Would 6" be too big for you?

[MadRat]

Not that, silly man, I meant the heatsink. What if the heatsinks grew taller rather than wider? I noticed a trend for heatsinks to become elongated as their performance rating increases. I think a copper-cored, taller, shrouded, sucking, and ventricle-shaped design would be higher performing than short/wide models. The shrouded-sucking design would be better, especially if capped off with a nice, quiet 3000rpm case fan that sucks harder than those delta 7000rpm fans on some of the current monsters.

I threw out the six-inch number because there is that much room in the normal case. It could be four-inches or three-inches, too. What it would do is draw the heat further away from the source much faster than the current heatsinks. (Heat travels through aluminum and copper 1000 times faster than it can through convention heat-convection methods.) The shroud prevents air leakage, creates orderly airflow, and reduces noise.

The ventricle shape would be wide at the top and normal Socket-A dimensions along the base, in order to match up with current specs. Heck, the 4-hole pattern could be used to stabilize the heatsink just in case you do alot of moving around of your PC.

So, what do you think about this idea?

 

[Lord Evermore]

A wider heatsink allows the heat to travel through the metal just as easily as a taller one in order to get it away from the core. The only advantage to more height is that we have so much room for it without modifying the motherboards, but even still, many wide heatsinks are stepped to get past anything in the way on the board.

I think the weight of such a heatsink, combined with the angle the top would be at compared to the motherboard, is probably the biggest issue. Even using the four holes on the board for the mount, the force created by having a heatsink hanging out so far would possibly be enough to snap something. Or just as bad, have it just slightly pull away from the core. Current heatsinks may weight as much as a tall one would, but they don't have that angle working against them (and even still they occasionally break off).

A taller heatsink would in theory be better but I think practically it's not going to become common, at least not suddenly. Possibly it'll be a slow evolution, due to CPU design changes, similar to going from small fanless heatsinks on a P60, to larger ones, to heatsinks with fans, to the behemoths we use now.

 

[MadRat]

Short and wide is best for a blowing fan arrangement because the airflow stays along the fins longer, but it doesn't lend itself any better to stability. The wide heatsink is still prone to rocking. So in that respect, its a wonder nobody builds the heatsink to attach into the standard 4-hole arrangement for Socket-A boards.

My alterior motive to wanting a taller heatsink is to move towards 80mm fans, up from the standard 60mm ones. The larger fans have more fins and tend to not have to turn as fast to move more air.

 

[downhiller80]

Combine a huge heatsink like that with a 92-120mm blowhole in the side of the case (sucking air out) and you'd be sorted.

- seb

 

[flexy]

i always wondered how to get a blowhole in my case's side panel....man this is solid aluminum....you'd need some *serious* tools..... ????

 

[MadRat]

Its easy to cut blowholes. Drill a 1/4" or bigger hole then use aviator snips to go out from the pilot hole. Work to the outer circle in a circular fashion and never fully close your snips. As long as you do it cleanly along the lines you draw it should look pretty decent.

 

[downhiller80]

Or (like me) you can drop $20 on a holesaw.

- seb

 

[Lord Evermore]

Aluminum is softer than steel. If you can cut a hole in a standard steel case, you can cut it in aluminum. (Unless they make the sides of an aluminum case considerably thicker than steel cases.)

madrat: what do you mean "its a wonder nobody builds the heatsink to attach into the standard 4-hole arrangement for Socket-A boards"? What about the Alpha PAL8045 or various Zalman heatsinks, and several others? Sure not many OEMs use them, or computer shops trying to sell you a system for the lowest cost, but that's because they're more expensive to make, more parts involved, more metal in them. Along with that, any heatsink designed for the 4 holes on an Athlon or P4 could technically be designed for an 80mm fan, since that's how wide the space is for those heatsinks. The 8045 uses one. Others could easily be modified to accept it (like many standard socket heatsinks, they just need to spread outward at the top slightly, once they're past the clips). And while a wide heatsink is still prone to rocking, it's not as likely to happen as with a taller heatsink.

 

[CTho9305]

the problem is getting heat to the top of the fins. you could possibly do this with a decent heatpipe in the core of the heatsink, but otherwise the top part just gets wasted. a wider heatsink however still spreads heat through the thick base to even the farthest fins.

still, i would like to see a heatsink like an alpha, but iwth a heatpipe to go to a second set of fins or something.