Sapphire's liquid gallium VPU cooler

[vailr]

Sapphire broke new ground with the announcement of a Radeon X850 XT Platinum Edition sporting a cooling system based on liquid metal developed by NanoCoolers. It works like a water cooling system, but instead uses magnetic pumps to circulate liquid gallium alloy. Sapphire states that the temperature achieved is 10 degrees Celsius below that offered by an Arctic Cooling solution. The Radeon X850 XT PE Blizzard is a 16 pixel pipelines card clocked at 540 MHz with 256 MB of GDDR3 memory at 1.18 GHz.

http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/news/307
http://www.sapphiretech.com/vga/blizzard.asp
http://www.nanocoolers.com/technology_liquid.php

The Liquid Metal

The liquid metal has significant advantages over other single phase liquid solutions. The thermal and physical properties of the material give it the ability to cool extremely high heat fluxes. With its very low vapor pressure, the boiling point of the material is in excess of 2000°C. This provides the capability to cool extremely high power densities without the liquid-metal changing phase, removing power density as the limiting factor in cooling performance. The liquid metal is non-flammable, non-toxic and environmentally friendly. As a metal, the liquid is both highly thermally conductive and highly electrically conductive. The thermal conductivity makes it ideal for heat removal and dissipation. The electrical conductivity enables the use of electromagnetic pumps to propel the liquid.

 

[Gurck]

Cool stuff. Unfortunately, due to their customer trickery with the 128bit 9800 "pro", I'll have to wait until a different manufacturer offers this technology to buy it.

 

[Battlewaffle]

that's cool stuff. I expect in the future......all vid cards and CPU's will be cooled like this.

 

[Looney]

Wow sounds really cool... especially if there's a see through tank and the liquid-metal travels at a fast speed so there's some splashing/movement in the tank.

 

[Auric]

Originally posted by: Gurck
Cool stuff. Unfortunately, due to their customer trickery with the 128bit 9800 "pro", I'll have to wait until a different manufacturer offers this technology to buy it.

Dinna cut off yer nose to spite yer face.

 

[Appledrop]

R

 

[Gurck]

Originally posted by: Auric

Originally posted by: Gurck
Cool stuff. Unfortunately, due to their customer trickery with the 128bit 9800 "pro", I'll have to wait until a different manufacturer offers this technology to buy it.

Dinna cut off yer nose to spite yer face.

More people need to stand up for principles, we'd live in a better world. Supporting an entity which lacks ethics only encourages lack of ethics, this is a very basic tenet of behaviorism.

 

[Appledrop]

E

 

[DaveSimmons]

Just don't put the card anywhere near Sarah Connor.

That's of course cool, I'd much rather have fanless cooling for cards when possible.

Of course it's no guarantee of a problem-free card, the heatpipe on my Gigabyte nv 6800 was apparently not installed properly so the GPU fried itself. Luckily I bought it from Newegg.

 

[Auric]

Originally posted by: Gurck

Originally posted by: Auric

Originally posted by: Gurck
Cool stuff. Unfortunately, due to their customer trickery with the 128bit 9800 "pro", I'll have to wait until a different manufacturer offers this technology to buy it.

Dinna cut off yer nose to spite yer face.

More people need to stand up for principles, we'd live in a better world. Supporting an entity which lacks ethics only encourages lack of ethics, this is a very basic tenet of behaviorism.

I am glad for their trickery with the 256-bit 9500, however 😛

Anyhooo, your stance may be admirable but does nothing to help if the alleged perpetrator is not aware of their potential loss. Did you write a formal letter of complaint? Start a petition? Chain yourself to corporate HQ?

 

[imported_Tick]

P

 

[Gurck]

Originally posted by: Auric
Anyhooo, your stance may be admirable but does nothing to help if the alleged perpetrator is not aware of their potential loss. Did you write a formal letter of complaint? Start a petition? Chain yourself to corporate HQ?

Not that important to me, maybe it would be if I didn't keep my ear to the ground on this sort of thing and had fallen for it. For me, simply not financially supporting a company I disagree with is plenty.

 

[Concillian]

I agree with Gurck on this one. I personally boycott Sapphire. They don't need to be contacted by me to be 'aware of their loss' The lack of my money spent on their products does that for me.

I was miffed at the 9800 "pro" issue, they issued a retraction and renamed the product to be less deceptive. Wow, great they must have learned something right? A few months later they came out with the 9600 Pro "Advantage" that was a 9600 Pro with 200 MHz RAM instead of 300. Yeah, they learned from their mistakes. NOT.

A company that seems to intentionally (and repeatedly) market products that are clearly intended to deceive well intentioned customers is not a company I want to support with money from my pocket. Obviously others feel differently. Good for them, they're entitled to spend their money as they see fit, just as I am entitled to spend my money as I see fit (at least for the remaining four months before my wedding date.)

 

[Matthias99]

Originally posted by: Concillian
I agree with Gurck on this one. I personally boycott Sapphire. They don't need to be contacted by me to be 'aware of their loss' The lack of my money spent on their products does that for me.

I was miffed at the 9800 "pro" issue, they issued a retraction and renamed the product to be less deceptive. Wow, great they must have learned something right? A few months later they came out with the 9600 Pro "Advantage" that was a 9600 Pro with 200 MHz RAM instead of 300. Yeah, they learned from their mistakes. NOT.

A company that seems to intentionally (and repeatedly) market products that are clearly intended to deceive well intentioned customers is not a company I want to support with money from my pocket. Obviously others feel differently. Good for them, they're entitled to spend their money as they see fit, just as I am entitled to spend my money as I see fit (at least for the remaining four months before my wedding date.)

Should you also not buy NVIDIA products because they put out the Geforce "4" MX (actually a slightly modified GF2 core)?

What about the "9800" SE from ATI (only had 4 pipelines, all other 4-pipe cards were designated as 9600s)?

How about all those companies that put out low-end cards with 256MB of RAM and jack up the price, when they know it doesn't improve performance (and, if they use slower RAM, actually hurts performance)?

I'm just wondering why you chose to single out Sapphire. 😕 Some of the other companies that put out R9600s with slower RAM didn't indicate it in any way except on the spec sheets...

 

[Gurck]

Originally posted by: Matthias99

Originally posted by: Concillian
I agree with Gurck on this one. I personally boycott Sapphire. They don't need to be contacted by me to be 'aware of their loss' The lack of my money spent on their products does that for me.

I was miffed at the 9800 "pro" issue, they issued a retraction and renamed the product to be less deceptive. Wow, great they must have learned something right? A few months later they came out with the 9600 Pro "Advantage" that was a 9600 Pro with 200 MHz RAM instead of 300. Yeah, they learned from their mistakes. NOT.

A company that seems to intentionally (and repeatedly) market products that are clearly intended to deceive well intentioned customers is not a company I want to support with money from my pocket. Obviously others feel differently. Good for them, they're entitled to spend their money as they see fit, just as I am entitled to spend my money as I see fit (at least for the remaining four months before my wedding date.)

Should you also not buy NVIDIA products because they put out the Geforce "4" MX (actually a slightly modified GF2 core)?

What about the "9800" SE from ATI (only had 4 pipelines, all other 4-pipe cards were designated as 9600s)?

How about all those companies that put out low-end cards with 256MB of RAM and jack up the price, when they know it doesn't improve performance (and, if they use slower RAM, actually hurts performance)?

I'm just wondering why you chose to single out Sapphire. 😕 Some of the other companies that put out R9600s with slower RAM didn't indicate it in any way except on the spec sheets...

Boycotting a chip manufacturer is a lot more involved than boycotting a card manufacturer. Almost all manufacturers make low-end cards with 256mb ram, so as someone who wants to own a card so as to be able to game, boycotting them wouldn't work.

I still won't buy a Sapphire card, and I still won't buy a game console - the latter being the reason you're here disagreeing with me in the first place 😉 Keep it in the proper thread, please.

 

[Matthias99]

Originally posted by: Gurck

Originally posted by: Matthias99

Originally posted by: Concillian
I agree with Gurck on this one. I personally boycott Sapphire. They don't need to be contacted by me to be 'aware of their loss' The lack of my money spent on their products does that for me.

I was miffed at the 9800 "pro" issue, they issued a retraction and renamed the product to be less deceptive. Wow, great they must have learned something right? A few months later they came out with the 9600 Pro "Advantage" that was a 9600 Pro with 200 MHz RAM instead of 300. Yeah, they learned from their mistakes. NOT.

A company that seems to intentionally (and repeatedly) market products that are clearly intended to deceive well intentioned customers is not a company I want to support with money from my pocket. Obviously others feel differently. Good for them, they're entitled to spend their money as they see fit, just as I am entitled to spend my money as I see fit (at least for the remaining four months before my wedding date.)

Should you also not buy NVIDIA products because they put out the Geforce "4" MX (actually a slightly modified GF2 core)?

What about the "9800" SE from ATI (only had 4 pipelines, all other 4-pipe cards were designated as 9600s)?

How about all those companies that put out low-end cards with 256MB of RAM and jack up the price, when they know it doesn't improve performance (and, if they use slower RAM, actually hurts performance)?

I'm just wondering why you chose to single out Sapphire. 😕 Some of the other companies that put out R9600s with slower RAM didn't indicate it in any way except on the spec sheets...

Boycotting a chip manufacturer is a lot more involved than boycotting a card manufacturer. Almost all manufacturers make low-end cards with 256mb ram, so as someone who wants to own a card so as to be able to game, boycotting them wouldn't work.

That would sort of be my point. You've both arbitrarily chosen to "punish" Sapphire, even though many companies are guilty of the same thing. It makes no sense.

 

[Gurck]

Originally posted by: Matthias99
That would sort of be my point. You've both arbitrarily chosen to "punish" Sapphire, even though many companies are guilty of the same thing. It makes no sense.

Shades of grey. All partake of distasteful practice A, and all distasteful practice B, but only Sapphire C.

 

[Matthias99]

Originally posted by: Gurck

Originally posted by: Matthias99
That would sort of be my point. You've both arbitrarily chosen to "punish" Sapphire, even though many companies are guilty of the same thing. It makes no sense.

Shades of grey. All partake of distasteful practice A, and all distasteful practice B, but only Sapphire C.

In your first post, you singled them out for the 9800 "Pro". I fail to see how this is any worse than the GF4MX. Both are misleadingly named products with performance far inferior to the other products they are named like. And Sapphire is hardly the only company that put out a RADEON 9600 with 200Mhz RAM.

NVIDIA gets away with it because it's "a lot more involved" to boycott them? 😕

 

[Gurck]

Originally posted by: Matthias99

Originally posted by: Gurck

Originally posted by: Matthias99
That would sort of be my point. You've both arbitrarily chosen to "punish" Sapphire, even though many companies are guilty of the same thing. It makes no sense.

Shades of grey. All partake of distasteful practice A, and all distasteful practice B, but only Sapphire C.

In your first post, you singled them out for the 9800 "Pro". I fail to see how this is any worse than the GF4MX. Both are misleadingly named products with performance far inferior to the other products they are named like. And Sapphire is hardly the only company that put out a RADEON 9600 with 200Mhz RAM.

NVIDIA gets away with it because it's "a lot more involved" to boycott them? 😕

By boycotting nVidia I'd be limiting my selection drastically, limiting myself to one chip manufacturer. Like I said, shades of grey.

 

[Matthias99]

Originally posted by: Gurck

NVIDIA gets away with it because it's "a lot more involved" to boycott them?

By boycotting nVidia I'd be limiting my selection drastically, limiting myself to one chip manufacturer. Like I said, shades of grey.

Originally posted by: Gurck
More people need to stand up for principles, we'd live in a better world. Supporting an entity which lacks ethics only encourages lack of ethics, this is a very basic tenet of behaviorism.

 

[Gurck]

Originally posted by: Matthias99

Originally posted by: Gurck

NVIDIA gets away with it because it's "a lot more involved" to boycott them?

By boycotting nVidia I'd be limiting my selection drastically, limiting myself to one chip manufacturer. Like I said, shades of grey.

Originally posted by: Gurck
More people need to stand up for principles, we'd live in a better world. Supporting an entity which lacks ethics only encourages lack of ethics, this is a very basic tenet of behaviorism.

It's not black, it's not white... it's... gray 🙂

 

[everman]

The melting point of pure gallium is about 85.5 F, so I wonder what it is for this alloy?

 

[Taejin]

Originally posted by: Matthias99

Originally posted by: Gurck

Originally posted by: Matthias99
That would sort of be my point. You've both arbitrarily chosen to "punish" Sapphire, even though many companies are guilty of the same thing. It makes no sense.

Shades of grey. All partake of distasteful practice A, and all distasteful practice B, but only Sapphire C.

In your first post, you singled them out for the 9800 "Pro". I fail to see how this is any worse than the GF4MX. Both are misleadingly named products with performance far inferior to the other products they are named like. And Sapphire is hardly the only company that put out a RADEON 9600 with 200Mhz RAM.

NVIDIA gets away with it because it's "a lot more involved" to boycott them? 😕

Dude, get off his fvckin back. We know what he means and you're ruining the thread.

 

[Matthias99]

Originally posted by: Taejin
Dude, get off his fvckin back. We know what he means and you're ruining the thread.

And the two people who posted in the thread just to say they're boycotting Sapphire weren't? 😕

I apologize for dragging the thread even further off topic, though.

 

[suicidalpigeon]

will this ever reach the cpu's?