CoolChip Technologies Demos Innovative All-Aluminum Heatsink-And-Fan CPU Cooler Design

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Finally!

I've been waiting for a LONG time for somebody to look at the Sandia Cooler and decide that it was a design worth playing with.

Can't wait to see benchmarks of CoolChip's take on this... on first impression, I question how well it will dissipate heat; and then I think about the fact that it's not my field and that they must have a few tricks up their sleeve.

If this kind of cooler really can make the huge size / cooling improvements that it claims to, then it's replacing custom watercooling in my mini ITX rig to downsize it even further.
 
There is a reason why enterprise didn't go for this solution... it wasn't any better than fans. This design looks cool but the transition of heat through air is just very efficient.
Air is actually better at isolating from heat than for transporting of it so you can't expect that fan-sink to do much of heat disposal.

Also fans are cheep and light this improves bearing life while this design will require much more durable bearing because of heavier object.
 
I actually am looking forward to this. Theoretically, they shouldn't be expensive to produce or sell. I love this kind of scientific based, cutting edge stuff. Just want to see actual benchmarks on real world scenarios now.
 
i like how to stock intel heat sink has been recycled! i like the fan, don't care for the sink as it exhausts too much heat back into the case. i would like to see a revival of the coolermaster jet 7 with a bit more fine tuning to exhaust shroud so heat goes one direction thru the heat sink and out to the rear case exhaust fan. the jet 7's direct air flow to the center and entire heatsink was a very good solution. i can think of several ways to make this happen and one even with an offset built into the heatsink for the fan. i'm not big on axial fans and much more prefer radial fans.

the main problem i have with this particular solution from coolchip is how well does it work at a vertical set up which is what leads me to perceive is the hold up on the bearing. it's not like shimano doesn't have the bearing solution already, and heck if you could recycle your abec3-5-7- bearing from your roller blades that would be great also with a drop in replacement bearing solution or something you have to drip a drop or 3 of veggie oil into every year ( you know when you are cleaning out the dust bunnies anyways)
 
I have to wonder why the aluminum fan blade portion of it doesn't use any heat pipes like a ring all the way around the center of it or a few U shaped ones to expel the heat up and away more rapidly. I'm also curious about it's effective efficiency compare to other traditional tower coolers because that's important. It does sound promising like it might wins points on quietness though if the 0db claim is accurate depending on just how close to 0db it really is if it's under 10db that's pretty good..
 
PURE COPYCAT OF THE SANDIA CPU COOLER

www.frostytech.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=2722

The Sandia cooler was introduced during 2012.
This is a lawsuit in the making.
 


...which some of us have already said.

Anyways, there are two issues here:

1) The Sandia cooler, as much as we want it to be a real product, does not exist. You can't buy one, you can't put one in your computer.

2) How do you know that this isn't licenced out? The Sandia cooler was never meant to be a product, it was made by research labs for a large company.
 


Fair point on the bearing, though the original Sandia cooler uses an air bearing... which is a MUCH more elegant design.

As for claiming that enterprise companies don't use this because it's not a good cooler? Give me a break.. and do a little reading on the Sandia cooler. It's many, many times more efficient than anything we have right now, due to some rather interesting properties of liquid dynamics.

Enterprise solutions don't care about what's efficient... they care about what's CHEAP. A system with a nickle block and a single fan pulling air into the front of the computer is the cheapest solution that cools everything within tolerance levels... why would they spend more money on experimental tech?

Oh, and @MJW: It should work no matter what orientation the cooler is at. At least, the original Sandia cooler does. I read about this thing several years ago and have been waiting to see it come to market - I'm rather excited about this.
 
All I have to say is this looks like a pathetic imitation of the Sandia cooler. Notice the complete lack of optimization on the fan versus the prototype Sandia. There is a team member dedicated just to optimizing the airflow! Also the lack of the near frictionless air bearing, and what the heck are those butt ugly ring fins they threw on cause their product can't pull it's own weight. That basically defeats the whole minimal dust perk. Even the aluminum looks cheap. The Sandia has a nice solid deep silver tone. This thing has that whitish silver tone that screams cheap metal. The worst part is it looks like they are going to beat the real deal to market which could potentially kill it.
 
I just found this forum post online. Apparently this isn't the first time cool chip has tried this.
"I wrote a magazine article about the Sandia Cooler and its inventor last year. Having seen the technology first-hand in prototype form, I can (I hope) disabuse some misconceptions about what I saw and the retail technology I hope comes to pass. First, while the prototype fan may have been attitude-sensitive (I didn't get a chance to invert it) the production cooler will not be sensitive to attitude or orientation. Using the permanent magnets in the rotor, the impeller assembly can effectively be "caged" such that it won't run off the air bearing. In a production model, there is no reason it couldn't be run sideways or upside down. Concerning noiselessness, most of the noise comes from the electric motor itself, and again, production-scale optimization should reduce this. The impeller/fan itself impinges on the air quite silently, and is much quieter per heat-watt than the equivalent conventional fan + heat-sink combination.

There should be no more liability surrounding this product than any other fan. One would literally have to stick one's finger into the annulus of the impeller to be injured, and it would likely be equivalent to sticking a finger into any other fan. If lawyers get worked up over this, putting a cage around the assembly would be trivial.

While the inventor has been pretty quiet about progress towards commercialization, in the past year a few significant developments occurred. The technology was successfully licensed to a couple of vendors. Though the original patent was granted in 2009, the Department of Energy's licensing process is onerous and slow, and licensure for this product was complicated by the fraudulent use of Sandia's intellectual property by CoolChip Technologies to win the MIT $200K Clean Energy prize. You can read about this scandal here: http://chronicle.com/article/Who-Des...200000/128810/. As you can imagine, the controversy needlessly alarmed potential partners who assumed CoolChip's use of the technology was sanctioned by the lab. This complicated licensing negotiations.

MIT has investigated itself, and cleared itself of any wrongdoing.

I believe that with licensing behind us, the only remaining delays have to do with A) optimization and B) design for manufacture. Neither process is trivial, and once a design is finalized, it will take some serious tooling to make this technology affordable. In other words, these are physical widgets, not electrons, so it's reasonable to expect a longer development time than you're used to seeing for software.

Having seen the prototype, I can tell you that it is real, and the inventor has staked his excellent reputation on some extraordinary claims about its performance, which have so far been borne out by all critical reviews that I've seen. I believe this is indeed a breakthrough in thermal management, and I am eagerly anticipating its release to the market, because I believe it will be the new standard in air cooling. Simply put, it will be cheaper, quieter, more dust-resistant, and longer-lived than any conventional cooling solution."
I really hope cool chip gets what they deserve for this low ball dirty junk.
 
Just to clarify, they have two designs. The difference is that one has a ring of static fins around the outside (and heatpipes to transfer heat to these fins), while the other has just the spinning part and the baseplate (and is only 0.75 inches in height). You can see lots more details on their site (coolchiptechnologies.com).
 
BTW, their site says:
The concept of using a thin air gap between the stationary and rotating components was developed and patented at Sandia National Labs. Use of Sandia name does not constitute an endorsement by Sandia Corporation or Sandia National Laboratories of CoolChip Technologies or its products.
Click to expand...
 
I think what they're saying is that MIT, itself, didn't do anything wrong. But Coolchip is not MIT.

So, it's kind of like if you get a speeding ticket while delivering a pizza, and your employer says that it didn't do anything wrong.

Anyway, read the article linked in crystaldragon's post. One point they make is that the contest is fundamentally about entrepreneurship - not necessarily the underlying technology. According to the rules, the students were explicitly allowed to use technologies they didn't invent. The problem was really that they failed to get the required permission and give due attribution. Not to say those are minor issues, of course.
 
put opposing magnets to the fin tips and the opposite side so the fan will virtually float. that would put much less pressure on the bearings .
 
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