pure roon

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It’s actually a new implementation of an old discovery. MSI’s Air Power Cooler uses the energy inherent in the expansion of air as it warms up to drive a fan.

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As the CPU gets hot, it causes air in a piston to expand. That pushes out the piston rod, which turns the fan rotor, pulling air over a heatpipe-fed heatsink. The heatsing helps cool the piston, so the air inside becomes more dense, pulling the piston rod back to its original position.

It’s a mechanism called the Stirling Engine, named after Scottish engineer Robert Stirling, who described it in 1816, though the principles on which his machine were based were uncovered in the 17th Century.

This is pretty cool, and could be very useful in the future, as components and chips get smaller, they get hotter. Using the energy that is lost as heat to cool increases cooling efficiency dramatically.

Find out more about the Stirling Engine.

Its a shame that it is a bit big to fit onto more compact machines, but fits fine into the average desktop. MSI claim that 70% of the energy lost as heat from your CPU is transferred to the fan which will disipate the other 30%. It’s not totally efficient as it requires a kick start but it still won’t use a drop of electricity…