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I'm not sure what problem this is trying to solve. I have a truly fanless heatsink [1] that is ducted to a 120mm case fan at 1000RPM, which is guaranteed to produce less noise than a 2000RPM rotating metal disaster. A plus is that there is no air gap necessitating such a high rotation speed.

[1] http://www.thermalright.com/new_a_page/product_page/cpu/hr01...



According to them, the air gap provides a thermal resistance on the order of 0.02 C/W. The primary resistance is the fin -> ambient air interface.

This device is also very quiet, based on that video. Assuming their goal of 0.05 C/W resistance is reached, it would perform significantly better than the heatsink you're mentioning.


The title of the article clearly states some of the problems this is trying to solve. E.g., "dust-immune".

Also, they claim the heat sink to be relatively quiet (under 30dBa).


We'll have to wait and see about the "dust immunity". "Centrifugal force" is not by itself enough to prevent dust buildup, or existing fans running at higher RPMs would be spotless.

As for quiet, you'll still have to pair this with a case fan if you want any exhaust, so I'm not sure it compares with a fanless solution for overall noise level.


You won't be able to fit that fanless heatsink inside a laptop. It's just way too big.


The demo unit is presumably rated for about 150 watts. A unit rated for the ~40 watts that a laptop creates would be smaller and shorter.


You could probably use a heat pipe to the back of a laptop's screen. The problem becomes the joint where the screen connects to the case, but a flexible pipe is not out of the question...

To the patent office ;0


Of course, fitting this into a laptop would be problematic as well.


Indeed. I hadn't thought of that.




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