Annealed Pyrolytic Graphite, your next exotic cooling solution

Subject: Cases and Cooling | March 20, 2013 - 04:02 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
Tagged: annealed pyrolytic graphite, cooling, exotic materials, thermal paste

Efficient cooling has always and will always be a limiter on the power of processors, especially as the processes used shrink and transistor density increases.  Over the years we have seen heatpipes become common and watercooling move into the mainstream with the advent of all-in-one coolers.  Thermal interface material has not changed much, even though we have heard of many developments nothing has been released to market.  Carbon black proved to be too long in development and might be replaced by nanotube forests though there is do it yourself thermal paste doped with diamonds that you can make right now.

From there we saw a project doping thermal paste with graphene, which could provide conductivity of up to 600 W/mK once it becomes available, hopefully in sheet form for easy installation.  Increasing the thermal conductivity of your TIM is a good thing, assuming that the heatsink absorbing the heat can keep up with the transfer which is what makes the news out of FrostyTech so interesting.  Researchers are sandwiching a material they call K-Core Annealed Pyrolytic Graphite in between layers of aluminium and other metals to create a heatsink with a thermal conductivity of up to 1092W/mK in certain situations.  It is not as simple as doping a heatsink with this new material though, it is only efficient at moving heat horizontally. Read on to find out more at FrostyTech.

"When the thermal conductivity of copper and aluminum heat spreaders just won't cut it, the future revolves around a material called Annealed Pyrolytic Graphite. Let's consider the numbers: where a solid aluminum heat spreader has a thermal conductivity of 126W/mK, the same heatspreader with an Annealed Pyrolytic Graphite core would see thermal conductivity on the order of 1092 W/mK. That's not a typo."

Here are some more Cases & Cooling reviews from around the web:

CASES & COOLING

• Zalman FX100 CPU Cooler Review @ Hardware Secrets
• Noctua NH-L9i Review @ HCW
• Thermalright Silver Arrow SB-E Special Edition @ Kitguru
• Prolimatech Megahalems Red Series CPU Cooler Review @ Hardware Secrets
• Noctua NH-L12 @ techPowerUp
• DeepCool IceBlade Pro V2.0 Heatsink Review @ Frostytech
• Scythe Kabuto II CPU Cooler Review @ Hardware Secrets

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• Enermax ELC 240 Liquid CPU Cooler @ eTeknix
• Corsair Hydro Series H110 Liquid CPU Cooler @ eTeknix
• Corsair Hydro Series H110 Review @ OCC
• Corsair Hydro Series H110 AIO CPU Cooler @ Tweaktown
• Corsair Hydro H110 280mm AiO CPU Cooler Review @ Pro-Clockers
• Compact Liquid Cooling Systems Roundup. Part I: Water on a Budget @ X-bit Labs

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• NZXT Phantom 630 Computer Case @ Benchmark Reviews
• Zalman Z11 Plus @ Hardware.info
• IN WIN GT1 Mid-Tower ATX @ [H]ard|OCP
• Anidees AI-06W Midi Tower Review @ NikKTech
• Cooltek Coolcube Black @ techPowerUp
• Sharkoon REX8 Value Chassis @ eTeknix
• CM Storm Scout II Advanced Chassis @ eTeknix
• Nanoxia Deep Silence 2 Mid-Tower @ Tweaktown
• In Win D-Frame @ techPowerUp
• Coolermaster Centurion 6 @ Rbmods

Sapphire Releases Vapor-X CPU Cooler

Subject: Cases and Cooling | December 1, 2012 - 10:18 PM | Tim Verry
Tagged: vapor-x, sapphire, hsf, cpu cooler, cooling

Sapphire, a popular graphics card add-in-board partner in the US recently announced a new product that strays from the norm. Called the Vapor-X, it is a new tower-style CPU cooler aimed at enthusiasts.

The new cooler has the Vapor-X designation because it uses the company’s vapor chamber heatsink technology to take heat away from the processor into an aluminum fin array. The vapor chamber makes contact with the CPU, and from there four 7mm heatpipes transfer heat to the aluminum fins where two 120mm fans and a black plastic shroud channel cool air through. The fans are rated at 77 CFM and a maximum of 40 dBA. Both fans have variable (PWM) speeds from 495 to 2200 RPM.

The Vapor-X heatsink has a gross weight of 1524.8 grams (approximately 3.4 pounds) including the fans. Dimensions are 135 x 110.4 x 163.5mm, and it is designed to work within the constraints of the LGA 2011 socket without limiting you to low profile memory modules.

Unfortunately, Sapphire does not list a TDP rating for this heatsink, but it is aimed at high end processors with support for the following processor sockets:

• AMD:  FM1, FM2, AM2, AM2+, AM3, AM3+
• Intel:  LGA 1366, LGA 1155, LGA 1156, LGA 775

While it has yet to show up at Newegg, it is reportedly on its way with a MSRP of $69.99. You can find more photos and specifications on Sapphire's product page.

My first major gaming graphics card was from Sapphire, so it is neat to see the company taking its graphics card cooling expertise and applying it to CPUs. The reviews should be interesting – particularly whether the shroud really helps to lower temps.

Sandia Shows Off Prototype of Its Impeller Cooler

Subject: Cases and Cooling | June 25, 2012 - 05:45 PM | Tim Verry
Tagged: sandia, impeller, heatsink, cooling, cooler, air bearing

A white paper by Sandia National Laboratories caught the attention of the media last year with big claims for high performance cooling. The researchers had claimed to invent a new type of heatsink based on a impeller design that was allegedly 30% more efficient at heat transfer while being smaller and quieter than traditional air coolers.

Dubbed the Sandia Cooler, the team has come up with an updated prototype that is nearly ready to come to market. Shown off in a recent video, the cooler is a small heatsink based on three relatively simple parts. A stationary disk acts as the base and area that comes into contact with the Integrated Heat Spreader (IHS) of a CPU. Then, a spinning array of curved fins resembling an impeller design is spun up by a small motor mounted in the center of the cooler.

During an industry day, they reportedly signed two license option agreements with two companies to bring the product to market in the areas of solid state lighting (LEDS, et al) and computer hardware cooling, implying that it is getting closer to a final product that it was last year.

Interestingly, the cooler uses an “hydrodynamic air bearing” such that the spinning part of the cooler is spun up to 2,000+ RPM such that the top part separates from the bottom stationary part and rides (they use the analogy of a car hydroplaning) on a very thin layer of air. (Update: as KngRider noted, there is still some friction from the motor spinning the upper part of the cooler, however.) That thin layer of air is what facilitates heat transference from the stationary part to the spinning fins. It does raise questions of efficiency, however. How a layer of air is more efficient than thermal interface material, for example. Reportedly, the air bearing is not an issue that will impact cooling performance but it is a difficult concept to grasp considering TIM and metal-to-metal contact has always been touted as the best cooling situation.

Sandia explains that cool air is drawn into the center of the impeller as heated air is forced outwards through the spinning fins, which reportedly enables efficient heat transfer. In the video, they demonstrate that it is capable of being extremely quiet (nearly silent) despite spinning at an extremely fast rate – the noise in the first part of the video is due to the prototype motor that is not covered. They claim that the final design will use a brush-less motor that will be much quieter.

It’s an intriguing design because of its simplicity and form factor. It is reportedly able to cool more efficiently than some of the best air coolers on the market, which use such techniques as heatpipes that come into direct contact with the CPU IHS, larger fin arrays, and multiple fans. Compared to those coolers, the Sandia prototype is much smaller and simpler in its construction.

The company has further released a white paper (PDF) and has an area of its website dedicated to more information on the Sandia cooler. While I cannot vet the fluid dynamics they detail, it certainly looks good on paper. I’m excited to see this come to market and whether or not it will live up to its promise of more efficient (and quiet!) cooling. It could be an important asset in cooling computer hardware in everything from desktops to server rooms. Also, it might just be the advancement that air coolers have been looking for as far as the next jump in performance – more than simply adding additional heatpipes or fins (and dealing with weight, size, and diminishing returns as a result) can do alone.

I’ll say that I’m skeptically optimistic on this one, but I do hope that it’s the real deal. What do you think of the impeller cooler? Does it appear promising?

Composite Copper and Graphene to make a cool couple.

Subject: General Tech, Cases and Cooling | April 10, 2012 - 06:03 PM | Scott Michaud
Tagged: graphene, cooling

Researchers at NC State University have tested the heat dissipation properties of copper-graphene. Their findings suggest that the material could be cheaper and more effective than pure copper.

Some people have gone to ridiculous lengths to cool their components. Some people flush their coolant regularly. Some people will never live down mineral oil jokes. No two computers are not on fire. Awwww.

Copper is regularly used as a method of dissipating heat as it is highly efficient when sufficiently pure. While copper is expensive, it is not expensive enough to be prohibitive for current use. Alternatives are still being explored and a researcher at NC State University believes graphene might be part of the answer.

Some people stick a bathroom suction fan out a window and run a 3” drier hose into their case.

As always, I become immediately skeptical when a team of researchers make a claim such as this. Whether or not these issues are valid have yet to be seen, but they come to mind none-the-less. The paper claims that the usage is designed for power amplifiers and laser diodes.

My first concern is with geometry. Effective cooling is achieved by exposing as much surface area between two materials as is possible for the situation. Higher heat conductance allows heat to get away much more efficiently, but the heat still needs to be removed to a reservoir of some sort, such as your room. There has not been much talk about the possibilities to then remove the heat after copper-graphene so efficiently sucks from the heat source.

My second concern is with the second layer of indium-graphene. While it seems as though the amount of indium required is quite small -- just a single layer between the heat source and the copper-graphene -- we do not really know for certain how that relates to real world applications. Indium is still a very rare element which is heavily mined for touch screen devices. It might prove to be cheap, but there is only so much of it. Would we also be able to reclaim the Indium later, or will it end up in a landfill?

These concerns are probably quite minor but it is generally good practice to not get too excited when you see a research paper. Two points if you see any of the following: Nano, Graphene or Carbon Nanotubes, Lasers, and anything related to High-Frequency.

Origin Shows New Laptop Design, Phase Change Cooled Desktop

Subject: Mobile | January 12, 2012 - 04:50 PM | Matt Smith
Tagged: Overclocked, origin, laptop, desktop, cooling, CES

Origin is one of the big names in the boutique custom PC business, and this CES the company is once again striving to prove why it deserves such credentials. I stopped by the company’s suite and saw something cool, something practical, and something jaw-dropping. 

Let’s save the best for first: Origin showed a Genesis system powered by a phase change cooling system built into the case. As a result of this system, the company is able to deliver cooling at temperatures nearing -40 degrees Celsius. The system also draws so much power that they could only run one at once – running both the phase change systems in the suite could be more than the room can handle.

With the processor’s thermals taken care of, Origin is able to overclock up to two core of the Core i7 3960X to 5.7 GHz, while the rest can be clocked up to 5.3 GHz. This is well above the base speed of 3.3 GHz and in the realm of speeds you’d expect to see in competitions.

The rest of the system is also technically impressive. Four 3GB GTX580s running in SLI are shoved in next to 12GB of RAM and two Corsair SSDs in RAID0. This impressive hardware allows the system to post a score of 6,613 in PCMark 7 and 23,014 in 3DMark 11 (with the video cards overclocked to 950 MHz).

What I found most interesting about the system, however, was Origin’s extreme attention to detail. They implemented a red-white-black theme that is conveyed not only by the motherboard and the video card but also the cooling tubes, heatsinks and even the numerous PCIe power cables sending juice to the GTX580s. Nothing was overlooked, and the result is a system that is sure to make any hardcore geek salivate.

Pricing is not available yet for this high-end configuration. Availability is expected to be around February or March.   

Origin also has their cool new laptop designs on display. Like most boutique PC companies, the laptop chassis used by Origin is a generic design (by Clevo, I believe). However, the new Origin EON15-S and EON17-S will be using custom lid panels with a look that is somewhat reminiscent of muscle car’s hood. 

The glossy prototype versions shown by Origin looked a bit cheap, but the company says the final product version will be matte. If so, these could be some sharp looking systems. Of course, the internals are as quick as ever – the EON17-S shown features a Core i7-2960XM overclocked to 4.5 GHz.

The company’s last announcement doesn’t involve a system, but rather a practial feature for customers - support. Origin is now offering free 24/7 lifetime support for its customers. This is retroactive, so previous customers now qualify for this assistance. Better still, the support is entirely US based. You won’t have to worry about your concerns being lost in translation. It is refreshing to encounter a company that is adding customer service and support rather than stripping it away. 

PC Perspective's CES 2012 coverage is sponsored by MSI Computer.

Follow all of our coverage of the show at http://pcper.com/ces!

A CPU Cooling Heatsink With Built In Computer From AMD

Subject: Cases and Cooling | January 10, 2012 - 08:43 PM | Tim Verry
Tagged: nano-itx, heatsink, e-350, cooling, cooler master, CES, APU

At CES today we saw what at first resembles a Cooler Master V6 CPU heastink and fan combo. The processor cooler features a red 120mm fan housed in a black shroud which is then attached to the heatsink itself. The heatsink is a tower design with six copper heatpipes attached to a copper CPU block. The heatpipes then lead into a tower of aluminum fins to dissipate heat.

On the back of the unit; however, there's a little something extra in the form of a nano-itx motherboard and AMD E-350 APU based on the Brazos platform. The computer is self contained and provides a number of connectivity options. For more information on the Brazos platform and E-350 APU, see our preview and review articles. A quick run down of the E-350 specifications; however, is below.

• Two Bobcat CPU cores at 1.6 GHz
• A Radeon HD 6310 GPU with 80 processing cores running at 500 MHz
• A TDP of 18 watts
• DirectX 11 Graphics and DDR3 Memory Support

The bottom of the rear of the CPU cooler is the location of the nano-ITX motherboard's rear IO panel. The motherboard features Wi-Fi, HDMI, two USB 3.0 ports, two USB 2.0 ports, Gigabit Ethernet, VGA(?), and e-SATA(?) connections.

A side view of the Cooler Master heatsink is available below.

It's certainly a new idea, and it will definitely hit home for people that don't need or want to run their power hungry main desktop all the time. Because the system is self contained it does present some usability issues. Mainly that you will need to have a KVM or VNC connection to control it and the inside of the computer case is going to become a lot more crowded with cables. Further, it would be a pain to have to open up the main desktop system just to plug in a flash drive or cable. On the other hand, it'd make for a nice media or file server and would not require the desktop be on 24/7 without needing yet another box crowding my desk so I'd give it a shot. (The inside of my computer case is already a mess of wires so what do I have to lose?)

What are your thoughts on this somewhat strange CPU cooler?

PC Perspective's CES 2012 coverage is sponsored by MSI Computer.

Follow all of our coverage of the show at http://pcper.com/ces!

Intel Core i7 2700K Overclocked to 5GHz On Air

Subject: Cases and Cooling | October 7, 2011 - 05:49 AM | Tim Verry
Tagged: cpu, Intel, core i7, 2700K, cooling

An aspiring overclocker and Coolaler forum go-er "u48802109" got his/her hands on an engineering sample and set out to see just how far he could push the upcoming Intel Core i7 2700K processor using air cooling.  In an exciting result, the overclocker was able to achieve a stable 5 GHz overclock on the 2700K with a 100 MHz bus speed and 50x multiplier.  Even more amazing are the voltage and temperature results (keeping in mind that we don't know the particular HSF being used) of the overclock.  Specifically, they were able to hit 5 GHz with 1.384 V and hit a maximum temperature of 65 C.  

A zoomed in look at the CPU-Z readout.

While air cooling may not be able to support going to much higher frequencies, water cooling could certainly open up even more headroom in the chip.  Also, keeping in mind that these are engineering samples, it will be interesting to see where the Core i7 2700K falls once it starts rolling out to consumers.  If these results hold out, it does seem like it may just be worth it to pay a few extra bucks and eschew the 2600K for new builds.  What are your thoughts, are these results encouraging to you?  You can see the full overclocking results here.