Asetek has been producing their Vapochill unit for some time with quite a bit of success. The VapoChill unit has been designed to be a very flexible and relatively inexpensive super-cooling solution.
AseTek VapoChill Socket Preview
Danish based Asetek has been producing their Vapochill unit for some time with quite a bit of success. The VapoChill unit has been designed to be a very flexible and relatively inexpensive super-cooling solution for the world's overclockers/power users. They've been in direct competition with U.S. based KryoTech and their SuperG super-cooling solution. The VapoChill unit is quite a bit different from the Kryotech solution in quite a few aspects. Besides the differences in technology, there's also quite a bit of difference in terms of flexibility. Where KryoTech's SuperG can only be purchased with a CPU/Motherboard combo, the VapoChill unit is purchased as a bare bones solution that includes only the case and the cooling mechanism. This allows for maximum flexibility. If you purchase a KryoTech SuperG, you are pretty much stuck with the processor/mobo combination you choose, since the unit is sealed and it's not meant to be tampered with. On the other hand, the VapoChill unit is not a sealed unit in the classic sense. In other words, if a year down the road you decide to upgrade your CPU and/or motherboard to keep up with technology you can safely do so.
Since we are too lazy to
paraphrase, here's a bit from the VapoChill web site on what this thing is
supposed to do. "This state-of-the-art piece of hardware allows you to cool your
CPU to sub-zero temperatures, giving you stability and acceleration
opportunities.
Now, Cooling down your CPU to AseTek's claimed -10 to -20 degrees Celsius is a four-cycle process. Compression, condensation, throttling (pressure reduction) and evaporation of the refrigerant. Yes, just in case you haven't picked up on it, there's practically a freaking refrigerator sitting inside that thing. The refrigeration unit itself consists of four parts. Here they are along with what they are supposed to do straight from AseTek's site:
Compressor
The warm, gaseous refrigerant is sucked from the evaporator into the compressor, where the pressure is raised to the condensation pressure of the refrigerant in order for the phase change to occur.
Condenser
The heat gathered from the evaporator plus the heat added during compression is expelled through the condensing unit, and is now completely liquefied.
Capillary tube
In order for the refrigerant to evaporate, it is necessary to lower the pressure using some sort of valve. By using a capillary tube (i.e. a tube with a small inner diameter) the same pressure drop can be obtained, before being send into the evaporator.
Evaporator
The evaporator is responsible for transferring the heat from the CPU into the refrigerant, where the refrigerant changes phase from liquid to vapor. This process consumes a lot of energy, which can only be extracted from the CPU in terms of the heat already produced by the processor.
Here's a snazzy pic of the four parts of the cooling mechanism:
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