Danamics liquid metal CPU cooler found to be impractical, ineffective, but still impressive

Looking for a completely impractical and ridiculously expensive cooling solution for your new i7? Danamics has your number with its LM10 CPU cooler, full of a sodium and potassium mixture (called NaK) that would explode if it came in contact with water (which, remember, is what you're mostly made of), but is perfectly inert inside its little pipes. We're more worried about the pump: a marvel of modern tech that uses a powerful electromagnet to create flow -- not exactly the sort of thing you want next to your RAID array. It all sounds menacing and lovely and would be a nifty conversation starter at your next LAN party, but sadly it simply doesn't perform according to NordicHardware -- it's beaten by $50 heat pipe cooler from Thermalright. At $350 the LM10 seems to be an impressive technological trophy-piece, but unless we can amp up that magnet and spray NaK all over our case during an RIAA raid, we think we'll pass.

[Vianon @ Dec 5th 2008 11:01AM]

Anti-RIAA booby trap, I love the concept!

[Samboini @ Dec 5th 2008 12:25PM]

I love boobs.

[OneLove @ Dec 5th 2008 3:06PM]

Don't Nak me bitch!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MrRqXdHaDs

[y3k.nik @ Dec 5th 2008 11:04AM]

That is disaster waiting to happen.

I remember putting Potassium pellets in water in my chemistry high school lab for fun and then going straight to the principals office after. So much Sodium and Potassium just cannot be safe at all!

[schmitty338 @ Dec 5th 2008 11:16AM]

I did this in my chem lab too....except we were told to do so. But my group had a little too big of a piece of Na and it blew up the beaker....fun stuff!

[Chris @ Dec 5th 2008 11:19AM]

As did we. The difference is, my science teacher sanctioned the violence :D

And for anyone who doesn't understand the severity...

A substitute high school teacher went to science class with the note to demonstrate potassium's effect in water by placing a small amount in the water for students to see. As they all leaned in, he dropped a huge chunk in, and a lot of people ended up going to the hospital.

Now, on top of this, we've added sodium, a hydrophillic substance (water loving). Salt retains water. Potassium loves water. Are we getting the picture here?

[John @ Dec 5th 2008 12:19PM]

Oy genius, it's not "combined" with sodium, it's in a compound with sodium, and sodium and salt are not the same thing any more than potassium and a banana are the same thing. At any rate, in elemental form either of those will react fairly violently with water, but NaK can react with water OR air.

[Chris @ Dec 5th 2008 12:55PM]

Who implied it wasn't a bonded molecule mixture? In this case, the principle of aggregation holds, the qualities of the parts are the qualities of the whole. Referring to chemicals by their more common counterparts (NaCl) is still a useful comparison if the chemical properties hold. Just like my science teacher requesting the rocket fuel formula from NASA and substituting some of their illicit compounds with more readily available explosives.

Actually, we took his compound and mixed it with a home-brewed alcohol mixture and made quite a nice paste. We put this in an industrial strength pipe and detonated it remotely on the high school football field. It was an amazing boom, and besides following a exhaust deposit trail for maybe 30 yards, there's no telling how far into the woods that thing went :D

[Faar @ Dec 5th 2008 1:31PM]

Chris,
"Who implied it wasn't a bonded molecule mixture? In this case, the principle of aggregation holds, the qualities of the parts are the qualities of the whole."

Bollocks. I don't know from where you pulled that one, but it's not an universal truth. Just consider: O2 - oxygen, vital gas required for nearly all life on this planet. O3 - ozone; highly toxic and reducing substance, disruptive to biological tissues.

And btw, sodium isn't waterloving - sodium chloride may be, but sodium in of itself is not. In its pure form it's a metal, which upon contact with water forms sodium hydroxide and hydrogen gas. Not that you're likely to find much water inside your average computer case of course, and besides, this metallic fluid is contained inside hermetically sealed pipes and thus remains inert, so no point in jibba-jabbering about what happens when you put the stuff in water... :P

[matt @ Dec 5th 2008 2:19PM]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NaK#As_coolant

[Rhino @ Dec 5th 2008 2:27PM]

This cooler is a really crazy trash and bomb in your computer.
If you combine this with liquid Nitrogen to cool down your i7 and there happened to be a small leak on it. The possible liquid Oxygen around your system will react crazily with the NaK and ....
As a chemist, I would stay away form any metal alloy stuff like that unless I really need it and there is no other way to get my target compound.

[James @ Dec 5th 2008 2:33PM]

@John:
"Oy genius, it's not "combined" with sodium, it's in a compound with sodium, and sodium and salt are not the same thing any more than potassium and a banana are the same thing."

Actually, it's an alloy of metals, and they are in fact combined. If you remember your high school chemistry, Sodium and Potassium are both group 1 metals on the periodic table, an ionic or covalent compound of those would not be possible. If there was such a compound, both sodium and potassium IONS are relatively harmless and water soluble. but non-ionized sodium and potasium, as it occurs in "NaK" which is not a chemical formula but just a trade name for the mixture are both extremely dangerous when they come in contact with air or water.

@Chris:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NaK

Also, you're mostly wrong. Ionized sodium (such as in table salt) behaves totally different from how it does in its metallic state, and to say that all ionized compounds of sodium behave the same is silly too. Sodium Hypochlorite, also known as bleach, is quite different from table salt in properties.

[Chris @ Dec 5th 2008 3:25PM]

While there are chemistry grasps greater than mine, there is a failure of English as well. In this case of chemistry, I was incorrect (I should have looked at the table to know they couldn't be a bonded pair), but my assertion that compounds with similar substances can have similar reactions is still definitely valid. More importantly, it wasn't a blanket statement, so the exceptions don't nullify the examples (O-zone, for instance). For instance, many things used in explosives share many of the same elements.

[Hung @ Dec 5th 2008 3:34PM]

@ James

You see, this is where you falsely assumed: " If you remember your high school chemistry..."



Chris did not actually learn chemistry in high school. Rather, a clergyman from the medieval ages tutored him in alchemy under pain of permaban.

[Testies, Testies, 1, 2... 3? @ Dec 5th 2008 4:02PM]

I've just finished crafting a hybrid Danamics/water cooling system!

I'll be firing it up tonight recording it all on video.

The system works by directly cooling the liquid metal by pumping it out of the Danamics pipes, and into the reservoir of the water cooling system...

Stay tuned!

[Hung @ Dec 5th 2008 3:56PM]

Water cooling with a fan-cooled heat-sink. Your joke has no failed logic.




I did not write the opposite of what my intended meaning.

[StalematE @ Dec 5th 2008 11:05AM]

wow, what a huge hunk of fail...

[Frankenstein Black @ Dec 5th 2008 1:02PM]

Yea really. They could have just done this:
http://www.liquidninjas.com/photopost/showphoto.php/photo/2830/size/big/cat/500/ppuser/2392

[Slick @ Dec 5th 2008 11:10AM]

Perfect! just what I need for more my micro-ATX HTPC build!!!!

[Jason @ Dec 5th 2008 2:25PM]

Yeah, that and a hood scoop.

[Arkenklo @ Dec 5th 2008 11:12AM]

WHAT IS THE POINT?

[Arkenklo @ Dec 5th 2008 11:13AM]

Also, nice to know my cooler is STILL the best.

[absinthe party @ Dec 5th 2008 11:31AM]

Heat dissipation. Or, is that a rhetorical question?

[miltondorkenhoff @ Dec 5th 2008 11:15AM]

What's with the "called NaK" bit. Sodium is Na, Potassium is K. It's not "called NaK", it actually is NaK, right off the periodic table of elements.

[ZenStyleJunglist @ Dec 5th 2008 11:45AM]

I was thinking the same thing.

[loocas @ Dec 5th 2008 12:32PM]

Thank god I checked first whether somebody questioned this before me, so I don't look ridiculous posting the same comment hours later...

[Jason @ Dec 5th 2008 12:46PM]

Obviously following the fast and furious formluaic footsteps of NOS. But why would you want a weird wannabe name? (+ .5 for alliteration, oh yeah!)

[Jason @ Dec 5th 2008 12:50PM]

Actually turns out it used to be children's toy from Nickelodeon: blew up 8 kids in 12 different states (do the math). The just kept the name when they sold it to Danamics.

[Hung @ Dec 5th 2008 3:52PM]

@ miltondorkenhoff

No, that's not the systematic name. It's simply an alloy of potassium and sodium, not a molecule. NaK is the informal common name. No chemist (or at least one who graduated high school) would look at "NaK" and think "this bond between these two atoms seems possible; the name is scientifically accurate. I suck cocks." Yes, this is exactly what you said in your post. Perhaps not so much that last part.

You can't look at the word "water" (like you would with H2O) and say "It's not 'called water,' it actually is water, right off the periodic table of elements. I suck cocks"


@ ZenStyleJunglist & loocas

Congratulations, great minds alike. Especially when they are completely wrong.


@ Jason

Just no. NOS is an acronym for Nitrous Oxide Systems, which has become a household name in the same way "Band-aid" has. NOS is not a chemical formula. NOS does not contain sulfur.

-5 (not -.5) for pointing out your alliteration. -15 for the subsequent "joke."

-20 karma points. Have fun being reincarnated as a Mother Nature's crack baby, the platypus.

[Jason @ Dec 5th 2008 7:05PM]

No shit that's what NOS stands for, the point is they are wannabes. I mean c'mon, you can relate to that. Do you seriously troll the entire list of comments just to bitch at anyone and everyone you can? Dude, on behalf of crackbabies everywhere (and anyone else who wants in on this): STFU!

[rand @ Dec 5th 2008 11:18AM]

Pretty worthless review. First of all....the cooling solution needs to be tailored to the chassis that the processor is in. Heatsinks rely on air flow to cool. The heatsink could do an excellent job of sucking (conducting) the heat away from the processor but if the airflow is not routed through the heatsink correctly and subsequently vented out of the box, its worthless. When I worked as a development manager for a Server manufacturer we spent months modeling the thermal characteristics of systems to optimize airflow, fan size, heatsink type etc...

[)law( @ Dec 5th 2008 11:20AM]

I can see it now, rig a few of these bad boys by the door. As soon the riaa comes a knocking hit a few switchs and it's like die hard meets micheal bay. * insert evil laught here*

[Tony Bowman @ Dec 5th 2008 11:43AM]

man, remember when heatsinks were tine and green? hah.

[Tony Bowman @ Dec 5th 2008 11:43AM]

tiny, that is.

[Temo @ Dec 5th 2008 12:18PM]

I don't remember the Green part, but I to remember the FANless part.

[kal326 @ Dec 5th 2008 11:43AM]

Seeming ineffective, possibly explosive, and expensive. I don't see why these won't sell like hot cakes.

[GingerFox @ Dec 5th 2008 2:02PM]

seems like something for a mac, you know being stupidly expensive and all:)

[gabenava82 @ Dec 5th 2008 12:05PM]

Ferrofluid would be better for cooling if it wasn't so incredibly expensive.

[Tim @ Dec 5th 2008 12:22PM]

Ah.. nothing like digging up old tech. Liquid metal cooling has been around for a long time. The earliest nuclear reactors used it. I'm pretty sure it wasn't too practical in that application either.

[James @ Dec 5th 2008 2:05PM]

Many reactors still use it, and many car engines do too, the exhaust valve stems are sodium filled to transfer heat from the valve head through the stem where it is removed by the engine oil, this is nearly universal with turbo and supercharged engines, and was used in aircraft engines as early as the 1930s. Sodium is a highly reactive alkali metal, but in the quantities used in this sort of thing it isn't a great danger even if it does escape. Low pressure sodium lights contain a significant amount of metallic sodium as well, you can see it condensed in blobs in the arc tube when the lamp is off.

For cooling a CPU though, it's really not the right tool for the job. A CPU just doesn't get hot enough to benefit significantly from sodium cooling. A simple aluminum heatsink with a fan can bring it down to within a handful of degrees above ambient.

[Jason @ Dec 5th 2008 2:32PM]

"A CPU just doesn't get hot enough to benefit significantly from sodium cooling."
You're just not doin' it right, Romeo. She'll might never tell you, but she's always secretly wished that you would overclock.

"...this is nearly universal with turbo and supercharged engines.."
Like I said, hood scoop.

[R Nair @ Dec 5th 2008 12:47PM]

Is this fella qualified to write a review? What is wrong with having an electromagnet near a RAID setup? Its not like its made up of magnetic tapes! Just rhetoric for no reason. And If you compare it to the stuff that the laptop batteries are made of, then NaK stuff may be reasonable. This review seemed like a pile of garbage.

[Woxx @ Dec 6th 2008 7:05AM]

If you read the review it says it wont be a problem, its engadgets editor that has made this up it seems :P
But maybe its him your referring to :)

[asdffdsa @ Dec 5th 2008 12:48PM]

no where did the article say it was ineffective.

read the conclusion - "pretty good cooler"

[Zunavio @ Dec 5th 2008 1:39PM]

Traditional wind generator has been hated so much.


Somehow the harddrive is louder than anything else now...

Oh!

I forgot that you are using SSD.



Manage to eliminate keyboard and mouse clicking noise yet?

[dale1v @ Dec 5th 2008 2:12PM]

pour wallpaper paste between the keys.

[Patriks7 @ Dec 5th 2008 1:39PM]

Ok.. I have a question xD (again)
I'm building a small home server.. it will be in a MicroATX box, but I have no idea what cooling to put there.. as it will be on 24/7, I want something quiet and efficient.. any ideas?

[JohnnyLocust @ Dec 5th 2008 2:12PM]

A few thousand of these working in tandem could make for an inexpensive Sodium-Cooled Fast Reactor (SFR)
http://nuclear.inl.gov/gen4/sfr.shtml

[absinthe party @ Dec 5th 2008 2:59PM]

Minus the actual reactor part.

[jon @ Dec 5th 2008 2:42PM]

It reminds me of the heady days of Sputnik and Yuri Gagarin when the world trembled at the sound of our rockets. Now they will tremble again - at the sound of our silence. The order is: engage the silent drive.