Holy hot pipes, Batman!
Zaward, ever heard of them? They’ve been quietly making inroads into the cooler market and are coming up with some nice ideas, such as the Golf Fan range of fans. They get their name from the dimpling set into the surface of the fan blades, which increases airflow and reduces noise… something to do with laminar airflow cuased by the dimples. This is the very same effect used on golf balls to make them fly longer and further, hence the Golf Fan name… So nothing to do with ludicrous trousers and angrily thrashing about in long grass.
The Golf Fan comes fitted to their Vivo cooler, a triple heatpipe system using an enclosed ducting to help maximise airflow… and for those of you that fancy taking this even further, the Vivo comes packaged another Golf Fan to bolt on the other side so you can push and pull air through the fins at the same time.
Another feature of the Vivo is the innovative, soldier heat exchange plate on the base of the cooler. Instead of having a copper or aluminium plate with the heatpipes soldered to the top, the Vivo uses a solderless system whereby the aluminium plate is clamped around the heatpipes. But the really clever bit is that the base of the heatpipes is exposed and flattened, so the pipes are in direct contact with the CPU surface. We were concerned that the small gaps between the pipes and the aluminium plate, cuased by the curve of the pipes, would impede heat transfer. But Zaward’s Sarah Lin assured us that this method of direct contact was more efficient by some 3⁰ compared to a more traditional base plate. So there you go. We’ll be getting one into to test soon.
