Hydro Cooled ASICs
Hydro Cooled ASICs
The Future of Mining or an Expensive Hype?
Hydro-cooled ASICs use water to dissipate heat generated during the mining process, eliminating the need for fans or airflow. This cooling method is superior to air-cooling, as water has higher thermal conductivity. It enables to absorb more heat from mining equipment which allows for a higher hashrate output. A hydro-cooled set-up requires expensive infrastructure and technicians with a greater expertise. This article will dive into this latest cooling innovation. The following topics are discussed:
What are Hydro Cooled Miners?
What Models are Available?
Required Infrastructure
Benefits of Hydro-Cooled ASICs
Challenges of a Hydro-Cooled Set-up
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What are Hydro Cooled Miners?
The conventional ASIC miners are air cooled which use fans to cool the hashboards. These machines are exposed to ambient temperature, vibrations and particles in the air (like dust and sand). Hydro-cooled ASICs are a type of hardware that uses water to dissipate the heat generated during the mining process. There is no need for fans or airflow. Hydro-miners are completely seal off from outside debris.
Hydro-cooling is a superior cooling technique. Since water has a greater thermal conductivity in contrast to air it can absorb more heat from mining equipment. In hydro-cooled mining setups, water blocks are used to cool the heat-generating elements of the equipment, like ASIC chips. Then, the heated water is pumped to a heat exchanger or radiator to dissipate the heat.
What Models are Available?
Bitmain has release a T19 Hydro and a S19 Hyd series with a variety of hashrate output:
Antminer T19 Hydro 145TH/s for a power consumption of 5438W.
Antminer T19 Hydro 158TH/s for a power consumption of 5451W
Antminer S19 Pro Hyd 177TH/s for a power consumption of 5221W
Antminer S19 Pro+ Hyd 198TH/s for a power consumption of 5445W.
Antminer S19 XP Hyd 255TH/s for a power consumption of 5304W.
MicroBT, the company that manufactures the Whatsminer, also launched water-cooled machines. These miners look more like conventional servers. There are two models available:
Whatsminer M33S++ 218~240TH/s for a power consumption of 7260W.
Whatsminer M53 226 TH/s for a power consumption of 6554W.
Required Infrastructure
The Antminers are placed in the AntSpace HK3 which is a two-piece Antbox. It is a mobile mining container equipped with a hybrid dry and wet liquid cooling system that feeds through the Antbox and keeps the temperature stable. It has advanced security measures like magnetic locks and facial recognition, as well as a direct terminal substation for three-phase power. The Antspace can hold up to 210 S19+ Hydro ASIC Miners, while consuming less than 1 MW of power.
The hydro-cooled Whatsminers can also be placed in a containerized solution designed by Heat Core that can house over 100 units. The floor is elevated and water pipes are laid below. The pump room is isolated to avoid equipment damage caused by abnormal water leakage in the water system. Heat Core also provides smaller cabinets that come in different sizes and can hold between 2 and 20 miners. These smaller units are ideal for home and water heating.
Benefits of Hydro-Cooled ASICs
In comparison to air-cooled ASICs, hydro-cooled set-ups have various benefits:
Miners can achieve higher levels of hashrate because the chips do not run as hot as air cooled miners when increasing the power input.
The high control over the atmosphere allows you change many variables in the system to optimize efficiency.
Fans used in air cooled miners are not needed which reduces the power draw and possible fan failure.
The durability of the ASICs is improved because miners can hash at an optimal temperature and temperature is easier to maintain at a stable level. In addition, hashboards and other parts of the miners are not affected by particles in the air (like dust and sand).
The hydro-system facilitates the re-use of heat because the machines have a 95% heat-recovery rate.
Water-cooled miners produce less noise (40-50db vs 70-85db air-cooled ASICs).
The water cooling is a closed-loop technology which allows for the water to rerun within the system.
Hydro ASICs have a higher hashrate density than conventional mining machines which means less space is required.
Challenges of a Hydro-Cooled Set-up
The hydro-cooled set-up also comes with some challenges.
A higher initial capital investment is required. Especially when opting for the Bitmain set-up which can only be bought in bulk and in combination with the container. The hydro-operations also require additional supporting systems for the cooling process, which increases the cost of the equipment.
The containerized solutions only runs hydro miners, no air-cooled ASICs. This means if you purchase a container you will have to fill it with the costly hydro-ASICs.
Technicians with a greater expertise are needed, including specialized plumbers. Since there are not a lot of deployments done yet, people with the right technical skills are harder to come by.
With all the tubes and the heat exchanging system, there are a lot of possible points of failure. The quick connectors on the tubes make deployment of the ASICs easier but wear out when used often which can cause leakage.
The system requires a lot of water. Access to enough water of the right quality is key. Calcium and magnesium filtration need to be installed. If the flow rate of the cooling system is incorrect, the potential efficiency gains of these units can be lost.
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