Is Heatlane? Dead?

[VinDSL]

I guess Heatlane? is gone, eh what?

I was just over on the Scythe site and noticed they have discontinued their Heatlane HSFs...

Oh, well, long live the ubiquitous heat pipe! 😀

 

[Zap]

Economies of scale + not "enough" better than wicking heatpipes? That link stated some benefits over heatpipes which may no longer be benefits...

Being able to bend into any shape... we've seen all kinds of stuff from heatpipes now.

Working in any orientation which heatpipes can't... but wicking heatpipes can.

Heatpipes can also easily be integrated into conventional designs. The Heatlane design is wide/flat and may be limiting.

Benefits of using alternative fluids for wider ranging temperatures aren't beneficial to current CPUs.

The unknown factor is cost. We know heatpipes are probably cheap because they've found their way into even OEM designs.

 

[VinDSL]

Originally posted by: Zap
Economies of scale + not "enough" better than wicking heatpipes? The unknown factor is cost...

Heatlane always seemed like poor man's phase-change... at rich man's prices... a gimmick, you know?

That's why I never got interested in it.

Maybe others felt the same way?!?!? 😉

 

[Howard]

Thermal conductivity "downward" of the Heatlane may be superior to that of a wicked heat pipe.

 

[Zap]

Well, top end heatpipe HSFs are already overlapping the performance of low end water cooling kits, so where does that leave the Heatlane? If it can be cheap but cool as well as higher end water cooling, then there's a market. If not...

Perhaps the testing was done comparing one Heatlane to one heatpipe. Most top end heatsinks have multiple heatpipes. Not sure how well multiple Heatlanes would work, either for cooling or just the logistics of placement and manufacturing. They supposedly are easy to bend, but only on the "flat" side.

In the end, who's to say ahead of time why one product succeeds in the market and another one fails.