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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."
Also seeks out John Conner.
Job? I don't have time to get a job! Who will sit around and bitch about being broke and unemployed then?
Cool.
* ducks *
Raise your children as if you were teaching them to raise your grandchildren, because you are.
1. The card runs hotter
2. The card runs faster
3. geek cred points.
I'm voting for 3.
If my call is important, why am I talking to a recording?
When your videocard starts leaking, don't mind the components being destroyed, but worry about a T1000 dripping out of your computer.. from the FAQ: Q: How will I know if my videocard is leaking? A: Ask your parents why "wolfie" is barking and if they answer you while the the dog is actually named "Max" then your videocard is leaking.
Considering they said it's environmentally safe, I doubt it's mercury. Considering it's intended to /cool/ your gpu, I doubt it's molten lead.
Even if it were either, why couldn't it be good? 20x the cooling sounds pretty good to me, and if it's safe and environmentally friendly, what's the problem?
Pulp Audio Weekly - Geek News and Reviews
So now I have to worry about memory leaks, security leaks, and liquid metal video card coolant leaks, ahhhh crap, this is all getting way to confusing.
I have enough trouble just keeping everything from blowing up everytime I get nailed by a thunderstorm, last time it was crack/fizz/is that smoke? Whats next, crack/fizz/smoke/drip?
It also doesn't mention if it's non-conducting, when I get struck by lightning 5h1t explodes, wouldn't that be fun to watch as the entire motherboard gets sprayed with a liquid metal conductive material, gaaaaaaa!
Like arts? Like cheesy little Indie mags? Check out www.artwerkmag.com, and don't laugh at the bad coding please.
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According to their website, the "TOXIC X700 PRO" features "Lethal Cooling". I think they need a new marketing department.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
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".
A one slot and nearly-silent top end card.
1. NFPA requires NASCAR style fire extinguisher inside computer case.
2. House wiring must be upgraded and a 440v 3 phase outlet installed next to your computer.
3. Homeowners insurance rider for extreme fire hazard.
4. Fire retardent metal door must be installed between computer room and rest of house.
5. Town must grant zoning variance for indstrial scale use of power in a residence.
6. Special monitor must be installed which notifies the Fire Department when your frame rate exceeds 250.
61% Gallium
25% Indium
13% Tin
1% Zinc
Solid at 6.5C
Liquid at 7.6C
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
Here's a little bit more info, no word on T1000's involvement.
However, I wouldn't be surprised to hear that owners of this new "metal liquid cooling" at a LAN party ending quite horribly.
I can see it start with a few leaks, the liquid metal all joins together... T1000 lives again...
I'm pretty sure they're using gallium. It melts at 85F, is nontoxic (unlike mercury), and is nonflammable (unlike rubidium, cesium, sodium, and potassium, the only other metals I know of that melt at reasonable temperatures for a graphics card). Gallium also has almost exactly 65 times the thermal conductivity of water.
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 ?
What state is it in between 6.6C and 7.5C????
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
Is this possible?
Last time I checked molten metal (burning death) and Mercury (deadly poison) was toxic.
AHHH, Nothing like a warm sip of heatsink juice to warm you up on a cold winter night.
--Greg
It's an alloy of gallium and indium
http://nwc.serverpipeline.com/news/54200844
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.
Geeze, why does /. keep on linking to physorg, which has crappy articles and no links to real information about stuff.
Here's a more in depth article on X-bit. NanoCoolers has a pretty in depth description of the product. It's basically a watercooling loop but using a molten metal. The really cool part is that because the metal is obviously electrically conductive, they're using a DC current combined with some magnets to take advantage of Lorentz force to propel the fluid.
The liquid metal cooling topic was covered on /. before, eg:/ 03/1421243&tid=222/
http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/05
The technology probably derives from http://www.nanocoolers.com/products_cooling.php/
Sapphire is just the OEM manufacturer of ATi cards. For quite a while you could only get ATi branded cards but now you can get them from ATi or Sapphire. I doubt they have much to do with the technology besides licensing it.
From TFA
"The revolutionary use of an electromagnetic pump means no internal moving parts, low power consumption and delivers near silent operation. "
Near-silent? What is making the noise then?
It'll be between the liquidus and solidus lines, so you'll have a composition of liquid plus some small amount of alpha-phase.
It's undefined, and if you dare use it at that temperature you'll just get a null pointer exception.
Both liquid and solid: Recrystalizing state.
Oh well, what the hell...
Anyways, there are plenty of metal alloys that are liquid at or slightly above room temperature.
But even discounting alloys, there's are a few other elemental metals other than mercury that are liquid at room temp (assuming your room has a computer or two to keep it warm): Gallium melts at 29.76 degrees C and Cesium at 28.44 degrees (I'd keep the latter far from my computer though). Rubidium melts at 39.31 degrees, so it'd be liquid at the temperatures today's GPUs reach (but I'd keep that far from my computer too).
Did some research, found the following two patents:
T O2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=/netahtml/search-bool.html&r =1&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=ptxt&s1=nanocoolers&OS=nanoc oolers&RS=nanocoolers
T O2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=/netahtml/search-bool.html&r =2&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=ptxt&s1=nanocoolers&OS=nanoc oolers&RS=nanocoolers
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=P
And
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=P
It looks like they're using a Gallium/Indium (rare elements) alloy. This is certainly not environmentally safe from a chemical point of view as these are toxic heavy metals. I think by environmentally safe they are pointing to the "sealed" system that they are advertising. That is, they dont exepect the systems to leak, as they do not require any refilling.
Basically, their argument appears to be that it's safe because it cant get out, just like coolant in a nuclear reactor. This is actually a reasonable claim, however, we shouldnt take it to mean that the liquid metal coolant itself is evironmentally sound, just that the system, while in operation, is.
P.S. it appears they've also experimented w/ Lead/Bismuth, mercury, and Sodium/Potassium alloys.
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...
With a cooling loop, you'd like a liquid that can carry a lot of heat per trip and doesnt get too hot in doing so. Water gobbles up a whole kilocalorie per cc for each degree. gallium is dreadful by comparison-- it has a FIFTEEN times poorer specific heat, so it either goes up 15 degrees per cc as it passes the GPU, or the pump has to put out 15 times the flow rate to give the same cooling rate as plain old H20.
Good old H20.
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!
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.
Antec Phantom 350 PSU
Gigabyte 6800 fanless (only 12 pipes, but not a big sacrifice...though if this liquid metal stuff works it should make things easier the next time I upgrade)
Thermalright CPU heatsink with a 120mm fan on a Zalman fan bracket and set at minimum on a Zalman fanmate control.
All in an Antec 3700BQE case with quiet 120mm exhaust fan.
The annoying thing was that as soon as I got rid of one whining or droning noise I'd notice a slightly quieter one... Now, it's inaubible except in dead silence.
non-flammable, non-toxic, environmentally safe
Yeah, they said that about water too but stupid college students die from it every few years anyways.
Seriously, this is cool stuff but any new substance should be considered at least slightly suspect until long-term dangers are known. That's not to say we shouldn't use it, only that we should be intellectually honest with ourselves.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
I would assume that they're using some kind of an alloy that has a lower freezing temperature. One possibility is an alloy of gallium, indium, and tin (also known as Galinstan) which has a freezing point of -20 degrees centigrade.
..wayne..
>>Liquid metal computer component cooling was discussed here not to long ago.
Indeed. link to Liquid Metal CPU Cooling 03May05
Overclocked PCs as lava lamps using real lava...
"So Dave, any idea if you can knock your cpu down a few cycles? The tremors are rattling my windows and keeping my kids up at night and the pyroclastic flow last week incinerated the fence, my garage, and my fishing boat. I know that building a Doom 3 terminal server capable of hosting five million players in real time is important to you, but..."
Speaking of which, go read Eric K. Drexler's Engines of Creation regarding the kind of cooling that some nanocomputers would require. Pipes with flows of many gallons per minute, superheated high pressure steam being output...
If my grammar and spelling are off, I am [distracted/tired/careless] (take your pick)
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.
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
Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!
Buy an Eden-based machine if that's what you like, but I don't see how it's "wrong" for a computer to have liquid cooling.
For most of the history of computing, liquid cooling has been associated with the ultra-high-end computing. I once saw a picture of the pipes that carry the liquid to cool one of the NSA's supercomputers, they were 8" or 10" pipes, if I recall.
Besides, cars get faster and more powerful, televisions get larger, stereos get more powerful, houses get bigger, and cometic surgeons use more and more implants. I don't see anything atypical about computers competing for insanity, either. =)
steve
Oh, you're not stuck, you're just unable to let go of the onion rings.
Actually, the electronic damping on the C6 Corvette does not depend on liquid metal in the shocks as you assert. What the shocks actually contain is oil in which are suspended tiny ball bearings (for lack of a better word). These ball bearings are coated with a special substance that not only allows them to float in the oil, but also distributes them uniformly throughout the oil. These ball bearings are then acted on by electromagnets to vary the viscosity of the oil. To quote Car and Driver:
Well, it may be solid, but that doesn't mean it isn't absorbing heat. Melting typically takes significantly more energy than would be absorbed by a temperature increase, so the melting metal would probably actually cool your CPU better than the liquid result.
In addition, metals (by definition, I believe) have good heat conduction properties (that's why some heatsinks use metal heat pipes these days), so a large portion of the metal would probably end up melting and start flowing. You probably wouldn't just get a bubble of super-heated liquid gallium frying your CPU. You'd just start off with a normal-ish metal heatsink until the gallium melted.
Of course, there are other reasons not to use gallium, as other people have mentioned here.
I've come for the woman, and your head.