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Subject: Re: Athlon 1,1GHz

Author: Robert Hyatt

Date: 08:05:08 02/13/00

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On February 13, 2000 at 03:15:12, Tom Kerrigan wrote:

>On February 12, 2000 at 19:53:12, Robert Hyatt wrote:
>
>>I don't believe they are doing this.  They are applying -40c to the cpu, but
>>the heat it is producing prevents the cpu from getting to -40 during operation,
>>I'd bet.  I'd bet the real cpu temp is well over 0c, if it has a temp
>>thermocouple as my xeons. do.  My xeons run at about 106F under heavy load,
>>for a reference.
>
>Possibly. I wouldn't know. If they aren't getting the CPU down to -40, then I
>don't see why they would be taking such precautions against condensation.
>(Somebody else posted about this yesterday.)



quite simply.  The "cold box" attached to the cpu is removing heat by spraying
freon into a small chamber where  it evaporates and takes the temp down to about
-40c.  The cpu is providing enough heat that this temperature is never reached,
which is the point of the device.  If you shut the cpu off, you have a block of
aluminum that _is_ suddenly at -40, so that you get first ice, then water.  They
turn on a heater device to replace the CPU's heat output, and get everything
above the condensation point, before the thing gets shut off.  Their cooling is
not anything remarkable at all.  The main problem they had to solve is that a
cpu that is idle (halted in an O/S wait loop) produces almost zero heat, so they
have to avoid turning the CPU and associated motherboard area into an icecicle.

>
>Regardless of the actual temperature, it's obviously going to be much cooler
>than a normal computer. And that makes switching times go down. And that's what
>matters.

I'd bet that the difference is in picoseconds, not nanoseconds, which doesn't
help a whole lot.  What matters is that they can up Vcc without burning the
thing up.




>
>-Tom



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