Early last year startup CoolChip Technologies partnered with Cooler Master to show off a prototype kinetic cooler at CES 2015. The two companies were allegedly working on a new processor heatsink that would be priced in line with current heatsink + fan designs but would be smaller, quieter, and less prone to collecting dust! Unfortunately that revolutionary HSF product never materialized (just like the Sandia Labs prototype), and while we may still see that cooler some day it appears like it is not going to be anytime soon. With that said, it is not all bad news for fans of these promising processor coolers, because if a recent social media tease by the startup is any indication CoolChip technologies has decided to move forward with its own branded kinetic cooler!
Specifically, CoolChip teased a new and upcoming product launch aimed at cooling Intel Skylake CPUs with up to 70W TDPs. Along with the statement that the kinetic cooler is “coming soon!” the company posted three images of the new cooler, and it looks awesome.
Resembling something a Predator might be using to cool their PC, the CoolChip cooler has a stationary base plate with a motor that spins a small array of fins in a manner that facilitates heat transfer from the base plate to the spinning heatsink (which is in lieu of a fan — the heatsink is the fan) via a very thin layer of air that keeps the heatsink balanced as well. That spinning heatsink portion is then further surrounded by stationary rings of fins likely connected to the base plate using heatpipes for that extra bit of cooling potential. The inner impeller (vertical) fins are angled one direction while the outer stationary ring of horizontal fins are angled the opposite direction. The impeller pulls cool air in and pushes it outwards through the stationary fins and out into the case where case fans will then exhaust that hot air out of the case. CoolChips has an animated illustration of how this impeller design cools versus a traditional heatsink and fan design which is available on their website.
Other features of the small kinetic cooler include a braided cable with fan header to get power from the CPU_Fan header on the motherboard. It is not clear if this connector is 4 pin and supports PWM or not though. One of the more promising bits of this teaser is the photo of the cooler in retail packaging which adds at least a little bit of credence that we might actually see this product launch at some point. The package appears to include the 1U Low Profile Kinetic Cooler itself, a motherboard backplate, and a small tube of thermal paste (TIM).
Possibly the coolest (heh) part of this teased product is the third photo which suggests that there will be multiple color options for the impeller which would allow users to customize the heatsink color to match their PC’s design scheme.
You can check out the post for yourself here. I am really excited to finally see new information on kinetic cooling, and this CoolChip cooler in particular looks really interesting and I hope that it actually materializes and I can finally read some reviews on it! What are your thoughts on kinetic cooling for PCs?
Also read:
Would really like to read
Would really like to read review of this new cooler.
http://imgur.com/htQQ17d
http://imgur.com/htQQ17d
I remember these coolers from
I remember these coolers from a few years back i think. 4 years ago was the original story. Wow took long time for them to finally get released.
I was thinking the exact same
I was thinking the exact same thing.
what bout haswell user? i
what bout haswell user? i like this cooler to replace my intel stock cooler but i’m ANTI Cooler Master!
So long as it’s a 70W TDP or
So long as it's a 70W TDP or under chip it should be able to cool it, so long as your mobo has the mounting holes for it. Haswell and Skylake boards (LGA 1150 and 1151) use the same HSF mounting holes IIRC.
i5-4460 TDP 84W can support
i5-4460 TDP 84W can support rite?
No. 84>70…
No. 84>70…
Probably not, that cpu’s tdp
Probably not, that cpu’s tdp is 20% higher than the cooler’s cooling capacity. It will fit but the temperature’s will be terrible when you start putting the cpu under load.
It would work but once you
It would work but once you put your processor under load, the cooler would not be able to keep up and the cpu will either downclock or shut off the pc to save itself from overheating. In order to support that chips full performance potential you would need a beefier cooler. If all you do is office and web browsing it might be okay but you are limiting yourself.
“The inner impeller
“The inner impeller (vertical) fins are angled one direction while the outer stationary ring of horizontal fins are angled the opposite direction. The impeller should help to draw air through the stationary fins and push hot air out into the case where case fans will help pull that hot air of the case and cool air into the case.”
From all previous descriptions of the design (and the diagram on Coolchip’s website), the rotating heatsink draws air from the centre and ejects it from the periphery, not vice versa.
Aha, right you are! I suppose
Aha, right you are! I suppose that method works too! 🙂 I'll see if I can add that illustration…
While the technology does
While the technology does look cool, I can’t see it replace fan-based design. It just have to be more expensive and more prone to breaking down, as the moving part is much heavier.
Also, they should really put a grill on top of it, or I can see injures coming.
It doesn’t look like it has
It doesn’t look like it has any heat pipes unless the base plate is a vapor chamber. From what I have read about it, it seems like it would require very precise machining to produce, which will make it expensive. Also, the 70 watt limit implies that it actually has quite low cooling capacity. If you are running an overclocked processor with a giant 300 watt capacity cooler, then this isn’t an interesting device.
To my understanding the
To my understanding the air-bearing (thin layer) depends on gravity, i.e. the cooler must have it’s axis in a vertical direction. Does anybody know if this is still true for this model?
not going to work. if anyone
not going to work. if anyone remembers, back when AMd had their xp series cpu’s, Coolermaster had blower style coolers. they went sour really fast.
The direction of the air flow
The direction of the air flow is the only thing comparable to the xp series coolers. The methods that these types of coolers use is extremely different then only blowing air out. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWQZNXEKkaU
This video explains very well.
Finally released 29 September
Finally released 29 September 2016 https://twitter.com/CoolChipTech as Thermaltake Engine 27 http://www.thermaltake.com/products-model.aspx?id=C_00002957