Wednesday, November 8th 2023

Intel Shuts Down its Cryo Cooling Technology Development

Nov 8th, 2023 06:47 Discuss (34 Comments)

According to @momomo_us, Intel has discontinued its Cryo Cooling Technology as of July 1, 2023, marking the end of one of the tech industry's few sub-ambient cooling options. The technology, which could chill CPUs to 0 degrees Celsius to enhance performance, accompanied Intel's processors from the 10th-generation Comet Lake to the 13th-generation Raptor Lake. Despite its innovative approach to boosting CPU performance, the cooling solution was not widely embraced. The discontinuation comes just before the arrival of the 14th Generation Raptor Lake Refresh, which will not support the Cryo Cooling tech. Intel plans to maintain updates for the existing Cryo Cooling hardware until December 31, 2023.

This specialized cooling method did see some use in products like the Cooler Master MasterLiquid ML360 Sub-Zero and the EKWB EK-QuantumX Delta TEC waterblocks. Interestingly, the technology has managed to work even with non-Intel CPUs, which famous overclocker der8auer managed to get up and running on AMD's Ryzen 9 5950X. Some modifications were in place, but it was possible to do so. The likely reason for shutting down the cryo cooling project is the need for more financial sense to continue to pursue this technology and the effort to keep the cost of R&D down and make funds available for other projects at Intel's laboratories.

Sources: @momomo_us (X/Twitter), via Tom's Hardware, der8auer (Image)

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34 Comments on Intel Shuts Down its Cryo Cooling Technology Development

FreedomEclipse

~Technological Technocrat~

Seems like Intel are going on a big cost cutting spree. Business must not be so good.

Assimilator

FreedomEclipseSeems like Intel are going on a big cost cutting spree. Business must not be so good.

There's nothing wrong with cutting divisions that have zero chance of ever being profitable or useful, or are only tangentially related to your primary product focus. Far too many megacorporations have suffered the death of a thousand cuts from the impact of having far too many R&D departments that are mostly each someone's pet project. TEC's usefulness is inherently limited by the laws of physics and there's not much Intel can do to change those, so really the question that should be asked is why the company ever went down this path in the first place - and apparently someone in Intel management finally did.

Keullo-e

S.T.A.R.S.

Not even joking but their new SKUs would benefit from this more than ever.

HBSound

This also explains why EK, placed the TEC Intel/EK block on sale a LONG time ago.

Six_Times

"was not widely embraced"

yet another great engineering technology ignored. sad

Chrispy_

This pleases me.
No progress will ever be made pushing old/bad/inefficient products to their physical limits, and cooling chips to sub-ambient introduces more problems than it solves - something I learned 20+ years ago when I was building my own peltier cooler.

Assimilator

Six_Times"was not widely embraced"

yet another great engineering technology ignored. sad

No, it was not and never will be "great engineering technology". TECs are old tech (heh) that has consistently been demonstrated to be irrelevant to desktop applications, but that hasn't stopped them from popping up every half decade or so when some dipshit who has failed to learn from the past, convinces their idiot manager that they can overcome TEC's fundamental physical limitations.

V3ctor

I didnt even knew this thing exhisted..

HBSound

Six_Times"was not widely embraced"

yet another great engineering technology ignored. sad

I agree. I asked EK a thousand questions about using this product. A lot of the limitations: fitment onto motherboards, only excels at cooling the single core maxed out, and Intel did not offer any updated information on the software.

#10

bonehead123

AssimilatorThere's nothing wrong with cutting divisions that have zero chance of ever being profitable or useful, or are only tangentially related to your primary product focus. Far too many megacorporations have suffered the death of a thousand cuts from the impact of having far too many R&D departments that are mostly each someone's pet project. TEC's usefulness is inherently limited by the laws of physics and there's not much Intel can do to change those, so really the question that should be asked is why the company ever went down this path in the first place - and apparently someone in Intel management finally did.

So in other words, to quote the (in)famous Johnny Cochran:

"If it don't fit, you must acquit" :D

#11

sethmatrix7

FreedomEclipseSeems like Intel are going on a big cost cutting spree. Business must not be so good.

Their net income is down year over year over year over year. www.investing.com/equities/intel-corp-financial-summary

Losing apple wasn't good, and responding by making even more inefficient processors relative to their competition couldn't have helped.

#12

Nanochip

I always used to wonder why Intel had its hands in so many different baskets, and it’s good to see that it is focusing on the core of what made it great, which is making chips, and its lithography process. I hope for Intel’s sake that the outcome is more power efficient chips that can keep up with Qualcomm and other ARM vendors that are coming, as well as AMD’s efficient offerings as well.

#13

FreedomEclipse

~Technological Technocrat~

sethmatrix7Their net income is down year over year over year over year. www.investing.com/equities/intel-corp-financial-summary

Losing apple wasn't good, and responding by making even more inefficient processors relative to their competition couldn't have helped.

There is such a huge space for them to move in to the GPU market. They should really be pushing their GPU department hard.

#14

unwind-protect

Minus 100 degrees or nothing I'd say.

Condensation be damned.

#15

regs

Six_Times"was not widely embraced"

yet another great engineering technology ignored. sad

It's just never reached the market.

#16

FoulOnWhite

sethmatrix7Their net income is down year over year over year over year. www.investing.com/equities/intel-corp-financial-summary

Losing apple wasn't good, and responding by making even more inefficient processors relative to their competition couldn't have helped.

Still for third quarter their gross profit was still 4 billion more than AMD, who are still doing very well but unlikely to eclipse Intel any time soon. Good time to buy AMD shares i reckon, and great for anyone who bought when AMD was in the doldrums. Intel certainly need to pull their socks up or give their CPU division a kick in the behind.

#17

phanbuey

I wish pelt solutions would stop trying to sammich the pelt between the chip and the block and find a way for the pelt cool the liquid, not the chip. Like a cheap, tiny electric chiller that runs off water temps.

#18

TechLurker

regsIt's just never reached the market.

Ironically, Intel should have also made it available to Ryzen users. There's a few weird ones I know who'd love a Peltier for their Ryzens, even if Ryzens were already more efficient.

#19

FoulOnWhite

I don't think pelts where ever really anything but a passing fad

#20

Jism

As Thermal electric coolers where a thing in the past, it's completely useless these days. The effiency is terrible, it eats power and you'll need 2.5x the cooling capacity of what your CPU + TEC both combined deliver.

www.xtremesystems.org/forums/forumdisplay.php?94-T-E-C-Cooling

That was a OG site that had the best to worst TEC cooling projects, really creative people decades ago who spent countless of hours working on those things.

Even i had TEC chillers going on - but you can't beat or break it. It's just what it is.

#21

arabus

KissamiesNot even joking but their new SKUs would benefit from this more than ever.

#22

trsttte

They could have done something interesting with a very miniaturized heat pump but instead went with the stupid peltier that simply can't work, it's a pitty. I don't really understand who green lit an ongoing R&D project on this kind of tech, this is the kind of thing that a bunch of nerds in the office do in the off time, not something to waste office hours on.

phanbueyI wish pelt solutions would stop trying to sammich the pelt between the chip and the block and find a way for the pelt cool the liquid, not the chip. Like a cheap, tiny electric chiller that runs off water temps.

The only place where it makes sense to drop the peltier is between the chip and block. The peltier doesn't really "cool" something, what it does is use a HUGE ammount of power to move heat from one side to the other. It makes sense to use it between a chip and block because you can take the heat away from the chip at a much higher capacity than the block would be able to alone.

#23

Bwaze

One of the most retarded things ever, cooling solution senselessly hard locked to one company. And I wouldn't be surprised if it couldn't be used in coming Intel generations, bwcause it's discontinued.

#24

thestryker6

AssimilatorNo, it was not and never will be "great engineering technology". TECs are old tech (heh) that has consistently been demonstrated to be irrelevant to desktop applications, but that hasn't stopped them from popping up every half decade or so when some dipshit who has failed to learn from the past, convinces their idiot manager that they can overcome TEC's fundamental physical limitations.

Absolutely this.

Intel's second iteration was probably the best implementation one could ever hope for and is really interesting, but that's about where it ends. They didn't seem to make a big deal out of it (unlike the first), and that's probably because the TEC wasn't powerful enough to cool unrestricted CPUs (I'm not even sure it could do the 253W stock 13th).

Most certainly was never going to be a viable product line, but I am a little bit surprised they didn't go to the effort of configuring them for 14th gen. They were firmware locked to work dynamically, but Intel really should have had an unrestricted mode which would just work on anything.

#25

phanbuey

trsttteThey could have done something interesting with a very miniaturized heat pump but instead went with the stupid peltier that simply can't work, it's a pitty. I don't really understand who green lit an ongoing R&D project on this kind of tech, this is the kind of thing that a bunch of nerds in the office do in the off time, not something to waste office hours on.

The only place where it makes sense to drop the peltier is between the chip and block. The peltier doesn't really "cool" something, what it does is use a HUGE ammount of power to move heat from one side to the other. It makes sense to use it between a chip and block because you can take the heat away from the chip at a much higher capacity than the block would be able to alone.

So the reason they use a huge amount of power is if they're trying to cool something the pelt isn't really kitted to handle (like a 300W processor). -- if you use it say on a larger area on the side of the rad -- or somewhere else in the loop -- like separate area/block in the loop that's hooked up to a heatpipe cooler etc. -- essentially giving you another 100W or so of chiller effect when needed, and more surface area for cooling, and the ability to chill water on demand to keep it just above the dew point.

The problem with trying to cool a 300W cpu with a pelt is it will use a monsterous amount of power, and it will still suffer from the "shim" effect (where the transfer of double thermal paste makes it even less effective). As it gets saturated it does the pelt thing where it becomes basically useless.

Actually the CPUs that would benefit the most from a 125W pelt on the chip is a 7800X3D -- something that doesn't generate more than 90W of heat load but LOVES getting a colder contact plate.

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Intel Shuts Down its Cryo Cooling Technology Development

34 Comments on Intel Shuts Down its Cryo Cooling Technology Development

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