NEC has developed an eco-friendly cooling system for CPUs, claiming the technology [JP] uses uses 60% less energy than a water-cooling system and even 80% less than an air-cooling system. The core of the system is a liquid chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) substitute, which circulates around the CPU to draw away heat and has low greenhouse effects.
NEC says the refrigerant begins boiling at around 50C, changes into vapor that absorbs the heat coming from the CPU, then flows through a tube, and is cooled by a fan in a radiator before changing back into liquid. After that, the process in the closed loop starts again.
According to NEC, the cooling fan doesn’t have to work as much as under other cooling systems and needs less energy. The company also claims its system is around 70% cheaper to produce.
The system, which was jointly developed with Japan’s New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization, will first be used by NEC internally. NEC plans to market it to data centers sometime next year, saying the system can cut their total power consumption as a whole by more than 40%.
The picture shows an older NEC cooling system (sorry, NEC hasn’t published any pictures of the new one yet).
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