New series CPU cooler vs old.

[mattjk]

Got hold of a Xenon last night with the old style small GPU HS and copper heat pipe CPU HS.

Stuck in black ops to check everything was working, cracked open the case, GPU HS was too hot to touch! Jeez no wonder these things don't last.

Anyway fitted the new revision GPU cooler with a small 40cm fan on the secondary to aid GPU cooling, just wondered which CPU HS was better (in terms of cooling/efficiency) the large aluminium block or copper base unit?

Cheers
Matt

[l_oliveira]

They're almost the same. But copper is expensive so for MS the aluminum one is better.  Also for our purpose, the aluminum one is better, because it isn't composed of three parts bound together with screws, which has a better mechanical performance when used with nuts, washers and bolts (clampmod). 

[Gazcoigne]

they perform very close, not much of a difference between them that i found whilst testing

[mattjk]

Muchas gracious guys.. I'll stick with the ally one then, I figured it had more surface area so was probably better.

[Shaun]

The copper one will be better surely !  Copper > Aluminium in terms of thermodynamic properties.
Sure the gpu seatsink with copper heatpipe is better than one without but the newer cpu heatsink which is purely aluminium would not be as good as the older one.
MS just used cheaper components with smaller cpu die as it didnt generate as much heat so didnt need the better more expensive copper in it

[Xb0xGuru]

The copper one DOES perform better. No idea where anyone would get the idea that aluminium would be more thermo conductive than copper. The smaller fins on it also help with dissipation. You'll see about 5 degrees less with an older style CPU heatsink.

[l_oliveira]

The copper one DOES perform better. No idea where anyone would get the idea that aluminium would be more thermo conductive than copper. The smaller fins on it also help with dissipation. You'll see about 5 degrees less with an older style CPU heatsink.

If you read what I wrote with ATTENTION you will notice that I was saying that the aluminum heatsink is MECHANICALLY better than the copper one.

Because the amount of copper on the copper heatsink is so much smaller than the mass of aluminum on the aluminum heatsink they perform almost exactly the same. With a worth mention that an copper heatsink with a failed heatpipe (leaked or whatever else causes it to stop flowing the gel inside) will cause the CPU to operate on absolute maximum temperatures and fans will run at higher speed than normal when on automatic.

So for the purpose of installing as a GPU HEATSINK the aluminium heatsink is better due to mechanical performance.

[mattjk]

The copper one is no good for the GPU as it fails to cover the EDRAM chip anyway... well unless you mount it sideways

No doubt copper is a better thermal conductor than aluminum, but it is physically smaller in size and as l_oliveria said its composed of several pieces. For this reason I stuck with the ally one.

[Xb0xGuru]

Of course - as a GPU cooler, the Aluminium CPU heatsink is the better option.

[B1N4RY]

It was benchmarked before that the CPU cooler makes little difference at all. It's the GPU cooler that you should really be concerned about

[Gazcoigne]

i done a few tests with both heatsinks, and found that they perform pretty much the same, with only 1 degree of difference on average.

the whole copper vs aluminium argument is valid, but pointless in this instance, as they perform almost exactly the same.