Sandia intros revolutionary heatsink with rotating fins

Puiu said:
Where did you read that they'll replace the thermal compound? In the diagram you can clearly read "stationary base plate" --> this will come in direct contact with the CPU (with the paste in between). They just replaced the fan+big heatsink with a more efficient way of cooling the heatsink --> they rotate the upper part of it (the biggest part).
I mentioned thermal compound as a comparison. Where did you read that there was any thermal compound at all? Immediately above the stationary base plate is an air gap or air bearing as they say. Due to the air gap, there is no direct contact.

I understand what they are saying as to how the system works but the part I don't quite see is, "heat is efficiently transferred across a narrow air gap," that's all.
 
The heat can be transferred across the air gap because the air in the gap is behaving like a liquid.

The trick is getting it to behave like a fluid - that needs a very fine gap with no still air in the gap and high flow.

That gap is not not going to be easy to maintain. I'm assuming the motor at the centre is what does it so that is going to be an expensive motor and the design overall is not gonna be cheap to produce because of it's fine tolerances.
 
The group believes its technology is suitable for most computers and electronics, as well as household appliances like air conditioners.

Most? So much for 5GHz overclocks. If they were confident in surpassing current HSF solutions, they wouldn't say "most". I see this as a low end solution, just better than passive heatsinks.
 
You should have more type of these stories here. I found it an interesting read today. Far better the reading about game performance in a video card.
 
I dont' see how this will be much of an improvement. It definitly appears to be a more efficient fan, but air is still inferior to liquid or metal for conducting heat. This is why 70 degree air is comfortable and 70 degree water would make for a very cold shower.

Maybe couple this fan with a traditional heat sink, but on it's own, I don't see it competing unless it moves a TON of air. I also looked like their experiment used six 1 x 1 square inch tiles that were hot. A CPU's heat is far more concentrated, so we'd need a piece of metal to displace the heat anyway.
 
Unfortunately, like most inventions now, it was created by someone working for another company.

THAT company is now sitting pretty and the actual inventor got his beer and hopefully a pat on the back.

NOW, said company will have a patent and be able to lock it away and troll away for decades to come.

YAY innovation!
 
I have this, with a low wattage (45watt) AMD AM3 605e processor: GELID Solutions Slim Silence AM2 65mm Ball CPU Cooler. This is very low-profile, and pretty quiet, and has the fan down in the middle of the fins.
 
Row1 said:
I have this, with a low wattage (45watt) AMD AM3 605e processor: GELID Solutions Slim Silence AM2 65mm Ball CPU Cooler. This is very low-profile, and pretty quiet, and has the fan down in the middle of the fins.

Ummm, you are kidding right? the GELID Solutions Slim Silence is a inexpensive chunk of aluminum with a fan in the middle. It says it will "dissipate 65W with good case ventilation"
 
Strangely enough, I think the Gelid Solutions etc are Sandia's benchmark (see page 22 of the pdf) . Page 15 of the pdf (and repeated throughout the paper) notes that present coolers in the prototype's size range have a thermal resistance (cooling efficiency) of 0.6-0.8°C/Watt...in fact most of the coolers they are comparing their product to are ~10 years old (Socket 370, Pentium III), use 70mm fans or smaller, and most are featured here in a review from May 2001

Something tells me that the Sandia boys don't update their bookmarks very often.

So for an average ~125w quad core CPU Sandia are assuming 75-100°C recorded CPU temp using a conventional heatpipe cooler (!), while their own solution would present 25°C (I'd assume that the figure is still dependant upon ambient room temp).
 
I'm not sure how this won't get clogged like the fins on a normal heat sink, or how the thermal transfer is going to be as efficient. Even if you view it as a fan have you ever had a fan that didn't have dust on it after a year of use even with cleaning it 4 times a year. All this is doing is making the fan and the heat sink one unit. The fins rotate on a motor which produces heat since it is more weight than a typical plastic fan you will be producing more heat, though in A/C applications that use huge fans made of metal it may be way more efficient in regards to weight. I'm not expert in this but it seems that between the motor adding heat the lack of direct contact with the heated surface the thermal transfer will be not as efficient. Though if the specs were perfectly engineered you could have a tight enough fit, with fast enough spinning blades you would see huge reductions in heat but at a huge cost of production or high failure rate. With the fins being so small failure will be much more likely to result in damage than typical heat sinks on the market that many can still keep a system cool enough with the case fan to last until a replacement fan on the heat sink is purchased.
 
Why don't they just build the CPUs with heat pipes and fins already part of the shell no need for thermal compound just add your own fan.
 
I have to admit that I drew a lot of pleasure reading all about this so called "product of the future". But to be more honest, I'm enjoying seeing everyones statements about this product. I have to admit this technology appears to be impressive, but the theoretical application behind the product just leaves me boggled. One thing is for sure, in all my years in the computer industry, I've never seen something this innovative in regards to CPU cooling.

I'm going to have to reserve my final thoughts about this product until I see some actual "hard data" and "real life tests" to back up this products claims. This things looks great on paper, but I want to see it in a real computer case, attached to a real motherboard and hovering over a real CPU and the computer being pushed hard, maybe test it by playing Crysis.

I don't know, this all seems like "feel good watered down gospel", little wishy washy to me. I'm an old school computer science major, give me the big fan motor, the big fan blades, the cool slim line heat sinks and a little dab of thermal compound, that's what I trust.

But again, I really have enjoyed seeing everyone's points of view on this product, made for good reading! :)
 
The fans are .001" above this surface
Phil D.

Ouch ! No accidental touching of the spinning stuff here... :haha:

Guest said:
Why don't they just build the CPUs with heat pipes and fins already part of the shell no need for thermal compound just add your own fan.
Cause then, if the pipes break or something, you'll need another CPU, not another cooler. Kinda why we have cars built like that. You don't need to replace your car to get a new clean air-filter. :haha:
 
Check out the bitchin' IP theft at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAf_p-7cTDo
Looks like Sandia's concept, Sandia's design, and hey -- check out 2:45 and 3:55 -- even Sandia's graphics and a photo of Sandia's prototype! Too bad these $230,000 "winners" don't have a license for Sandia's IP. No problem taking credit for it and winning competitions with it, though...
 
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