THe Sandia Cooler - Breakthrough in Air Cooling design

[PeteLeoni]

This sounds remarkable. It has some major issues.
The government is involved, government grants are involved. Academia is involved. Therefore the information is very likely to be:
a. Flawed.
b.Completely skewed as to marketability.
c.Another bullshit "green" project which has no hope of being financially viable.
d.An outright lie.

Gone are the days when anything this government put it's hand in bore fruit.
Sad, I like the concept. If it was Intel or Microsoft it would be believable, but our recent "academia" ? It very well could be green bullshit with no viability other than to lift money from producers and give it to receivers.

 

[Idontcare]

I'm responding to Borealis7's false claim that power consumption is going up, where he used the temps of Ivy Bridge as evidence.

I post this with sincere hopes that you take it constructively...I think you misunderstood the intent of Borealis7's post.

If you reread his post, specifically what it was his post was in response to, I think you will see that Borealis7's point was that we need better and better coolers not because power-consumption is going up (there is no disagreement between Borealis7 and Magic Carpet on that point), but because the operating temperatures are going up despite the power-consumption coming down.

With the power consumption slowly but steadily going down, I don't see an imminent need in such advanced researches.

that's what we've been hearing, but please tell me, how hot is an overclocked 3770K at load?

The quip "how hot is an overclocked 3770K at load?" is in response to the statement "I don't see an imminent need in such advanced researches."

 

[Piano Man]

I'll believe when I see it.

I'm sorry, but your name plus what you just said has me on the floor right now

 

[sandorski]

This sounds remarkable. It has some major issues.
The government is involved, government grants are involved. Academia is involved. Therefore the information is very likely to be:
a. Flawed.
b.Completely skewed as to marketability.
c.Another bullshit "green" project which has no hope of being financially viable.
d.An outright lie.

Gone are the days when anything this government put it's hand in bore fruit.
Sad, I like the concept. If it was Intel or Microsoft it would be believable, but our recent "academia" ? It very well could be green bullshit with no viability other than to lift money from producers and give it to receivers.

Just like the Internet!

 

[PeteLeoni]

Just like the Internet!

Oh no, the internet is very good at removing the money from 99% squatters and putting it back into the hands of those who produce something viable and marketable, I.e. the 1% who actually produce. In other words the industrious, those who produce some thing of value, capitalists if you will. My thoughts here are it is very rare that anything tangible comes out of government subsidy. Actually I do hope this is viable, just wary because of the .gov connection. Very little good comes from that area these days.

 

[Piano Man]

Oh no, the internet is very good at removing the money from 99% squatters and putting it back into the hands of those who produce something viable and marketable, I.e. the 1% who actually produce. In other words the industrious, those who produce some thing of value, capitalists if you will. My thoughts here are it is very rare that anything tangible comes out of government subsidy. Actually I do hope this is viable, just wary because of the .gov connection. Very little good comes from that area these days.

Looks like P&N is leaking...

 

[Borealis7]

The quip "how hot is an overclocked 3770K at load?" is in response to the statement "I don't see an imminent need in such advanced researches."

Thanks, IDC, that's what i meant. it doesn't matter if you got a 1W device, if the conversion is 200C / 1W then "you're going to need a bigger boat" (or go water )

unless HSFs start weighing around 4lbs and made out of exotic materials, we aren't going to see major advances in Air cooling. maybe a small incremental rise in efficiency here and there, a whole new concept is required in order to deliver better results.

 

[RampantAndroid]

I post this with sincere hopes that you take it constructively...I think you misunderstood the intent of Borealis7's post.

If you reread his post, specifically what it was his post was in response to, I think you will see that Borealis7's point was that we need better and better coolers not because power-consumption is going up (there is no disagreement between Borealis7 and Magic Carpet on that point), but because the operating temperatures are going up despite the power-consumption coming down.



The quip "how hot is an overclocked 3770K at load?" is in response to the statement "I don't see an imminent need in such advanced researches."

Well, then my response is that Borealis7's response is very poorly worded. I read it as him saying "you're wrong" not "that's fine, but we are seeing temp issues." Perhaps because I'm sick of reading about the 'omg IB can't OC' crap, but more because of the way he says "that's what we're been hearing" as if to say, sure people keep saying it, but is that true?

I apologize if it's a misunderstanding, but I stand by my statement that to me, that is not the meaning the post conveys. Thanks for the post IDC.

 

[deathBOB]

Oh no, the internet is very good at removing the money from 99% squatters and putting it back into the hands of those who produce something viable and marketable, I.e. the 1% who actually produce. In other words the industrious, those who produce some thing of value, capitalists if you will. My thoughts here are it is very rare that anything tangible comes out of government subsidy. Actually I do hope this is viable, just wary because of the .gov connection. Very little good comes from that area these days.

Okay shutdown the thread. Ayn Rand says this cooler is a no go.

 

[Rifter]

Super obvious that this is BS now, i have now written it off as viable.

If it really worked we would already have:

1. Real world numbers by neutral third parties
2. A refined prototype(i mean its been over a year since the first prototype which only needed minor updates if you believe their BS claims)

 

[Arkadrel]

Super obvious that this is BS now, i have now written it off as viable.

If it really worked we would already have:

1. Real world numbers by neutral third parties
2. A refined prototype(i mean its been over a year since the first prototype which only needed minor updates if you believe their BS claims)

1) Has happend (they got same results).
2) Is happending, you can tell the model in the video is newer, more refined.

Things take time, esp if you only have like 3 people working on it.

I dont think its that uncommon for things to take years of refineing in labs, before their ready to be mass produced.
We re just all impatient because we d like to see a product we could buy or atleast see a review off.

 

[Subyman]

Obviously, most people in this thread have never worked in either the engineering field or in experimental research. People that believe this project is dead because "Apple hasn't used it in a computer yet" have no clue how long it takes to go from idea, to research, to prototyping, to testing, to refinement, to more testing, to final build, to approval, to industrial design of manufacturing on a large scale, and finally to commercial distribution. The average time from idea to market for a fantastic idea is seven years. Its been one year since the first white paper was published on this device. We are in the infancy of its design and have a long way to go before we see anything in the commercial market.

For those who do not know, Sandia is a national laboratory funded by the government. They are given grants to perform research but do not create commercial products. They aren't venture capitalists...

I'm interested to see more, but those demanding performance numbers with one of these strapped onto their i7 are delusional. That's not how this research is performed and high end enthusiast computers are not the market. The real market for these are in the HVAC industry and LED cooling as explained in the white paper. If a company decides to make these for computers, then that would be great.

 

[Arkadrel]

@Subyman

Thank you for that post, that was well writen and it probably needed saying.

Sadly I agree with you, it ll probably be a few years at the very least, until we see something like this for a CPU cooler. I unlike a few others here, DO believe this is the future of CPU cooling though. For fun times maybe 4years from now if this thread is still around i ll go back, just to go "ha! I told you so!".

 

[IntelEnthusiast]

I think this is an interesting idea that I am looking to see what develops out of it. I don't know how well it will work as the die gets smaller on processor as there does seem to be enough contact area to help carry about the heat (but what do I know I am not an engineer).

 

[KingFatty]

I wonder if a version to be designed for a PC, would be just like a PC form factor? Like, I could see them modifying it to look like a 120mm case fan, and instead of having a disk with the fins enclosed like they do, they could make the spinning part look just like existing fans with the blades and hub made out of aluminum or copper. Sort of like inverting their disk so the fins are sticking out of the hub instead of inside it?

On another note, does anyone currently make computer fans out of metal? It would bling up your PC for sure, but I like the idea of metal spinning fans reflecting the light etc.

 

[Khato]

I think this is an interesting idea that I am looking to see what develops out of it. I don't know how well it will work as the die gets smaller on processor as there does seem to be enough contact area to help carry about the heat (but what do I know I am not an engineer).

It looks like their updated prototype - going by the recent Extremetech article - is already implementing a vapor chamber integrated into the static base so it'll be as good as any other current heatsink when it comes to smaller contact areas. Doing a vapor chamber base definitely makes sense as the design is reliant upon having a reasonably heat-transfer area between the base and heat-sink-impeller - sure having it be a small air gap with high turbulence minimizes thermal resistance, but it's still not going to be as good as a heatpipe or solid aluminum.

It's certainly an interesting design with many possibilities, but it really depends upon how it scales. The prototype discussed in the paper is definitely a desktop size, and for that application 5 watts for 0.2 C/W of cooling isn't that great. Keep in mind that Intel's cheapo stock heatsink is something around 0.3 C/W, and current high end coolers get below 0.1 C/W. If they can reduce the power consumption to be in-line with conventional methods, then this would be an extremely awesome option for notebook cooling, way more of an advancement than for desktops. It'd possibly decrease the necessary size for cooling, but more importantly laptops typically suffer from far worse dust-fouling due to their lack of intake filters combined with much smaller heatsink surface areas and higher air velocity... oh, and that higher air velocity results in more noise too. Only problem being that I somewhat doubt this design would perform as well in an enclosed environment - they tested with the top of the design closed instead of open and it increased both power consumption and noise. Still, considering how crappy laptop cooling solutions typically are it could easily be a marked improvement.

 

[IlllI]

frostytech posted something about it a few days back. no idea if its new information or not http://www.frostytech.com/permalink.cfm?NewsID=100451

 

[Phynaz]

Nope, nothing new at that link.

 

[Borealis7]

forget Sandia! why haven't we heard of this since 2007??

http://www.dailytech.com/OCZ+Displays+Carbon+Nanotube+Cooler/article7571.htm

 

[ehume]

Why does anyone bother with frostytech?

 

[Borealis7]

frostytech's method gives you an idea on how well a cooler does on dissipating 150W of heat. not CPU specific, but rather a constant 150W load. i tend to find that their rankings are aligned with other sites' non-OC cooling tests, and they do have some insights once in a while regarding cooling efficiancy.

 

[know of fence]

This sounds remarkable. It has some major issues.
The government is involved, government grants are involved. Academia is involved. [...]
Gone are the days when anything this government put it's hand in bore fruit.

Any kind of research requires funding and support. If there isn't a commercial enterprise established in a field, NO innovation is possible at all without a government incentive. It is the commercial messages you cannot trust, because they are secret/proprietary and spun into a focus tested marketing "message". Industry also generally resists technology if new products are less profitable and because research and change are hard and risky.

Following is a quote from here (http://thebreakthrough.org/archive/american_innovation )

The Origins of the iPhone

There may be no better example of the invisible hand of government than the iPhone.

Launched in 2007, the iPhone brought many of the now familiar capabilities of the iPod together with other communications and information technologies made possible by federal funding:

• The microchips powering the iPhone owe their emergence to the U.S. military and space programs, which constituted almost the entire early market for the breakthrough technology in the 1960s, buying enough of the initially costly chips to drive down their price by a factor of 50 in a few short years.
• The early foundation of cellular communication lies in radiotelephony capabilities progressively advanced throughout the 20th century with support from the U.S. military.
• The technologies underpinning the Internet were developed and funded by the Defense Department's Advanced Research Projects Agency in the 1960s and 70s.
• GPS was originally created and deployed by the military's NAVSTAR satellite program in the 1980s and 90s.
• Even the revolutionary multitouch screen that provides the iPhone's intuitive interface was first developed by University of Delaware researchers supported by grants and fellowships provided by the National Science Foundation and the CIA.

 

[skipsneeky2]

forget Sandia! why haven't we heard of this since 2007??

http://www.dailytech.com/OCZ+Displays+Carbon+Nanotube+Cooler/article7571.htm

The pure size of it must have cracked plenty of motherboards during testing?Or if that did not bring it to market,perhaps the cost would have been much more then anyone would have cared to pay for it.

I look at this thing and it looks like it isn't gonna fit in many cases and its just ugly as hell.

I would put a piece of dog crap on my chip before that thing would go on it trust it and believe.

 

[beginner99]

The pure size of it must have cracked plenty of motherboards during testing?Or if that did not bring it to market,perhaps the cost would have been much more then anyone would have cared to pay for it.

I look at this thing and it looks like it isn't gonna fit in many cases and its just ugly as hell.

I would put a piece of dog crap on my chip before that thing would go on it trust it and believe.

maybe he just meant the Nanotubes base? I mean if they actually are 5 times more efficient than copper...

 

[skipsneeky2]

maybe he just meant the Nanotubes base? I mean if they actually are 5 times more efficient than copper...

Well at the end of the day,it never came to market and while there was plenty of hype,i had to be right about something obviously.

Sorta like the phase units that came and disappeared,fancy and sub zero temps but the cost was insane.