SPARKLE aims to improve GPU heat dissipation with diamond-like carbon membrane

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Published: Monday 16th February, 2009 | Author: Parm Mann
Companies: Sparkle (All Sparkle content)

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Taiwan's SPARKLE Computer Company is known to occasionally take an unusual approach to graphics cards, and its latest attempt could see it literally add a little sparkle to its range.

According to the manufacturer, video-card companies need to find new ways of solving heat dissipation, and its own R&D team has been hard at work developing a diamond-like carbon (DLC) membrane that can be used on the surface of a video card's cooling fins to add a number of benefits.

SPARKLE tells us that it's using Plasma Enhanced Chemical Vapor Deposition (PECVD) to plate a video card's heatsink with the DLC membrane, and the result, it claims, is a heatsink that's dissipates heat four times quicker than copper alone, consequently lowering GPU temperatures.

It all sounds mighty complicated, and the end result is only a temperature decrease of around 5° celsius on a mid-range GeForce 9500 GT - not quite earth shattering. There are other benefits, though, revolving around DLC's hardness - a property that'll help make radiators or heatsinks more resiliant to wear and tear.

The downside? As with most new cooling suggestions, SPARKLE states that the cost of implementing DLC remains "high", and whether any retail products will utilise the technology or not remains to be seen.

Nonetheless, HEXUS.community member scaryjim has been craving for something new in the graphics world, and we can't seem to recall any previous diamond-like carbon-coated coolers. Want to know more? Take a look at SPARKLE's press release below.

Official press release: SPARKLE Proudly Announced Diamonds Sputtering Technology For Video Cards

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Re: News - SPARKLE aims to improve GPU heat dissipation with a diamond-like carbon me

Posted by Steve - Mon 16th Feb 2009, 4:32pm

The way I see it, there's a growing gap between the number of transistors we can put on a chip and the number of transistors we can design onto a chip (the latter being the smaller quantity), yet somehow we have power dissipation issues.

I'd say we could do to cut static and dynamic power consumption of chips, rather than find new ways to dissipate the heat they generate, but making such an assertion doesn't hold much weight, seeing as I don't have a solution.Quote

Re: News - SPARKLE aims to improve GPU heat dissipation with a diamond-like carbon me

Posted by Zhaoman - Mon 16th Feb 2009, 10:01pm

a special mention on hexus!!! wow scaryjim you must be beaming with pride. new gpu technology - hahaha that's really good!Quote