Tired of so many loud inefficient cooling solutions

[davea0511]

Is it just me, or does it seem like there are a ton of new heatsinks that sure look cool, and some sure are big, but very few are much better than what's been around for a while. Can you say gimmicky?

Heat pipes are cool (no pun intended). But all they do is move heat from one place to another. They don't disipate heat into the environment at all. They are in fact, less useful than peltier coolers, imho. Why move the heat to another place where you will put a disipating element, when you can disipate it into the environment at the source, like the Zalman designs do.

Also, A ton of the new designs attempt to channel the air from the fan to blow across the fins. This doesn't work well. I know. As an Engineer, I've studied gas flow around fan blades. You'll just make noisier fans and slow down the air velocities. You are much better off utilizing the natural air flow around a fan, or redesign the fan, than rechannel the air movement coming from a fan.

I'd like to see more passive CPU cooling - like heatpipes to fined aluminum cases. This is one place where heatpipes actually really could be useful. Sure Hush Technologies makes systems like this - but I know it could be a ton cheaper and possible for joe-blow (again, no pun intended) to do. Just look at all the car audio amplifiers that have been using this technology for the longest time.

-Dave

 

[Harvey]

Originally posted by: davea0511
Heat pipes are cool (no pun intended). But all they do is move heat from one place to another. They don't disipate heat into the environment at all. They are in fact, less useful than peltier coolers, imho. Why move the heat to another place where you will put a disipating element, when you can disipate it into the environment at the source, like the Zalman designs do.

Heat pipes and peltier's both just move heat from one place to another. All passive heatsinks move heat away from the small heat center (the chip) as quickly as possible and distribute it over the mass of the sink and to the fins. The fins then dissipate the heat into the ambient air, and the fan keeps cooler air moving across the fins. Obviously, the idea is to remove the heat from the chip because heat will damage the chip, but not the heatsink.

The advantage of heat pipes over conventional heat sinks is that they overcome some of the thermal resistance of the heatsink metal and move the heat away from the thermal center more quickly across the entire heatsink, thus making the same basic heatsink design more efficient. This is not a passive system. Heat pipes actually harness the thermal energy of the heat to do the work so they do not requre added electrical power. As you suggest, heat pipes could also be used to move the heat to a more effective dissipation point (heat sink) with access outside the case, for example, on a back or side panel.

Peltier devices are piezoelectric devices that use electrical current to move thermal energy from one point to another. Again, the intent is to remove heat from the chip as fast as possible.

The main advantage of using bigger fans is, they move more air at any given rotation speed than smaller fans. This is why designs using them can be quieter than those using smaller, faster, and noiser fans. That doesn't mean some fan designs won't be quieter than others of the same size, and the design of the heatsink, itself, along with the material (copper, alumimum, etc.) will still make a difference. Even the color makes a difference. Black anodized aluminum dissipates heat better than plain aluminum or aluminum anodized with any other color.

 

[0roo0roo]

slk 800-900 heatsinks are nice, the copper base is very narrow so air can passstraight down through a great deal of the heatsink area.

 

[alexruiz]

Originally posted by: davea0511

Also, A ton of the new designs attempt to channel the air from the fan to blow across the fins. This doesn't work well. I know. As an Engineer, I've studied gas flow around fan blades. You'll just make noisier fans and slow down the air velocities. You are much better off utilizing the natural air flow around a fan, or redesign the fan, than rechannel the air movement coming from a fan.

This is interesting.... I thought that it should help inmensely if the fan blow from below the CPU through the fin blades. Can you explain more?