ADATA Shows Off "Project Jellyfish:" A Mineral-oil Based DIMM Heatspreader

[btarunr]

ADATA at its 2018 International CES booth showed off a prototype titled "Project Jellyfish." This is a proof-of-concept that memory modules can be cooled with a "liquid heatsink" made of mineral oil, an electrically non-conductive liquid that can conduct some heat, and is used in oil immersed PCs, and to cool large transformers in power distribution grids. In its current iteration, Project Jellyfish is simply a small acrylic tank enclosing a DIMM, that has some mineral oil filled in it. This amount of oil can at best spread some heat, but with the lack of any visible metal heatsink, it remains to be seen by how much it lowers temperatures. This isn't an actual product, and so there's no timeline on when it's implemented on one.



View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[CheapMeat]

I'm thinking the acrylic case was just to demonstrate it, so you can see the mineral oil. If they go with a metal heat spreader container in the final version, I think it would do well in high density servers. I think it's a cool take on cooling (spreading it out more evenly with the oil rather than thermal pads). A lot of people think DIMMs don't get hot at all but it does and upcoming DDR5 will have the voltage controller on each DIMM. The more stable the temperature, the better in terms of longevity and errors, I believe. If they don't charge a huge amount for this (for whatever reason), I can see it being adopted. Probably the only time mineral oil can be used more practically.

 

[PLAfiller]

Sweet! I hope it makes to mass market. But QA must be top notch, you don't want that RAM leaking. It won't short anything, but mess up everything

 

[FreedomEclipse]

Sweet! I hope it makes to mass market. But QA must be top notch, you don't want that RAM leaking. It won't short anything, but mess up everything

Its mineral oil. Its not conductive

 

[Athlonite]

Its mineral oil. Its not conductive

Still messy AF if it get out all over you mobo though

 

[Valantar]

Considering that metal heatsinks are overkill for most RAM even in high-density server setups (heck, server RAM rarely has any cooling at all beyond (admittedly high) airflow), this is beyond silly. Why bother? It sure doesn't look cool, and I've never heard of issues from overheating RAM ever, including degradation over time.

 

[Baum]

and drumroll....

No vent for expansion, hope these don't go "pop" oil over the place ^^

 

[rtwjunkie]

and drumroll....

No vent for expansion, hope these don't go "pop" oil over the place ^^

http://prepography.com/preparedness-uses-of-mineral-oil/

 

[Valantar]

and drumroll....

No vent for expansion, hope these don't go "pop" oil over the place ^^

Judging by the pictures, there's plenty of air in the casing that any expanding oil can compress.