Please resolve this debate TF!

[Hapx4.0]

First off, sorry if this is in the wrong forum but i figured it should be okay considering the question.

Myself, my brother and my friend are sitting in vent and my buddy links me a pc case thats huge, and says i could fit so many radiators in there!!!

I comment back saying " yea you could but, your never going to get the water temps cooler than the ambient temperature"

And both of them jump on vent and say " Uh, what? Yes you can "

We get into a two hour argument going back and forth of "Why we think we are right"

after trying Google no one ever had hard evidence for who was right or wrong.

I come to you guys

*circumstances

Closed room, no windows open / ac running
Just water cooling (Block, Radiator, Pump, Res)
PC running
Radiator inside / outside case don't matter


Please show your answer with some sort of proof or hard evidence!

Thanks TF!!!!

 

[S0ULphIRE]

Temperature will never fall below ambient levels, thanks to thermodynamics. Specifically:

When two isolated systems in separate but nearby regions of space, each in thermodynamic equilibrium in itself, but not in equilibrium with each other at first, are at some time allowed to interact, breaking the isolation that separates the two systems, and they exchange matter or energy, they will eventually reach a mutual thermodynamic equilibrium. The sum of the entropies of the initial, isolated systems is less than or equal to the entropy of the final exchanging systems. In the process of reaching a new thermodynamic equilibrium, entropy has increased, or at least has not decreased.

Just looking specifically at what's happening should give you your answer. Heat moves from the CPU to the water thanks to the second law of thermodynamics (quoted above). Heat is transferred to the radiators again thanks to this rule. It is not transferred to the tubing so much because the metal in the radiators conducts heat much better.
Once the heat is in the radiators, it is transferred into the air thanks to something called convective heat transfer. Heat flows from a hotter source to a colder one, never the other way around. Therefore, because air is being used to cool the water (and the air is obviously at 'ambient temperatures', or IS the ambient temp I guess) the most it will be able to cool the water to is the temperature of itself. If the water was colder than the air, then the water would be heated by the fans not cooled.

 

[Hapx4.0]

Thank you so much - this is what I figured but I could not find the proper quote to prove it, THANK YOU!

I kept saying, " once the temps of the water drop below the room temp, wouldn't the fans air start to warm up the water?

haha Ty much

 

[S0ULphIRE]

No probs even with Liquid Nitrogen the same rule applies. You can't get it colder than the temperature of the LN. There ARE ways to cool a system below the temperature of a surrounding area (e.g the peltier effect) but they usually are inefficient and take quite a bit of energy.

 

[Druid]

You guys need to own that peltier effect.