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Next Generation CPU Refrigerators
Iddo Genuth writes "Researchers at Purdue University are developing a miniature refrigeration system, small enough to fit inside laptop computers. According to the researchers, the implementation of miniature refrigeration systems in computers can dramatically increase the amount of heat removed from the microchips, therefore boosting performance while simultaneously shrinking the size of computers."
And how much electricity will this consume? It may not be that appealing to laptop users if it eats significantly into their battery life. And for servers many colo companies are finding themselves less constrained by space than by available electricity.
Loose lips lose spit.
Don't air conditioning units tend to produce a bit of water condensation during cooling? I guess we'll have to start emptying the water out of our PCs....
Regardless of the cooling ability, it will put the same load on the laptop's battery, likely a little bit more because it has to run the compressors.
And that heat still needs to be dumped somewhere...
I guess this would be great for certain difficult hot-spots on the board, but a well-designed heat sink can usually handle it. The trade-off is that it adds more weight.
Translation:
This is completely impractical hype so far. We are looking for grant and startup money.
Yeah I don't get this, the heat need to leave the laptop somehow, and since the refrigerator will have to be within the laptop the heat remains inside it. Also since the refrigerator won't be 100% effecient this will both generate MORE heat and energy from the battery.
Sure the CPU may get colder, but your lap will get warmer. Bad trade I'd say.
Yeah I don't get this, the heat need to leave the laptop somehow, and since the refrigerator will have to be within the laptop the heat remains inside it
The refrigerator's exterior heat exchanging pipes don't have to be inside the refrigerator itself. They didn't give any technical specs, so what are you worried about? Surely if they are working on this project, they'll have thought or experienced this problem if they were putting all items in the same location.
Also, consider that, to a point, the ambient heat inside a laptop can be higher, as long as the PUs are kept cool. Of course if this were the only consideration, eventually the ambient heat would screw all the components except for the processors, but, as I said, they've considered this already. I'm sure of it.
"Little is much when little you need."
Refrigeration systems use compressors, which are big power drags. The battery drain here can not be overlooked.
Refrigeration systems from desktops exist, and they are called water-coolers.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
Of course the cooling system will use power and generate heat, but that heat won't necessarily be as much as a fan. A fan uses power to dissipate heat and in the process generates heat. I don't know the proper thermodynamic way to state this, but it's possible to make a more or less efficient cooling system. For example, it would be exceedingly inefficient to use a V8 engine to cool a laptop. It would do a hell-of a job of cooling the thing, but it would generate a whole lot more heat and suck down a whole lot more energy than a small electric fan.
This thing might use less power and do a better job of moving power than a fan. I have no idea if this thing works better. If this device is more efficient than a fan (uses less energy and releases less heat), then it would be superior and would not make a lappy hotter. Otherwise, it's really only good for server applications where the heat can be pumped outside the box that holds the server.
This one's tricky. You have to use imaginary numbers, like eleventeen... --Hobbes
Don't you mean the Year of Vista on the Desktop? A more unattainable goal, and more related to the issue of insane heat generation...
Check the back of your fridge, it's hot.
So by cooling by this method you may cool the cpu surface, butyou will produce alot more heat out of the laptop.
Fried laps ?
G
You're saying this to a guy who obviously doesn't understand why his eggs aren't frying inside of his kitchen refrigerator.
Well, personally I don't care if my CPU is 45 degrees or 75 degrees as long as my lap isn't 70 degrees.
And the sad fact with my MBP is that it probably is :D (no it's not but it's too hot.) :/
I'd so take 5 mm fatter computer for better cooling
Why would you EVER want to DECREASE the size of a beer can?!?!
Blasphemer...
"Of course, the next step will be to dramatically increase the heat output of high-end CPUs. Aren't arms races fun?"
I know you were being cheeky, but the "heat problem" is a problem only when trying to use cheap materials to make CPU's, the "heat problem" can move farther, or closer to you, depending on how much you are willing to spend on materials, research, etc.
Personally as far as I'm concerned, I've been thinking a lot about CPU specialization lately, with the success of 3D add in cards over general purpose CPU, I'm wondering if it wouldn't be in our best interest to simply look at the most processor intensive functions that can be either 1) parallelized or 2) highly specialized, and offload them to specialized hardware.
I don't think multi-core is going to cut it, it seems to me each processor needs it's own mememory and bandwidth to do massive calculations, and then sends the results of this information to where it is needed.
I'm really wondering if anyone has done any research into the geometry of information processing functions, of what can be specifically offloaded and what should not
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Already exists to some extent. Anybody who uses their system as a PVR knows the virtues of specialized chips. I have a TV Tuner, and it does MPEG2 encoding on board. You can record encoded video without even pushing your actual CPU above 10%. I remember trying to do the same thing with a TV Tuner without onboard encoding chips, and you could only encode at very low bitrates, and even then you'd have dropped frames and out of sync audio. For tasks that are extremely calculation intensive that you do often, it's generally a really good idea to get specialized chips. However, I can't think of any other processing that gets done on most computers regularly to justify creating a specialized chip that doesn't already exist. Sound, graphics, physics, video encoding, all have their own processors. What's left?
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
.. i think it was a reference to tux ("our aquatic, flightless and mostly cold-loving friend"), living on the cpu, in the mini-fridge.
ha-ha, i'd say, but... naw.
now... if we're putting fridges in our computers, we might as well grab a beer and start running unix. i mean, who cares what you're trying to run when you're drunk?