As we mentioned, Intel’s water-cooling system has only two components, opposed to four in traditional systems. What they did was to put the pump on top of the CPU block and remove the reservoir. Intel explained us that in traditional systems the reservoir is only necessary because of water leakage. The main reason that water from the system leaks is found on the rubber hoses: they are very permeable. So, by changing the rubber hoses by metal pipes to carry water around, Intel was able to remove the reservoir.

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Figure 5: Traditional water-cooling system.

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Figure 6: Intel’s design.

Of course this change brought a side effect: Intel’s solution isn’t so flexible (literally). Actually this is exactly what Intel wanted. Instead of a difficult to assemble system targeted to DIY users, Intel wanted a system ready to use that could be easily assembled and required no maintenance, and that could be easily manufactured in high scale.

The cooling liquid is made of water with 35% of Propylene Glycol, and it is factory-sealed inside the system for its entire life. The user should not have to insert anything to the system to start using it and there is also no need to replace the cooling liquid for all its life.

In Figure 7 you see the flowchart for the Intel water-cooling system testing at its factory. First the motor is tested. Then vacuum is created inside the system to see if the system can hold it (if it does, the system goes ahead to the next step). Then Helium gas is inserted into the system and a mass spectrometry is made to check if there is leakage. At the fifth step the cooling liquid is inserted into the system and then the system is sealed and ready to be marketed.

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Figure 7: Testing flowchart.

Let’s take a look now on some important performance data.