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Liquid Metal Cooling in New ATI Video Card
MellowTigger writes "Water cooling is so passe, definitely 20th-century. What's the 21st-century geek to do to keep his gaming video card cool? Try the liquid metal technology that will be included in the ATI Radeon X850 XT video card using the cooling technology from Sapphire. This material is reported to be non-flammable, non-toxic, environmentally safe... and 65 times more thermally conductive than water."
They say it's not flammmable, so it's not the eutectic alloy of sodium and potassium that's liquid at room temperature. It's not toxic, so it's not mercury.
Gallium might be possible since it melts a few degrees over room temperature. It's only mildly toxic but nobody should call it "nontoxic".
As it's a liquid metal.. and the only one liquid at temperatures around room temperature to 100 degrees C are lead, mercury and maby a lead tin amalgam.. it's got to be some new thing.
I'm curious about the chemical composistion of this new amalgam, as it must be (unless they're using highly reactive cesium, which I really doubt).
Anyone know any chemical details ?
"Gallium metal expands by 3.1 percent when it solidifies, and therefore should not be stored in either glass or metal containers. Gallium also corrodes most other metals by diffusing into their metal lattice"
Doesn't sound very easy to store.
Not a Twitter sockpuppet... but I wish I was.
First in the Blizzard range will be the SAPPHIRE Blizzard RADEON X850 XT and Blizzard RADEON X850 XT Platinum Editions. Blizzard delivers the future of gaming with the ability to push blistering frame rates and deliver environments erupting with vibrant colours and highly detailed textures rendered in High-Definition clarity.
Combining Sapphire innovations with game developers' creations, users won't miss a single feature of today's gaming titles. This hardware boasts 16 parallel pixel pipelines, 256MB of GDDR3 memory, and PCI Express interface. From innovative minds working to deliver to users who demand the peak of performance in every aspect of their graphics card, the Sapphire Blizzard RADEON X850 XT Turns the Ordinary into Extraordinary.
Is all this not a little overkill? I mean, really, isn't water-cooling cool enough for people? Certainly, I have a GPU cooled with the good 'ol fan & heatsink combo -- I get damn good performance, pretty close to what they're describing and it didn't cost me the Earth. The noise isn't bad either: it's drowned out many times over by the fans on the PSU.
The other interesting thing to note -- while this may be really useful for the up and coming mini-PCs (think Mac Mini) that need a well cooled (to prevent overheating) and quiet solution -- it'll take up too much space. An extra PCI slot is just a no go when space is at a premium. I'd also love to see this type of technology implemented on mini-PCI slots, where the extra cooling is essential for performance. Now that would be useful.
When I first saw that they were using liquid metal, my first thought was "Why?!" Water has a gigantic heat capacity, and is in may ways the Ideal Coolant.
But then I saw: "Electromagnetic pump with no moving parts." So it looks like they're sacrificing some of the coolant properties of water so that they can use something very electrically-conductive, and gain the advantage of silent operation.
That said, IIRC there are no-moving-parts water pumps that use electrochemical effects (something with electrolysis and dragging ions through the water), but I've always assumed that they're limited to small flow rates.
Now I want to know how this no-moving-parts liquid-metal-pump works. Maybe use a square-cross-sectioned pipe with an insulating top and bottom and conductive sides; pass a current between the sides, and put large permanent magnets above and below? Or do it linear-induction-motor style? Hmmm...
sodium isn't exactly fireproof
Actually it's a cool thing to see a piece of sodium in plain, simple, pure water....(hint: google for sodium and water)
Here we go again!
Please elaborate on MS DRM being cracked. Is this something that applies to WMA files as well? The only thing that's stopped me from using online music stores is the lack of something akin to fairplay to ensure the files I purchase won't ultimately be rendered obsolete if/when I buy a new player that may or may not support the same DRM standards being used now.
This has been used inside aircraft engine exhaust valves since the 1930's. Liquid Sodium would be sealed inside the valve. It's non-toxic and is still used today.
Hmm. According to material safety data sheets I've Googled at, Indium has and LD50 in rats of 4200mg/Kg (4.2grams/kilogram), What I see for Gallium is "Chronic Effects: Intravenous administration to humans caused metallic taste, skin rashes and bone marrow depression as well as anorexia, nausea and vomiting. May cause damage to kidneys."
So "Do not mainline". Otherwise, s'ok.
so what happens when you're *gasp* upgrading to the next video card and want to dispose of this one? there's already a disposal problem with a lot of computer parts, is this comparable or worse and will the companies that dispose of parts now be ready to accept this new one?
You'll be thinking of the Alfa class attack boats?
The ones which used the BM-40A reactor. A lead-bismuth cooled design, making 150MW(th), which could push these boats to 43 knots - faster than any NATO torpedo when they were introduced. They could also dive to 600m due to their titanium hulls, and had a crew of about 30 - engineering and ordinance being automated from the the control room.
On the downside, they were fairly noisy, at least when they were at full power; and there were problems with the coolant freezing when the reactor was shutdown, which lead to the reactors never being shutdown. (On the other hand, they were much safer in a coolant loss incident than a water cooled reactor).
All in all, a very impressive boat.
Umm.. Centrifugal force is quite real and describes exactly the effect I am talking about. You are probably thinking of centripetal force, which is exerted on the galinstan by the walls of its container, which would be another accurate but less useful in this context way of putting things since you probably want to think of the mirror as stationary for doing the math and intuitively thinking about the shape of the mirror.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centrifugal_force
I am not sure where the persistant myth that centrifugal does not exist came from, but it is quite bothersome. It is a well established term with a precise meaning. I mean, it exists due to a coordinate transform, but that doesn't make the math and results any less valid!
http://notanumber.net/
The Russians used liquid metal cooling in their nuclear subs. It was efficient, but unfortunately the liquid metal carried the radiation well, and all cooling tubes had to bne coated in lead along with the reactor itse;f
Actualy the last storm lit my UPS on fire, and blew out all the surge protectors also. Then it sent 1.21 gigawatts through my hub and across the entire network blowing up all of the network cards in the house. Strangest damn thing I had ever seen. It was a really good hit, the fuse in my power supply wasn't just blown, it was blown apart and even the leads were torn off the circuit board, not to mention the FETS were detonated and bent over.
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