CPU air cooling – direct heat-pipe contact VS more heat pipes VS more fins

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Thu, 08/23/2012 – 06:30
thedarkfade
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Joined: 08/21/2012
Posts: 64

Hey guys, Thanks for having a look at this post.

I am considering to buy a CPU air cooling heat sink fan. I am having difficulties to decide which will do better cooling performance (if only one can be chosen):

Direct Heat-pipe Contact (forgot the short-form, plz tell me if you know),
More Heat Pipes (with out Direct Heat-pipe Contact)
More Fins (I mean twin-tower fins)
More Fans (quantity/CFM)

Also, does the color of the fins effects the cooling performance? Cause I saw some of the heat sinks have their fins painted black, will this effect the performance significantly? (either positive or negative)

Thanks again for reading this article and more appreciation for those trying to help my issue. 🙂

My Build:
Case: Xigmatek Asgard Pro Black Edition Motherboard: AsRock Z77 Extreme 4
CPU: Intel 3rd Generation i5-3570 @ 4.2 Ghz Graphics Card: Asus HD 7770 1 GB GDDR5
RAM: Adata 4GB DDR3 1333 X 2

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Thu, 08/23/2012 – 08:25
#1
spawnkiller
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Joined: 05/06/2012
Posts: 315

Direct heat-pipe, a cheap way to achieve great performance but cooper corrodes with time if it’s in direct air contact (that’s why most of air cooler are nickel plated) the nickel offer corrosion resistance without creating a wall (it’s only a thin layer of nickel on the base)

More heat-pipe will transfer the heat faster and better but you can have the same number and bigger that will have the same effect… Also the heat-pipe that is solder to the fin will have better heat transfer to the fin so better cooling…

More fins = more surface = more cooling because it exchange more heat with the air (more contact surface with air to dissipate heat away)

Fans: 2 types, Pressure optimised and airflow optimised… For a case, Airflow optimised is the best but for a cooler with thin fins, pressure optimised will be the best cause it will force the air more effectively into the cooler than a airflow optimised cause the airflow will have better CFM but can’t push air in closed area…

As far as i know, the color doesn’t seems to interact with the performance (almost all painted cooler aren’t painted, they’re coated with a colored metal so it’s a colored coated that can transfert heat)

Hope that will help you 😉

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Thu, 08/23/2012 – 10:37
#2
thedarkfade
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Joined: 08/21/2012
Posts: 64

Thanks a lot for the reply, but I think I will need some time to digest and consider again how what I want best for my cooler.

Thanks again.

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Sun, 10/07/2012 – 01:24
#3
mission156
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Joined: 10/07/2012
Posts: 4

Water cooling will always be better than Air Noctua have some great CPU coolers.

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Sun, 10/07/2012 – 16:46
#4
XPredator
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Joined: 10/02/2012
Posts: 4

Yep. Noctua has a lot of good stuff. But Prolimatech,Cooler Master, Thermalright and some of the thermaltake’s stuff are as good as Noctua ones. Personally I’ve chosen the watercooling because of the low weight thermalblocks, that does not force your mobo board as this big sized ones coolers…well, thats my opinion…..

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