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Copper or Aluminum heatsink?

C

cheap

Senior member
Hi, I just purchased a volcano9 cooler and this sales rep at fry's told me copper is worse than aluminum. He said his aluminum heatsink that he tested ran 10c cooler than his copper one. Is he full of sh!t? Should I return my volcano 9, and get a cooler with completely aluminum heatsink? If copper is worse, then why the hell did they bother to inserte a round copper bottom on volcano 9? This volcano 9 has mostly an aluminum heatsink with a round copper insert at the bottom. He also talked me out of bying arctic silver 3 and said the generic one that comes with volcano will do just fine while if I'm not too carefull and get some arctic silver somewhere on my processor it will overheat.

Another thing, copper insert is textured, it has circles around it like the old record. Should I put thermal paste on the heatsink or on the die?

Tnx.
 
That myth began years ago. Copper is far superior to aluminum in the thermal department, and is very close to silver's thermal properties. I reckon this guy was talking out of his ass or had a much less efficient copper heatsink he was comparing, or he mounted it wrong. Whatever the case, it is false. The reason this myth began was because of aluminum's higher thermal dissipation per weight ratio than copper because copper is more dense by nature. But if both sinks are designed precisely alike, the copper will win every time. So someone took this number and began this myth that aluminum is somehow superior to copper in thermal uses. Heatsink manufacturers use hybrid copper and aluminum designs these days to cut costs and weight retraints.

Talking you out of purchasing the AS3 tells me that he is aiming to mess with you. AS3, although much more expensive than generic stuff, offers at least 1º better thermal conductance and in most cases even more than that. The processor is in no danger of overheating with AS3 (quite the opposite actually). But AS3 tends to be electrically conductive which could be hazardous should traces of it get on the motherboard and left there when firing up the system. This is easy to avoid, just use some isopropyl alcohol or denatured alcohol (better than isopropyl because of its purity) with lint free cloths, cotton balls or Q-tips to clean up the excess AS3 and you won't have any problems. If you wish to have AS2 performance but save some cash and sweat over electrical conductance, check out Arctic Alumina. It's ceramic based so it's not electrically conductive, but is closer to AS3 in performance than generic silicone based goop.

For very helpful instructions on thermal compound installation, read Arctic Silver's page on it. Good luck, and if you get the chance, tell that sales rep to shove it.

edit- grammar
 
Thanx for reply, I thought he was full of it and even asked him multiple times if he was sure that aluminum hs is better than copper.

"offers at least 1º better thermal conductance" Does that mean my cpu will run 1 degree cooler than with generic thermal paste? If so then in no way does it justify $8. Sh!t, I can make 1 degree diff by just farting 🙂
 
Good call, listening to your gut is the best thing you can do 🙂

The 1 degree reduction is just minimum, most cases it's ~3º and another 1-2 after it sets into the surfaces. Depending on whether or not you're seeking to get every ounce of performance out of the cooling may make this worth it (also even the smallest syringe is enough for 20-30 applications). But with Alumina, there's not much of any reason to go with generic stuff. Since you've already got the goop, might as well use it though 😀
 
Another thing guys, I passed on the cooler by Cooler Master HSC-V62 and got a volcano 9 instead. HSC-V62 is a new cooler with thermal sensor built in. Thermal sensor on Volcano 9 is a joke, you have to plant it on top of the die and then plant heatsink on top of it. Wouldn't that make heat transfer a lot worse? it's about half milimmiter in thickness. Here we're talking about using thermal paste to get rid of micro gaps and they make a thermal sensor that goes in between cpu and heatsink. More of a gimmic than something that's usefull. Do you think I should actually bother installing thermal sensor?

Here's a review of HSC-V62:
http://www.bluesmoke.net/viewArticle.cgi?id=r61

Anway HSC is supposed to be extremely quiet and only pick up speed when CPU temperature rises. Heatsink seemed to be a little smaller than on volcano but it was completely copper. Anyway, I'm interested in making my system as quiet as possible, but the main reason that made me choose Volcano 9 is the FAN size. HSC-V62 is 60mm fan and at whopping 6800rps (holly sh!t that must sound like a jet) it moves measly 36cfm of air while v9 is a huge freaking monster, 80mm fan that moves a whopping 75cfm at only 4800rmp. V9 comes with analog knob that controlls fan speed if you don't want to use thermal sensor and is rated at: 20cfm at 1300rpm and 75 cfm at 4800rpm, 17dba at 1300rpm and 48dba at 4800rpm. So I'm thinking I will set it's speed somewhere in the middle and end up with almost noiseless fan that will keep my 1600+ agoia core at 2200+ speeds reasonably cool. These two coolers both cost the same. Do you guys think I made the right decision? Or should I go and exchange them? That whole automatic fan speed on HSC-V62 sounds appealing, like I said before, my v9 has it but I'm not going to install sensor between cpu and heatsink unless you tell me I should go for it since you know better.

One more last thing I promise, should I take off the fancy thermaltlake grill off to improve airflow? Fan is tightly screwed down to the heatsink, will noise from fan go into the heatsink and amplify? What do you guys think about putting rubber whashers on each screw in between fan and heatsink? Will it prevent spreading of the noise?

Thanks a lot. Really sick of my system sounding like a jet.
 
Originally posted by: alkemyst
Originally posted by: cheap
...he tested ran 10c cooler than his copper one. Is he full of sh!t? ...
Click to expand...

no not all, he just forgot to plug in his CPU fan 🙂
Click to expand...


Oops, that's supposed to be 10 degrees, not 10c. I guess even just a different heatsink design could make a 10 F degree differense. He said degrees, so I assume he was talking in Fs.
 
I'd take copper over Aluminum any day! Putting a any Aluminum Heatsink over any XP or hot Pentium. Aluminum has a tendancey to start to buckle at high tempatures.
 
I just got my Volcano 9 yesterday too. If you look at the picture carefully, the instructions shows that the temp probe goes UNDER the CPU, not in between the CPU and heatsink. I don't know how to get it under there, right now I stuck it in the heatsink. But anyways, you don't sound like you really care much about cooling performance, instead more about noise. If that is your case, return the Volcano and get SVC GC68 or it's double, the Galaxy MONSTER Cooler. Just be warned that SVC is getting terrible reviews recently. But I just ordered from nexfan and they have good cs. Both of these coolers are cheaper than the Volcano 9 and they are both quiet and offer decent cooling for none overclocked systems. Yeah, in any case, you would want to lap the hsf before putting it on (even the Volcano, look at this thread for more info). If you do decide on using the Volcano, put rubber gromments in between the heatsink and fan, and you might want to take off the fan and the AL skirt when installing the HSF, cause it was a pain for me because the fan block my view of the clip.
 
Originally posted by: OulOat
I just got my Volcano 9 yesterday too. If you look at the picture carefully, the instructions shows that the temp probe goes UNDER the CPU, not in between the CPU and heatsink. I don't know how to get it under there, right now I stuck it in the heatsink. But anyways, you don't sound like you really care much about cooling performance, instead more about noise. If that is your case, return the Volcano and get SVC GC68 or it's double, the Galaxy MONSTER Cooler. Just be warned that SVC is getting terrible reviews recently. But I just ordered from nexfan and they have good cs. Both of these coolers are cheaper than the Volcano 9 and they are both quiet and offer decent cooling for none overclocked systems. Yeah, in any case, you would want to lap the hsf before putting it on (even the Volcano, look at this thread for more info). If you do decide on using the Volcano, put rubber gromments in between the heatsink and fan, and you might want to take off the fan and the AL skirt when installing the HSF, cause it was a pain for me because the fan block my view of the clip.
Click to expand...


I care about both, noise and preformance and it seems to me like volcano 9 is the ticket because of its huge 80mm fan. That way it doesn't need high rpm to move a lot of air. It looks to me like I could get a lot more airflow with probably even lower noise level than SVC GC68 can. At 6800 rpm GC68 only moves 30 something cfm, with volcano 9 I can probaly get like 50cfm at 2500-3000 rpm which should be a helluva lot quieter than GC68 at full rpm speed.

You're right! On second look thermal sensor does go underneath the cpu, which just reinforces my statement that thermal sensor in V9 is a joke and complete gimmic which you wouldn't use. In manual they tell you to fix sernsor on the back side of the CPU but they never tell you how.

Thanx for the tip about taking the fan off, and rubber washers, btw, did you take the grill off or kept it on? Seems like taking their fancy grill off would improve airflow.
 
I think the grill is fine as it is, because most of the metal is over the center, which is directly over the center cap of the fan, so it doesn't block much air. However, when I get the chance, I will get the sweet led grill for it, except I can't find it right now. Look at it here
 
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