It looks like that design has diverged significantly from the Sandia one, probably because they couldn't manage the tolerances the Sandia design needs. Given th

It looks like that design has diverged significantly from the Sandia one, probably because they couldn't manage the tolerances the Sandia design needs. Given that it's a first attempt to bring the concept to market, and that it appears to be significantly compromised, I don't think "it doesn't work" is a fair characterization of the actual Sandia design. It might well be completely impractical for the commercial CPU cooler market, but it also might be the case that a bit more R&D and tooling up could get us a really effective new cooler design. Improvements could include [perceived] noise reduction as well as better efficacy.