Research Supervisor: Patrick Lawther Heard, Head of Design Technology – GEMS World Academy

Project Title: Designing and developing a custom water-cooled computer integrated within a workspace desk with the best cost to performance ratio.

Project Focus: The advancement in consumer computer technology

Type: Extended Project

Abstract:

My project was focused on highlighting the big strides that have been made in the PC consumer technology space and to do so I designed and built a water-cooled computer with the best performance to cost ratio possible. This was achieved through a 2700X Ryzen CPU, GTX 1080 Ti GPU, a 128GB Solid State Drive, 2 TB Solid State Hybrid Drive, a 1440p 60hz monitor and a 240mm radiator and pump. 

It was established that water-cooling the processor would lead to better performance in multithreaded and single-core use and that these performance improvements would carry over to gaming and productivity uses. Moreover, these improvements would be more worthwhile in comparison to having to water-cool the graphics card to achieve the same performance, with respect to cost and practicality. Therefore, the graphics card would remain air cooled. 

In accordance with highlighting the progress made in the PC consumer space I designed the desk for practical at home use for teenagers. This was done by incorporating a ‘one in all’ approach where all the components of the computer were integrated seamlessly as part of the desk that I designed and built as well. As part of the planning process several different desk designs were prepared. A selection was made based on ergonomics, practicality and overall performance of the components integrated within desk. Not having the necessary materials and machinery at school I conducted an apprenticeship at a woodworker/carpenter to learn the practical skills to build the desk by hand. 

Upon finishing the desk design I optimized component placement and air flow for performance of the computer. Lastly, I did an aesthetic overhaul to make the presentation of the desk more alluring. To finish off the project I gave a detailed explanation of all the working parts of a computer and compared their performance and size since their inception to how they had advanced to in the present. I also briefly discussed the physical limitations that were beginning to arise as a result of diverging from Moore’s Law, such as quantum tunnelling.