Water Blocks for mining: are they worth it?

Most crypto miners purchase video cards with stock air cooling systems and begin running them around the clock. However, this constant heavy load is harmful for the hardware and doesn’t allow for proper overclocking, which dramatically reduces mining efficiency. 

If you are experiencing these issues, consider water cooling as a possible solution.

But before we go into the technical details, here is a quick breakdown of who should consider water blocks:

• Who should use water blocks? Home GPU miners needing a quiet, compact setup.

• Who should NOT use them? Industrial operators or beginners. They are expensive and leak-prone.

• Why does it matter? Poor cooling causes thermal throttling and hardware failure, killing efficiency.

Air-cooled GPU mining: common problems

GPU mining with stock air cooling systems brings users not only passive profit, but also problems. The main disadvantages of "air" mining are noise and dust. Moreover, there are problems with stable overclocking, which hinders hashrate boosting; the need to clean radiators and fans, overheating, which leads to working capacity reduction, shutdowns and money losses due to low earnings per hour.

Each video card similar to Nvidia 1080Ti consumes 250W of electricity, diverting almost the same amount of heat. In this case, the GPU's basic cooling system consists of a radiator and a fan, designed to remove heat. The farm of six video cards diverts about 1.500W, which is as much as the heat generated by the apartment heating battery of eight sections. For farm cooling they usually use cabinet fans taken from base units (9 or 12 cm in diameter) or install a household fan.

Air cooling requires special measures for room ventilation. In cold climates, natural ventilation is used (e.g. an open window). However, alternative methods of cooling are more popular. The standard option here is exhaust ventilation (similar to kitchen hood). Its modified version is the inlet ventilation system, which includes two fans: the first removes warm air from the room, and the second pumps air from outside. The most advanced mining farms are provided with an air-conditioning system.

However, for the last several years, as an alternative to "air", a water cooling system are being tested.

How to use water blocks

Self-made or ready-made water blocks are used for GPU cooling. The cooling system consists of several parts:

• The board (basis for water block);
• Full chamber water block;
• Reservoir with a liquid;
• Pump;
• Radiator;
• Fan;
• Fittings, expanders;
• Set of tubes and splitters.

After connecting the system to the power supply, the pump flushes the antifreeze from the tank through the acrylic tube. Under pressure, the liquid enters the water block. There it is distributed over two cells, reducing the temperature of the GPU and cooling the VRM (voltage regulator). After that, the heated antifreeze passes through the radiator with a fan and then returns to the tank. The cycle is repeated again.

Previously, water blocks were only used to cool graphic cores. However, capacious video cards during overclocking were suffering from other elements overheating. Therefore, straight GPU cooling was suspended in favor of other options.

In 2017 NVIDIA released the universal water block EK-FC GeForce GTX FE. It was compatible with 106 manufacturer's video cards and was prepared in four versions. This solution removed heat from the area of ​​the graphics core, memory chip and batteries. Similar models became later available for AMD Radeon video cards.

Benefits of water blocks

• Noise decreasing to 10-15 dB level;
• Dust is not clogged in the fans, as they are dismantled and not used;
• Possibility of equipment overclocking and hashrate increase;
• Opportunity of building a self-designed construction;
• Saving space, no need to allocate a separate room for the farm;
• Manufacturers sell ready-made systems for their video cards.

Disadvantages of water cooling

However, installations with water blocks have several significant drawbacks, which make the solution not so rational for home mining. Let’s outline them:

• Danger of liquid leakage resulting in electronic components damaging;
• Need skills in farm designing and constructing;
• Capacious video cards water block modifications and water blocks themselves are several times more expensive than analogues based on "air";
• The need to install a radiator with a fan in the street to cool the farm;
• Pre-owned video cards on "water" are more difficult to resell.

Thus, water cooling doesn’t solve all the miner’s problems. It guarantees only noise and dust reduction and safe hashrate increase. Therefore, some manufacturers go further, refusing to use water blocks in favor of immersion cooling, as a much more profound solution for home mining.

Advantages of immersion cooling systems

Unlike water cooling systems, immersion systems are gaining popularity. Initially, they have been tested on server hardware. For a long time, this sphere was associated with large computing capacities platforms, where the price was not a priority. It refers to Wall Street data centers and military supercomputer clusters.

Racks, equipped with pumps and water blocks, designed to survive possible leaks, did not interest the mining community until recently. The interest appeared exactly after the immersion technology made the cooling process so simple that for stable operation it requires only a flat floor, a roof, and electricity.

Immersion cooling has the following advantages over water blocks:

• Constant thermostating of equipment and maintaining its temperature in a given operating mode;
• Stable equipment overclocking;
• No complex bundling or additional designing are required;
• Submerging into dielectric liquid protects the equipment from dust and corrosion;
• Dielectric liquid content is durable and doesn’t require changing for a long period of time.

Air vs. Water Blocks vs. Immersion Cooling: the ultimate comparison

Let's summarize all features of these three cooling methods.

Decision guide: Which cooling method to choose 

Here’s a breakdown of when each cooling system makes most sense for GPU/ASIC cryptocurrency mining: 

Air cooling 

• You’re a beginner or running a small farm of up to 6 units. 

• The budget is tight and you want the lowest upfront cost along with a simple setup. 

• The rig sits in a garage or basement, so noise and dust isn’t an issue. 

• You are living in a colder climate that allows natural ventilation. 

• You don’t plan aggressive overclocking.

Water blocks 

• You run a mid-sized farm of up to 24 GPUs. 

• Noise elimination is your top priority. 

• You want to achieve safe and stable overclocking. 

• Dust is a problem in your location. 

• You are willing to pay a premium for better hardware performance. 

Immersion cooling 

• You operate a large farm of over 24 GPUs. 

• You strive for the highest sustained hashrate through maximum overclocking. 

• Higher initial investment won’t put a strain on your mining budget. 

• Cheap or even free electricity is available.

BiXBiT immersion installations

Our company is engaged in the development of immersion cooling solutions. We try to solve a range of problems related to air cooling and the costliness of water blocks usage. As a result, we created an optimal design for computing equipment immersion, which is compact and scalable, from cell to container.

The first level product is a metal cell designed to accommodate three rigs of 24 GPUs or 6 ASICs. It is suitable for small household farms. The cell with immersion cooling will help miners deal with noise, dust and will also dramatically extend the hardware lifespan.

The middle level is represented by a rack that can accommodate up to four cells (up to 96 GPUs or 24 ASICs). It can be placed in private residences and small production premises. The rack is equipped with all the necessary bundlings for efficient heat utilization or diverting excess heat through a cooling tower. The vertical BiXBiT rack is designed for space saving and quick access to all internal equipment.

The ultimate version is a container (based on a 10, 20 or 40-foot ISO-container). It accommodates up to 3 456 GPUs or 768 ASICs (from 8 to 32 racks, depending on the size). The mobile container (BiXBiT Miner) can be transported and placed in any convenient location. This solution is suitable for investors who have access to free or inexpensive electricity. The infrastructure can be easily removed from the site and transported to another location if necessary.

The use of immersion cooling combined with software allows to increase hashrate, for example, of the popular Antminer S9 model from 13 TH/S to 18 TH/S (almost 40%). This boosts the competitiveness of cryptocurrency mining operations. And while overclocking increases power consumption, immersion cooling saves on fans and stabilizes the equipment in a given temperature corridor. For instance, if the temperature of GPU powered by air cooling grows, protective relays get triggered and shut down the equipment (even in case when the chips are ready for a higher performance) while immersed components remain operational and stable.

The second concept  of our installations is useful heat utilization. The heat is directed to the heating system, to warm pool water, maintain high temperatures in the greenhouse or production facilities, or even for timberdrying. This technology can bring its dividends in completely different small business sectors. It all depends on your needs and imagination.

Our facilities use a special composition engineered specifically to suit the needs of modern miners. It is tested on working devices (ASIC and GPU) and demonstrates full compatibility with all components. We managed to achieve the maximum density of devices (unit per area).

In addition, various kits for farm self-assembly are available. Visit our website and get in touch with our specialists to get the most appropriate configuration for your working capacities.