On hot days going outside into the heat and humidity can
really drain your energy fast. It also makes us at Frostytech
think about how tough it can be on computers that endure
non-airconditioned environments... After all, the one common limitation of all
heatsinks is ambient temperature. If the ambient temperature inside the PC case
is 50°C, the heatsink can't fix that. If the ambient temperature outside is
35°C, inside the PC is bound to be a lot hotter still, and the best a heatsink
can do
is reduce CPU temperatures to maybe 15-20°C above ambient... Any way you look at it,
it's hot.
Since today is bugger of a hot one, I thought it might
be fun to depart from the usual pixel fodder and take a brief look at a few cool
technologies you've (likely) never seen before, touch on some fun
tests from Frostytech's unpublished archives, and collect all the thermodynamics
research we've reported on
recently into one location.
Feedback is welcome,
as are tips about new cooling technologies.
1) Vapour Champer Heat Spreader
Vapour chambers work on the same principle as heatpipes, but instead of
taking on the shape of a thin copper tube that
conducts heat from one end to another, vapour chamber heat spreaders are
large flat pads that spread the heat around. Compared to a solid block of
copper of the same dimensions, vapour chambers are several times more
efficient at conducting heat.
Frostytech managed to secure an LGA775 compatible vapour
chamber at Computex last year, and I have to admit it's a pretty cool piece
of "solid state" technology. The speed of its heatspreading abilities is quite amazing. In
fact, we're a little surprised that more thermal solutions manufacturers haven't adopted
this type of heatspreader. It is quite literally the ultimate in "heatpipe direct
touch" / "exposed heatpipe base" solution out there.
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It's just 8mm thick.
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If I
recall correctly, Glacialtech had taken this thin vapour
chamber and formed a 1U server heatsink out of it by bonding short copper fins
directly to the top of it.
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