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Heading of link is wrong: original source article says its 30 TIMES more efficient, not 30%. This would be a seriously big deal if it's actually commercialized: based on the Sandia video I have no doubt they have a working prototype.

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Whether 30% or 30 x, is this a big deal?

How much power does a typical CPU cooling fan draw right now?

Random fan on Newegg has ~2W power draw, so not much. But many processors are limited by heat dissipation, so better heat transfer could mean faster clock speeds (think water cooling, but much more convenient). Also means the fans could run much quieter (see the video), which makes sense since most of the fan's energy is going into noise/vibrations.

Does this fan actually provide a better absolute heat transfer rate?

I think if it's 30% more efficient, that probably just means the fan itself consumes that much less power for a given heat radiating capacity.

Maybe it'll be a bit smaller or a lot quieter or something, but I don't see it "revolutionizing" anything.

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