Traditional watercooling is nothing new to us, and the same can be said about immersing hardware in special fluids like oil or 3M Novec. However, Matt from the DIY Perks channel decided to explore this practice inspired by Microsoft's Project Natick, and create a submersible computer to take advantage of all the thermal benefits of an underwater environment...
There's no denying it: The latest generation of hardware decided to throw all efficiency goals out the window, and seek new levels of performance by devouring energy as if there were no tomorrow. The right hardware combination can comfortably exceed 800 watts, turning the computer into a heater.
It's in these cases that watercooling comes to the rescue. Many all-in-one units greatly simplify the installation process, but Matt from the DIY Perks channel decided to go one step further and build a submersible computer. Matt already has previous experience with a DIY submarine, however, a computer with a GeForce RTX 4090 and an Intel Core i9-13900K processor is a very different monster...
How to submerge next-generation hardware (and not ruin it in the process)
The project begins with an acrylic cylinder, and two copper caps accompanied by gaskets to achieve a good seal. But the most interesting part is that the custom liquid cooling system inside the cylinder transfers heat to a series of external copper tubes. That leads us to two critical aspects of the project. On one hand, Matt decided not to introduce his computer into the sea, taking advantage of a natural pond two meters deep. And on the other hand, his water does not enter the loop (that would be a disaster), but rather assists in cooling the liquid that is already part of the isolated circuit.
As expected, Matt left nothing to chance, creating his own gaskets for the cylinder, and soldering each copper connection with lead-free solder. The end result is one of the most steampunk coolers I've ever seen, but I don't want to imagine its cost with so much copper. The central column serves as the entry point for all cables, which are essentially three: one for power, another for the power button, and the last one Thunderbolt, which coordinates signals (video, audio, mouse and keyboard).
After calculating (and correcting) the computer's buoyancy, and verifying the correct functioning of the gaskets (i.e., no bubbles), Matt was able to confirm that his submerged system maintains around 60 degrees Celsius on the processor, and 41 degrees on the RTX 4090, truly impressive numbers for dissipating more than 800 watts.
