like Foxconn Panasonic and Sony aka these guys are the badasses that do the engineering work that lets other engineers Test their engineering work and for their inspection equipment EDAC needed to have ultra stable computers that are basically impervious to dust so Logically, they just went ahead and designed their own motherboard and flipped the CPU socket around you see when you're working in a manufacturing or Fabrication oriented space. There's nothing you can do about the fact that there is going to be some dust in the air and Unlike in your bedroom. We're not talking about cat hair. We're talking about potential metal filings Microscopic ones floating around in the air which can eventually cause enormous problems for a computer. That's why in a workshop Passively cooled machines like this one from CompuLab here are king Even slow spinning fans with an excellent dust filter are going to quickly get clogged But to pull off of this little marvel CompuLab had to create an entirely custom chassis Motherboard and actually a fair number of other things so EDAC wanted to create something that's a little more Modular and a little more affordable which explains how we ended up with a standard ATX form factor motherboard But it still doesn't explain this Well, the thing is to passively cool a CPU even one that's not terribly powerful you need a lot of metal and EDAC wasn't able to fit a big enough cooler on the front of the case while still allowing for PCI Express Expansion see that so after putting in the work to create this motherboard for their own uses EDAC thought well, I mean, yeah What if somebody else found this useful? Thus ENCTECH was born and we were able to get our hands on this motherboard. So let's try it out Wait, we are gonna submerge it in water, right? Sorry not that Not that oh but but the thing oh good Just making sure everything about this feels wrong starting with flipping over the motherboard to install the CPU We're going with a core i7 6700k This is near the top end of what this motherboard can support, but we're gonna try a 7700k a little bit later and Oh, this is an interesting note. Is there no cooler for the chipset? I don't there is oh Wonderful. Hey, look at this when I see stuff like this It makes me wonder if the engineers at ENCTECH aren't watching LTT because we've said a lot of times It's baffling given how shamelessly computer companies rip each other off that more of them haven't just ripped off Knocked to a secular mounting mechanism and that's basically what this is except with kind of a clever cost-saving measure So they use an o-ring here to secure the back bolts instead of having them be press fitted Which is just kind of cheaper, but a lot better than having them just flop around like a lot of other guys do There we go Oh Huh? Well didn't think of that Look at this Brendan There's so much space back here because of like the IO and stuff that you can't just You can't just put it here and then put it down on the box. I guess I just have to do it like this then Like is this how you did it? Not even close Oh, all right. Well, this is how I'm doing it All right. There we go Can I get that chipset cooler by any chance? I'm going for the no look catch Oh, what the who does that? Threw it at my head This is a very wimpy heatsink considering that it is designed to be used with a passive CPU cooler Not much to it Compound and No way It's just not aligned they just used a generic Whatever this spacing which is pretty standard heatsink and it doesn't actually line up with the little like Silkscreen marks they made for where it's supposed to sit Another cost-saving measure is that it doesn't come with a CMOS battery So you'll just have to get your own CR 2032 3-volt cell and pop it in Really guys? Okay, it's not designed for end users clearly Let's go ahead and pop this on Oh, that makes sense. Yeah, cuz like well, can I just put it on for temporaries? I just want to I won't even put thermal compound on for now. I just want to see Oh, I need a screwdriver. No look catch. No, we're not doing that. Thanks Man, they just sold this heatsink. This thing is like badass No idea if the performance is good or not. I'm not sure No idea if the performance is actually any good, but it's definitely badass looking It's awesome. Are we like at the point of diminishing returns though being this far away from the CPU? I guess not with a passive heatsink. I see we've gone with Trident Z Royal dims because I guess we're going for the most thematically coherent build of all time Now all we need is a case Large and hefty enough to accommodate this flippin beast And as Alex alluded to before there is no case hefty enough to fit this heatsink Through the motherboard tray while you're installing the motherboard. So we're gonna go ahead and pop it off now Everything about this feels Just kind of wrong, you know, I built so many computers in my life and this is the first one like this This is a thanks. I hate it in a half cursed motherboard You have against this thing Linus It's just I had nothing against it. I was super excited about it until I had to actually like touch it, you know It says on their website that it fits most cases but some require modification Yeah, we tried a few cases and lots of them interfered with the top of these heat pipes And I think having your compatibility list account for people doing modifications to their case is kind of cheating Because with a Dremel theoretically anything is compatible with anything Oh That looks awesome I mean By the time you hack a hole in your side panel Probably not gonna be the cleanest mod ever done, but the potentials there Well, let's get OCCT running right? This is a CPU stressing tool that will allow us to see just how well that heatsink can keep up with a 6700K Hottest cores up at around 65 degrees right now It's not even hot to the touch yet. There's just so much metal Right up at the top of those heat pipes there But you can also really see what a great job heat pipes do of moving heat around It's not that much cooler at the very end of the heat pipe It's really even Meanwhile over here you can see that with every load spike temperatures were peaking a little bit higher than before Until now You know what probably happened? The tiny bit of airflow from me moving the case around Probably caused it to go down a little bit. Let's keep it still again It steadied at around 80 degrees on the hottest core Which is not what we were expecting based on either Inktex testing or Stephen Gamers Nexus testing However, we have observed that our CPU is only running at around 3.45 GHz So we're thinking maybe there's a BIOS setting that's not allowing it to run at full power Let me go ahead and try that Yeah, we got turbo working and it can't do it We managed to thermal throttle within about two or three minutes But Inktex doesn't say you can do that and it's a pretty easy problem to solve If you want to just throw a big 200 millimeter fan on here But Stephen Gamers Nexus already did that We have other ideas Hahahaha Okay, not too much because remember this has some Oh my gosh, this feels really really really wrong what we're about to do right now Ah, oh! Okay Alright, I will lift it Oh crap, I'm stuck I'm snagged dog Our power cable is cable tied LTTstore.com baby Get them cable ties Okay Okay Oh, this feels so wrong. Wait, where are the CPU temps at? Uh, oh, it's thermal throttling right now Okay, here we go Okay Is it fine? I mean Theoretically, it should be fine Oh wow 100 degrees down to 74 Now that's water cooling boys Okay, so we're at about 70 degrees I think we can do better Okay, phase one, lift the computer I think getting on the table might be the best illusion I think that this table is on wheels and that's Oh, oh my goodness It's still running Okay Um, no, yeah, no, you're not getting on the table Alex You ready? Yeah, go ahead and lift it Okay, you're gonna have to have it for a little while though What's that? That's not good Did it power off? Powering back on Hold Hold I'm holding Okay, one second I just need to Okay, I guess I should get these Wait, I just need to, wait, hold on, I need to Oh God I think that's enough water There is, there's water Hold on, you gotta put it over this one Okay, I got your second bucket here Okay, you know what? We've got a little bit of submersion But we're gonna have to add some more water I'm gonna start another render Should be fine We're learning so many things today That will never be applicable to anyone else ever again Small problem Alex Yeah I think I may have actually splashed the VRMs over here When I rocked it back and forth Can you see that? Yeah, it's water Okay, well that might explain why it was crashing under load I'll put these in for fun while Alex gets a bag of ice This is so cool You can see the very end of the heat sink is a little bit cooler And you can kind of see a halo of warmth around it in the water Hey Brandon, check this out We were trying to stick a thermal probe in the water near the heat sink To kind of see how close these values are And it kept reading exactly the same as far away And what we realized is it takes such a small disruption To move these warm areas of water That you basically can't measure it by physically sticking something in Watch this, watch this I'm going to blow on the surface of the water Isn't that cool? Want to get a shot of the premium ice? Premium ice Get the ingredients please Alright, this bag's just got to give birth here Birth bag No, I got this When this hits it, are we going to have a titanic failure? Ugh This is definitely a reason You'll have to excuse me for not knowing how to use a bag of ice I don't entertain much I don't have any friends Alex invited me to a Super Bowl viewing party once though That was kind of him Yeah, you brought your kids, it was really cool Okay, so we're currently at 92 degrees Celsius Oh Okay There's four ice cubes stuck under the heat sink This is so stupid Well look, I don't make the rules around here Brandon So that puts us at around 60 degrees But I think we can do better Because as we've learned Even just small differences in location or flow can make a big difference to the actual temperature So right up here, it's like 0.7 degrees And then you go, you know, what? To 8 to 9 centimeters lower and you're at 8 degrees If only there was a way that we could move the fluid around inside the container You think of everything, don't you? How fun is this? Okay, let's add a pump This is a submersible pump, do you want to go ahead and plug it in on the other side? Sure And I'm just going to yolo it I guess, right? Okay The power cable's only in there a bit Should be fine I mean the pump's power cable's in there too What could go wrong? Okay That seems like a good spot Oh, that's chilly! It's a chilly boy! Oh, it's splashy Oh, it's really splashy Alex Hold on, turn it back on, turn it back on, I'm trying to show the peeps Whoo! Uh, yeah, that's a little splashy for my liking Is it splotchy? I don't know, let's find out Maybe if it was just the right amount of splashy Is it still blending? It is, but I think the temperature is like the same That kind of makes sense because it was coldest at the top No, no, no, it's trending down, look It's totally trending down And we're still at 4.37 You can totally see the water like touching the base of the heat sink Settling in at 56 degrees on the package, full load Pretty practical, right? Yeah, daily mode for sure And you might get the opportunity to daily drive a cooling system like this Because they're actually releasing a more gaming oriented, I guess, product It's based on a Z490 chipset So, um, yeah We could probably come up with something better for daily driving, couldn't we? I think we can, we will, we will, I promise Make sure you're subscribed And make sure you check out our sponsor Thanks to FlexiSpot for sponsoring this video FlexiSpot offers ergonomic solutions that help people lead healthier, more productive lives And they're celebrating their birthday by offering 15% off everything site-wide And up to 30% off flash deals each day from May 24th until the 30th One of the products available is their Kana bamboo standing desk Which offers customizable height presets, anti-collision, and is super easy to install And the bamboo material is made with lateral compression tech To retain the natural, beautiful grain of every bamboo strip The frame can handle up to 275 pounds, stands over 4 feet, and is available in three different colors FlexiSpot is even giving away three desks to LTT viewers All you've got to do is click the link below to enter So don't wait, and learn more about the sale at the link in the video description If you guys enjoyed this video and you like Linus and Alex crazy cooling projects Maybe you'd enjoy the... why don't we do the 5 GHz Blowy Matron Laptop Overclock Yeah, go watch that, it's a good video Or when we tried to reuse thermal compound from inside a CPU No, that wasn't a good video, really