Noise control with the closed-loop coolers usually requires the proprietary software (e.g. Corsair Link) that comes with the cooler. But they will never be quiet when running at heavy load. M4xwolf is right: a well-thought-out air cooling system is better in most cases. And big brute force air coolers like the CM Hyper 212 are such a bargain that it's hard to justify liquid cooling when cost is important.
Here is an overview of the more recent version: https://youtube.com/watch?v=3zwysAvIdYY
Mine's significantly quieter than my last PC. The cooler still has a fan on it, but the fact that it goes straight outside the case instead of blasting hot air INSIDE the case reduces the overall need for fans. Of course, I'm comparing to a previous generation of heatsinks, so the noise-reduction technology could have improved anyway.
And I'm possibly comparing to a different category of fan - my needs were governed by CPU-intensive applications, which means that the heatsink I needed was overkill for most gamers where the GPU carries most of the load..
(It used to confuse the guys in the computer store. I shopped at places where the staff actually knew their stuff and would try to put together the system the customer needed. But they were used to gamers, and were always puzzled by someone buying high-end CPU, the best heatsink in the shop, ridiculous amounts of RAM, and a cheapo GPU.)
And I'm possibly comparing to a different category of fan - my needs were governed by CPU-intensive applications, which means that the heatsink I needed was overkill for most gamers where the GPU carries most of the load..
(It used to confuse the guys in the computer store. I shopped at places where the staff actually knew their stuff and would try to put together the system the customer needed. But they were used to gamers, and were always puzzled by someone buying high-end CPU, the best heatsink in the shop, ridiculous amounts of RAM, and a cheapo GPU.)
There's also another option besides standard air or liquid cooling, though I haven't seen many of them advertised in the last few years. I used to have a Peltier Cooler (a.k.a. Thermoelectric Cooler) on my CPU, which is kind of like a self-contained air conditioning unit. Used to be that one had to worry about condensation forming on the heat pipes with this kind of cooler, but I don't know if they've resolved that issue.
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The problem with Peltier coolers in an enclosed space has always been that the heat still has to go somewhere. You end up with the heat extracted from the CPU plus the heat generated by the cooler; that's another 70 watts or so for units that were actually on the market, like the Cooler Master V10. But if you have a CPU that really must run cold, the combination of a Peltier cooler and a custom water cooling system is a winner.
You get condensation if the cooler reduces the temperature below ambient. That's something conventional air or water coolers can't do. Well-designed units make sure the condensate is drained to someplace harmless.
The problem of getting rid of the heat reminds me of a boss who set up a rack of servers in an unventilated room. As you would expect, it ran hot. So he tried to solve the problem by bringing in a portable air conditioner. Of course, the hot air went right back into the room, and he succeeded in forcing his servers into thermal shutdown all the faster.
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Ah yes, those pesky universal laws tend to get in the way. It would be a lot easier if heat could be neutralized or turned into something else instead of just displaced or dissipated.
Even though Peltiers keep a CPU cool, they throw off a lot of heat and suck a lot of power, as you mention. I look forward to the day when a CPU cooler can transfer the thermal energy the processor produces into something like electrical energy, instead of the other way around. Though I'm guessing that's a little too Star Trekkie of me to hope for.
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If anyone is buying hardware on Newegg - they now started accepting bitcoins as a payment method: http://promotions.newegg.com/nepro/14-3540/index.html
They relate to money like any other currency. The main difference, they are self managed (by the distributed computational network), and not issued by some authority. Bitcoin's design is based on solving the "problem of the Byzantine generals". You can read more about how it works here.
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What is real money anyway? there is nothing backing up so called money. It's more of a concept than anything else, except it's controlled by a centralized institution who decides for the rest of us and to whom everybody owes interest for using their printed paper and metal slices.
Things are worth something in as much people are willing to exchange them for something else. It is all symbolic.
I'd be interested in a simple, explain-like-I'm-5 write-up on how to use bitcoins to buy things online. Without the ideology, or the mining, or any other side-issues, just how to use it instead of Paypal when a merchant accepts it. Just how to buy them and then spend them.
"Real" money can be distinguished by the presence of an institution that has two characteristics:
A commitment to provide liquidity: to regulate the supply of money such that it is available in sufficient quantity to promote commerce. This is the opposite of designs and policies that create artificial limits and scarcity.
Sufficient resources to stand behind it by making a market in which the currency trades at a stable and predictable value. It is the "faith and credit" of the institution that backs up money, not any other thing. Ultimately this amounts to the trust of customers who deal with the institution, and it must be earned over years of unfailing dealings.
Neither is true of Bitcoin at this time. In particular, the understanding of liquidity and value among promoters of Bitcoin is egregiously deficient, and the security of transactions in Bitcoin is suspect until proven otherwise.
Aside:
The entire point of dealing in silver and gold coin was that these were not scarce and were not the subject of policies or programs intended to create scarcity. It was precisely because there were immense quantities of silver coming from the Rammelsberg mine and later immense quantities of gold from Hungary that these were used for coin. It was precisely because the bankers of Florence stood behind their florins and book entries that widespread commerce became practical. But people forget history. Sometimes economists forget history. Sometimes they get it wrong on purpose.
A commitment to provide liquidity: to regulate the supply of money such that it is available in sufficient quantity to promote commerce. This is the opposite of designs and policies that create artificial limits and scarcity.
Sufficient resources to stand behind it by making a market in which the currency trades at a stable and predictable value. It is the "faith and credit" of the institution that backs up money, not any other thing. Ultimately this amounts to the trust of customers who deal with the institution, and it must be earned over years of unfailing dealings.
Neither is true of Bitcoin at this time. In particular, the understanding of liquidity and value among promoters of Bitcoin is egregiously deficient, and the security of transactions in Bitcoin is suspect until proven otherwise.
Aside:
The entire point of dealing in silver and gold coin was that these were not scarce and were not the subject of policies or programs intended to create scarcity. It was precisely because there were immense quantities of silver coming from the Rammelsberg mine and later immense quantities of gold from Hungary that these were used for coin. It was precisely because the bankers of Florence stood behind their florins and book entries that widespread commerce became practical. But people forget history. Sometimes economists forget history. Sometimes they get it wrong on purpose.
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@Dragonbird: I think it depends on the vendor, so experience can differ. First you still need to know the basics. Your bitcoins are stored in your digitial wallet - an encrypted file on your computer (desktop, laptop, handset - whichever). If your computer crashes with no way to recover and you have no backup - you'll lose all those funds for good, so that must be kept in mind.
Transaction with bitcoins can happen in two ways - directly between users (wallet to wallet or rather bitcoin client to bitcoin client) or via intermediaries. Direct transaction is straightforward and some vendors allow that. The indirect one is a bit more involved. In that case you send the funds from your wallet not to the vendor but to some service (for example Coinbase), and that service already pays to the vendor in "conventional" currency. That way vendors can avoid managing a wallet themselves. That can go other way around - i.e. you can use such service as a "bank" for your bitcoins (even though that goes against the core idea of not having any middlemen there).
In addition, there are exchanges which simply perform for you currency conversions between bitcoins and various other world currencies.
Transaction with bitcoins can happen in two ways - directly between users (wallet to wallet or rather bitcoin client to bitcoin client) or via intermediaries. Direct transaction is straightforward and some vendors allow that. The indirect one is a bit more involved. In that case you send the funds from your wallet not to the vendor but to some service (for example Coinbase), and that service already pays to the vendor in "conventional" currency. That way vendors can avoid managing a wallet themselves. That can go other way around - i.e. you can use such service as a "bank" for your bitcoins (even though that goes against the core idea of not having any middlemen there).
In addition, there are exchanges which simply perform for you currency conversions between bitcoins and various other world currencies.
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That's exactly what caused many on Cyprus to rush to buy bitcoins a while back. "Commitment" of local currencies and banks dropped below the floor and people lost any trust in them. The main problem of bitcoin is not the lack of backing - it's backing is much stronger than most "official" currencies. The main problem is that bitcoin economy is still rather small, and in practice it works more often like commodity than currency (which hinders its normal usage). Of course another practical hindrance is the fact that bitcoin price is wildly unstable which makes its usage harder as well.
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Thanks, Gilrond.
The first method (own wallet) sounds OK, so, while I don't expect you to be able to vouch for the particular organisation, something like coins.ph is presumably the method used? Buy from someone like that, store in my own wallet, then just use it to buy online?
Regarding the intermediate service, no, probably not for me. Firstly because I don't trust them (Not because it's bitcoin, but I tend to be automatically distrustful of anyone who requires a direct link to my bank account or wants to hold my money) and secondly because if they end up paying the merchant using some other method, such as PayPal, it defeats the purpose.
I'm not really interested in bitcoin as a concept, and share a lot of Guy's doubts, but I do think the world needs more alternatives to Paypal.
The first method (own wallet) sounds OK, so, while I don't expect you to be able to vouch for the particular organisation, something like coins.ph is presumably the method used? Buy from someone like that, store in my own wallet, then just use it to buy online?
Regarding the intermediate service, no, probably not for me. Firstly because I don't trust them (Not because it's bitcoin, but I tend to be automatically distrustful of anyone who requires a direct link to my bank account or wants to hold my money) and secondly because if they end up paying the merchant using some other method, such as PayPal, it defeats the purpose.
I'm not really interested in bitcoin as a concept, and share a lot of Guy's doubts, but I do think the world needs more alternatives to Paypal.
@Dragonbird: Yes, the basic idea is like that. You buy bitcoins from some exchange, and they get stored in your wallet. Then you can use them for direct bitcoin transactions any way you want. Exchanges though will have to deal with your bank info either way. There are some ways to buy bitcoins without such exchanges (if you don't have a bank account for example). Exchanges are also somewhat of a weak point. Recent one Mt. Gox was compromised for example and some people lost funds there. But in general they work.
A panic in Cyprus hardly proves that a currency with no enforceable or even pledged faith and credit at all is stronger than "most" currencies. It is certainly better managed than the worst national currencies, but it does not stand comparison to the currencies actually used in international commerce.
The instability of price is caused by this lack of institutional capital and intentional market making and absence of any predictable liquidity. But it is not just a drawback; it is the difference between money and a commodity.
The real test of a currency is whether it is sufficiently well supported to retain value and support commerce during an economic crisis. Bitcoin has never been subjected to this. There is no reason to expect that it can. I would like to be proven wrong, but it will take a more serious crisis than the theft of the accounts at Mt. Gox to do so.
That's the catch 22. This is caused as I said, by the small size of the market where it's used for actual purchasing and selling of real goods. Bigger participation makes it more currency than commodity, which in turn makes participation easier. So far the participation seems to be growing (as joined Newegg demonstrates), so hopefully it will reach the size which will make it more stable at some point.
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If you have enough bitcoins, and the exchange you redeem them on can cover your transaction, then sure. But you take both market risk and liquidity risk on the holding and selling of those bitcoins: their price may fall, either through natural market action or through the weight of your transaction or both, or you may find that no exchange can make a market in so many bitcoins and there is no buyer for all of them. All of these have been problems from time to time in the bitcoin market, which is why merchants who accept bitcoins immediately exchange them for ready money.
It's no different, as an investment, from having the money you set aside to buy a house invested in a thinly traded stock.
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