Air Cooling FAQ

[hardnrg]

wrong, the heat transfer process is evaporative cooling (pseudo-phase-change)... the liquid is under pressure and when heated, expands into vapour which absorbs energy because this is a state-change... the vapour is cooled at the other end and condenses back into liquid...

[kingdingeling]

120mm: Delta TFB1212GHE - 220CFM @ 65dB

 

holy crap, that thing must be hella loud!

@ nrg, whatever it is, heatpipes are good, good to have a couple of those in your heatsink!

 

General advice: Thermalright products are close to the best air cooling solutions available on the market, the Tuniq Tower 120 is awesome as well, and the Thermaltake Big Typhoon is also in this category of especially good coolers!

[GlimmerMan]

Just to update this a bit.

 

Current Best aircoolers:

CPU: Ultra-120 eXtreme (soon to be replaced by the IFX-14)

GPU (nvidia 8800 series): HR-03 Plus

GPU (non 8800 series): HR-03

RAM: HR-07

 

No I am not a fan boy, they are genuinely the best products.

[Slinky]

Hey,

 

Ever since i found out how heat pipes work, i have been confused by the design of them.

I understand that the liquid in them is heated by the CPU (or other hot component), and is vaporised,

which rises, into the fins, and then is cooled, and condenses then flows back down to the CPU and the

cycle continues.

 

But, alot of CPU coolers have a design such that the lowest point of the heat pipe is in the fins... So how

would the liquid flow back to the heat source? It would be all trapped in the fin area. Am i making sense,

or just rambling? Haha. I'd like to see a test of the orientation of CPU coolers with heatpipes, to see if it

makes any difference...

 

Anyway, thanks

 

Slink

[Ruisu]

Q) How long does it take for AS5 to "kick in" and what kind of gains are typical once it has?

A) OCC members generally agree that thermal paste does indeed have a burn in period: link. Although some of the posts from that thread seem to be missing (specifically mine ph34r.gif ), people have seen changes in idle/load temps as great as 5C after several days or weeks. I've personally seen drops as large as 4C after lapping my CPU IHS beyond 2000 grit. smile.gif

 

Arctic Silver says Due to the unique shape and sizes of the particles in Arctic Silver 5's conductive matrix, it will take a up to 200 hours and several thermal cycles to achieve maximum particle to particle thermal conduction and for the heatsink to CPU interface to reach maximum conductivity. (This period will be longer in a system without a fan on the heatsink or with a low speed fan on the heatsink.) On systems measuring actual internal core temperatures via the CPU's internal diode, the measured temperature will often drop 2C to 5C over this "break-in" period. This break-in will occur during the normal use of the computer as long as the computer is turned off from time to time and the interface is allowed to cool to room temperature. Once the break-in is complete, the computer can be left on if desired.

 

Source

 

Thanks Bleeble & road-runner!

[Bleeble]

Q) How long does it take for AS5 to "kick in" and what kind of gains are typical once it has?

A)

A) OCC members generally agree that thermal paste does indeed have a burn in period: link. Although some of the posts from that thread seem to be missing (specifically mine ), people have seen changes in idle/load temps as great as 5C after several days or weeks. I've personally seen drops as large as 4C after lapping my CPU IHS beyond 2000 grit.

Edited October 5, 2007 by Bleeble

[road-runner]

Q) How long does it take for AS5 to "kick in" and what kind of gains are typical once it has?

A)

Arctic Silver says Due to the unique shape and sizes of the particles in Arctic Silver 5's conductive matrix, it will take a up to 200 hours and several thermal cycles to achieve maximum particle to particle thermal conduction and for the heatsink to CPU interface to reach maximum conductivity. (This period will be longer in a system without a fan on the heatsink or with a low speed fan on the heatsink.) On systems measuring actual internal core temperatures via the CPU's internal diode, the measured temperature will often drop 2C to 5C over this "break-in" period. This break-in will occur during the normal use of the computer as long as the computer is turned off from time to time and the interface is allowed to cool to room temperature. Once the break-in is complete, the computer can be left on if desired.

 

Source