Design and Manufacturing of a Novel Vacuumed Hybrid Cooler for the Central Process Unit: Performance Comparison and Optimization

Abstract

Central processing units (CPUs) can reach high temperatures during operation, causing performance to decline. While traditional air and liquid cooling systems are common, they are limited to cooling up to ambient temperature. Thermoelectric coolers (TECs) have been explored as an alternative due to their active cooling capability and reaching sub-ambient temperatures. Even if the TECs can reach negative temperatures on their cold surfaces, the humidity and dew problems have not been solved totally. This study provided a novel prototype vacuum hybrid cooling system and compared its performance to conventional air and liquid coolers. The performance of these systems was tested at various CPU clock speeds (1800 MHz, 2800 MHz, 3800 MHz, and 3800-4850 MHz) based on different core numbers. Consequently, hybrid cooling without proportional-integral-derivative control performed superior at 1800 MHz, 2800 MHz, and 3800 MHz for all core numbers. The highest CPU temperature in octa-core was observed at approximately 36 degrees C at 3800 MHz. Although the hybrid cooling system excelled in cooling single and dual cores during overclocking, it provided adequate cooling for quad- and octa-core setups. The optimal working condition was determined statistically as 1-4-4-4, and the contribution rates were calculated at 72.01% and 17.24% for the coolant type and its flowrate, respectively. The hybrid cooling system shows strong potential as a future alternative to current cooling technologies.