VR-Zone

Sapphire Technology, renowned for its Vapor-X lineup of high performance graphic cards based on VCT (Vapor Chamber Technology), has revealed that the coolers used on its Vapor-X cards had originated from Microloops.

Designed to dissipate over 300W of heat, the cooler is able to remove the heat quickly from the GPU using VCT. VCT, originally used in high level servers from companies like HP and IBM to avoid high operating temperatures, was cleverly adapted and modified by Microloops to suit the GPU. To date, only Sapphire has adopted VCT for its line-up of AMD based graphics card and we would love to see nVidia partners jumping onto the VCT band wagon!

“Vapor Chamber Technology is based on the same principles as heatpipe technology. A liquid coolant is vaporised at a hot surface, the resulting vapor is condensed at a cold surface then the liquid is returned to the hot surface. The recirculation process is controlled by a wick system. SAPPHIRE Vapor-X flattens the whole system into a slim chamber - which in the graphics application is mounted in contact with the surface of the graphics chip. Actually, the coolant is water – but because the chamber is evacuated to a very low pressure, the vaporisation process occurs at a much lower temperature than normal boiling point. The complex wick arrangement inside the module controls the flow of water and water vapor so that the system can be used in any orientation.”

News via [Pureoverclock]