Centrifugal fan designs like this are favoured in high resistance applications in HVAC, so could be used with higher density heatsinks with smaller air channels which give more resistance but greater surface area.
Liquid Metal... Phase Change... Mineral Oil Immersion. There's always a cool new cooling tech out there...
But we always seem to end up with good old air and water. Shame really (the mineral oil/fishtank models look particularly appealling, especially now you can get decent passive PSUs and SSDs with no moving parts!).
Immersion cooling is a horrible idea because serviceability is a huge pain and the actual advantages are very small. Mineral oil is horrible to handle so you will not want to ever change any components in the system. Upgrading a GPU will be a very messy experience and getting the old one clean will be a proper pain. The gain is also not very impressive. You still need a pump for many systems since the oil and the tank itself is not a good enough heatsink. So many people who have tried it have been forced to use a pump and an external radiator anyway. So you end up with something that is less efficient, more expensive and much more of a mess than a regular water loop. It looks cool but is far from practical for the home user. There are some industrial applications though in large scale data centres. You can get a higher power density with liquid cooling and not having to take hot and cold isles and huge amounts of air moving into account when designing the server room is nice.
I am looking forward to seeing that cooler in action. It will be very interesting to see how efficient it actually is compared to traditional tower coolers.
Very true, also, the only thing we really want to focus cooling on is the GPU and CPU. Most other components are fine with just minimal air flow for cooling (more extreme OCing you want to cool power components). So you still need a dedicated cooler for the CPU and GPU, which will likely be water or phase change to a radiator which is cooled by air. So the advantage is gone and you get the fun disadvantages that Zota already mentioned.
Well phase-change, or water chilling is a fairly expensive solution, and some PC builders just get scared of voiding their warranty for whatever reason. You have to buy an aquarium chiller, get tubing and fittings with the same ID, and a good waterblock. That's ~$500, just for your CPU which is ~$100 away from a custom loop for a GPU and CPU, which just looks way cooler than water chilling.
For those that want more information about the principles and execution of this cooler, FrostyTech has been following the development and done a few articles: http://www.frostytech.com/articleview.cfm?articleI...
The main advantage is compactness, as now, the fan IS the heatsink. This is mostly advantageous to the server market or embedded space.
In another review, they showed the bottom of the fan part to have a wavy finish to it, no doubt to increase the surface area of the air bearing interface between the moving top and bottom and lower the thermal resistance. However, air bearing need an absolute excellent surface finish to function properly (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_bearing) and I'm wondering how much cost that will add to the production, especially with a non-flat surface.
I am so impressed with this post, please can I ask or take the liberty of requesting info, I looking for some one or small company that can design a heat sink for me backed with real science and performance figures. They should have the state of the art software and testing apparatus. I have tried one or two chances that sent out there work to another country only to get nice looking poor performing heatsinks. There will be a number of jobs to follow. [email protected]
What was so demanding about your request? The actual physical package or the load, it is not rocket science calculating heatsink performance, modelling with even broad assumptions can get you close. Only of those assumptions are an extension of tested performance and the like.
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zodiacfml - Monday, January 12, 2015 - link
Little surface area and little air volume...works as very high speeds though.tghs - Monday, January 12, 2015 - link
Centrifugal fan designs like this are favoured in high resistance applications in HVAC, so could be used with higher density heatsinks with smaller air channels which give more resistance but greater surface area.Jon Tseng - Monday, January 12, 2015 - link
Liquid Metal... Phase Change... Mineral Oil Immersion. There's always a cool new cooling tech out there...But we always seem to end up with good old air and water. Shame really (the mineral oil/fishtank models look particularly appealling, especially now you can get decent passive PSUs and SSDs with no moving parts!).
Zotamedu - Monday, January 12, 2015 - link
Immersion cooling is a horrible idea because serviceability is a huge pain and the actual advantages are very small. Mineral oil is horrible to handle so you will not want to ever change any components in the system. Upgrading a GPU will be a very messy experience and getting the old one clean will be a proper pain. The gain is also not very impressive. You still need a pump for many systems since the oil and the tank itself is not a good enough heatsink. So many people who have tried it have been forced to use a pump and an external radiator anyway. So you end up with something that is less efficient, more expensive and much more of a mess than a regular water loop. It looks cool but is far from practical for the home user. There are some industrial applications though in large scale data centres. You can get a higher power density with liquid cooling and not having to take hot and cold isles and huge amounts of air moving into account when designing the server room is nice.I am looking forward to seeing that cooler in action. It will be very interesting to see how efficient it actually is compared to traditional tower coolers.
ATC9001 - Monday, January 12, 2015 - link
Very true, also, the only thing we really want to focus cooling on is the GPU and CPU. Most other components are fine with just minimal air flow for cooling (more extreme OCing you want to cool power components). So you still need a dedicated cooler for the CPU and GPU, which will likely be water or phase change to a radiator which is cooled by air. So the advantage is gone and you get the fun disadvantages that Zota already mentioned.Antronman - Monday, January 12, 2015 - link
Well phase-change, or water chilling is a fairly expensive solution, and some PC builders just get scared of voiding their warranty for whatever reason. You have to buy an aquarium chiller, get tubing and fittings with the same ID, and a good waterblock. That's ~$500, just for your CPU which is ~$100 away from a custom loop for a GPU and CPU, which just looks way cooler than water chilling.milleron - Monday, January 12, 2015 - link
I realize you haven't been able to test it, but what does the developer CLAIM as to its capabilities?toyotabedzrock - Monday, January 12, 2015 - link
The fan motor looks like it would be a direct contributor to heat on the CPU plate in this design.squngy - Monday, January 12, 2015 - link
>something truly revolutionaryHA
frenchy_2001 - Monday, January 12, 2015 - link
For those that want more information about the principles and execution of this cooler, FrostyTech has been following the development and done a few articles:http://www.frostytech.com/articleview.cfm?articleI...
The main advantage is compactness, as now, the fan IS the heatsink. This is mostly advantageous to the server market or embedded space.
asuglax - Monday, January 12, 2015 - link
In another review, they showed the bottom of the fan part to have a wavy finish to it, no doubt to increase the surface area of the air bearing interface between the moving top and bottom and lower the thermal resistance. However, air bearing need an absolute excellent surface finish to function properly (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_bearing) and I'm wondering how much cost that will add to the production, especially with a non-flat surface.Blackskyel - Wednesday, January 14, 2015 - link
I hope I can see this product soon in a shop but I wonder when was the last time Ian put his finger in a regular fan in order to check if it is safe.Hotspot - Sunday, January 18, 2015 - link
I am so impressed with this post, please can I ask or take the liberty of requesting info, I looking for some one or small company that can design a heat sink for me backed with real science and performance figures. They should have the state of the art software and testing apparatus. I have tried one or two chances that sent out there work to another country only to get nice looking poor performing heatsinks. There will be a number of jobs to follow. [email protected]jerkso - Saturday, March 21, 2015 - link
What was so demanding about your request? The actual physical package or the load, it is not rocket science calculating heatsink performance, modelling with even broad assumptions can get you close. Only of those assumptions are an extension of tested performance and the like.