- Feb 6, 2010
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So Haswell will be available in a 10W TDP version. Will that enable fanless ultrabooks?
What do you think?
What do you think?
I would doubt it. I had a laptop with a SU2700 which is rated at 10W TDP. Granted, this was a toshiba satellitte with plastic case, but it most definitely needed a fan running to keep from overheating.
5W is about the limit for air cooling given enough circulation. A laptop is normally very constrained so even once you get down to possible air cooling territory you will need access for air to naturally circulate a bit.
At the risk of burning your lap? Bad design choice there. It could run fanless at the expense of a bigger heatsink which adds weight and size(thickness).But what if you have a metal chassis (which is common for Ultrabooks), then that can act as a heat sink too?
Some thoughts:
* Did that laptop have an SSD or HDD? The latter produces more heat.
* Does the SU2700 have an IGP? If not, it would require an external GFX chip adding to the total system TDP. But for Haswell the IGP is included in the 10W TDP.
* The chipset used for Haswell will have lower TDP.
* There is now DDR3L memory available which has lower power consumption.
I've always wanted to see the chassis of a laptop used as a good heatsink. Fins on the sides and bottom and pipes going in two or four directions along the chassis. Considering we cool well over 30W fanless in desktops, sometimes more than 60, this should be feasible.