Slashdot Mirror
Vapor-phase Processor Cooling
Econolinecrush writes "If even exotic water-cooling isn't enough for your processor cooling needs, there's always vapor-phase cooling. The Tech Report has an interesting review of Asetek's latest Vapochill system, an admittedly pricey cooling option, but one that manages to fight off condensation while keeping even high-end processors running at sub-zero temperatures. A little extreme? Sure, but it's undeniably cool nonetheless." I haven't seen a cooling system this intense since my organic chemistry labs.
partly true, partly false. Cooling a CPU increases its lifespan (as if they'll die before they're 1/1000 the speed of newer cheaper processors). All you have to do is cool AROUND the threads. They can get as hot as they want, and as long as they don't melt the silicon (around) or other stuff, it should be perfectly fine. If I could have a processor cooled to 20 K, i'd do it.
and here is the tomshardware review http://www4.tomshardware.com/howto/20030224/index. html
I don't claim I know more than I know, and if you know you know more than I know, then by all means, let me know.
Interesting nonetheless.
voltage = potential difference from start to finish. There is a certain charge on the power supply that doesn't change, and at the end of the power supply that doesn't change. More resistance causes less current to flow.
Cool yes, but not too cold. Keep the chip in spec for stability and long life. Colder is not necessarily always better.
The poster probably meant that you can run a higher Vcore without as much concern for the increased temperature that results (from the increased current).
For those who don't know, you typically run a higher Vcore when overclocking a system in order to improve stability (i.e. in order to ensure that CPU signals can still ramp up/ramp down to valid voltages quickly enough at the faster clock rate).
For those who know more than I, please feel free to correct me or elaborate where I've oversimplified.
There are no karma whores, only moderation johns
Kryotech used to have a product that provided vapor phase cooling for Athlons. They sold barebones systems with case, motherboard, and refrigeration, and you provided the rest. They were achieving clock rates of about 20% higher than you could get with traditional cooling techniques at the time. Plus, they were officially sanctioned by AMD in the sense that using the Kryotech cooling system didn't invalidate your processor warranty.
Using Kyrotech cooling, you could get a system running at 1 GHz when the fastest official parts from Intel and AMD were topping out at 700-800 MHz.
Then AMD and Intel increased clock speed like crazy, nobody wanted to pay $2000 for a small bit of clock rate improvement, and Kryotech decided to stop selling consumer stuff.
The Cray X1 is a Very Neat machine.. It employs phase change cooling.
Cray has a very nice 45 minute video with lots of good clips of the fog spray, etc:
http://cray.com/company/video/x1.html
Cooling it is NOT a waste of power and it will NOT shorten the life of your cpu.
:D
The cooler you run your cpu, the longer it will last. Yes, between -1 and -30 (celcius)you WILL be able to overclock more.
The reason you can overclock more is this: To get a higher clock speed out of your cpu, you need to increase the voltage its running at. The problem comes from the fact that when you raise the voltage, you substantially raise the temp your cpu is putting out, and if you dont dissipate this heat, you will get lockups and instability.
This way, if you have your cpu running at a crazy high voltage, you can get crazy high clockspeeds out of it.
Here is an example of a cpu that was clocked at around 2.2 ghz and got to over 3 ghz with a vapochill system.
You will never see that with watercooling (room temp) or aircooling.
So obviously there is reason to cool the cpu down past 0 degrees C.
Now it just comes to the question, do you want to spend that much money on cpu cooling.
For that price you could buy several new cpu's. On the other hand, you can use the vapochill system on any new cpu you buy, so i guess its up to you to decide
It's easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them.
Reducing speed in itself does not change wattage in any way. However, with a lower speed, you can also use a lower current (less "driving force" to change from 0 to 1 and vice versa). Notebook chips have circuitry that lets them change their power drain on-the-fly, something desktop processors can't do (or I think the PIV can, but only if overheating, not software controlled).
The base power gain is equal to the square of the voltage difference (That is, 90% voltage = 90%*90% = 81% power use), which in turn will allow you to reduce fan speed etc.
As for how far down you can underclock, that's a good question. The problem is timing, because even if all operations will go slower, the speed of pulses do not (about 2/3rds of c). So, if you underclock too far, the signals might actually arrive "too soon".
What the actual limit is will depend on the core of your specific processor, so you won't really know. Of course you can underclock down to the slowest processor speed with that core without risk, but then why not buy the slower version anyway?
The point here would be to go below that, but unlike overclocking I don't see how this could in any way damage your processor, so it's just to try and fail. Probably the best thing would be to try until it fails, and up it a notch or two. You really wouldn't want a boarderline unstable system out of it.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
In fact, lowering the temperature of the CPU will actually increase processor life, all other things being equal. Heat can and will shorten a processor's life; a process called "thermal electron drift" will cause the transistors to fail (perhaps someone more intelligent than I could fill in the details; I just know it ruins processors and the rate is directly proportional to the heat of the CPU over long periods of time).
That's it. I'm no longer part of Team Sanity.
u guys ever actually know anything before sprouting off? or what?
a CPU is not a resistor, so don't expect the power-drain to be similar to be a linear thing like a resistor.
CMOS process (read about how they work) forms a channel for one of the two transistors, and to form the channel the power needed is in the nA (nano-amp) range. to maintain the channel, similar.
but when CMOS drains power is when the pair switches - i.e. both transistors are partially ON. current flows from power to ground through a relatively low resistance channel, wasted as heat.
so, for a modern processor, (or SRAM, or whatever based on CMOS), the steady-state power is negledgable, but scales pretty much linearly to frequency - you can count the number of transistors transisting to be another factor (so 100% usage of FPU at 3GHz is different power consumption than the same of the integer unit), but it's not worth the trouble.
Conclusion? yes reducing speed reduces power MOST EFFECTIVELY, besides process (manufacture) changes.
My life in the land of the rising sun.