Extreme cooling

[f95toli]

I have seen some web-sites where people have OC 2.2 GHz processors to more than 3.5 GHz by cooling the processor with liquid nitrogen.
I was just wondering if someone had tried making a more permanent super-cooled setup by using for example a cryo-cooler? It would be expensive but it should be possible to cool the processor to around 100 K (-173 C).

 

[Lizardman]

There is a company that makes a computer cooling system that uses a frig cooler. Its called vapochill. There is another actually that is called prometiea. They both let processors run as low as -10 c under load. Of course it depends on the processor.

 

[f95toli]

I have seen those, but -10 C is still not very cold compared to the temperatures you reach using liquid nitrogen. I am of course not suggesting that you would put a cryocooled processor in a "normal" computer (expensive and noisy), but it would still be ínteresting to see what kind of speeds you could reach.

 

[CaptnKirk]

We used a Dewar Flask closed loop liquid helium cooler on an infrared imager at a temperature of - 269C.
to deliver the helium to a cryostat mounted on a detector or 'Eye-Ball' board.
Cryogenic Coolers may be a bit pricey for a home computer.

 

[f95toli]

I know the price is high (a cryo-cooler costs at least $3000) but that has never stoped peope before. It is probably not something a single person could affort but what about some sponsored event or a company?

Liquid helium would by the way not work, mainly because silicon-based semiconductors don't work below temperatures of about 30 K. Another problem is that it would boil off in no time.

 

[CaptnKirk]

The Dewar Flask is a closed system self regenerator, in other words it reverses flow on the outer edge of the fluid line to return to the resivour.
you might look in military surplus stores, as IR view technology is over 20 years mature, so early surplus should be hitting the markets - a little
crude the old ones, but they should be able to be recharged with nitrogen. The coldplate that attaches to the chipset device does not get down to the actual temperature of the cryogenic liquid either, flow rate adjustments let you tailor the thermal application and dwell.