Copper and aluminum, on the other hand, make excellent heatsink materials for our purposes: Copper is objectively the best material for gaming-grade PC heatsinks, but aluminum tends to be the most cost-friendly option and can still exhibit considerable cooling capacity given solid enough design.
However, that doesn't change the fact that copper has the best conductive heat transfer potential; it's commendable to search for heatsinks that use copper heatpipe structures and copper fins, though copper fins are not required by any means -- we do always recommend copper heatpipes, though. Read more about this at Engineering Toolbox. Despite copper and aluminum differences, we're still limited in cooling efficiency by the fan, the case airflow, and the surface area of the heatsink and surface roughness of the contact plate.
As a sort-of side note, a lot of manufacturers use nickel plating or other aesthetic-only materials to cover up copper and aluminum, so don't just use looks to determine whether something is aluminum or copper. Cooler Master's T is an example -- it uses a copper base, but is coated in a way that almost makes it appear aluminum. Always check the specs for the final word. This is largely bolstered by fin designs that are optimized to maximize surface area, further enabling the unit's ability to cool.
Luckily, this is one of those items that's pretty simple to shop for - big being better, in this case - just make sure you choose something that makes sense for your system. Grabbing the heaviest heatsink out there won't matter if it doesn't fit in the case and puts too much strain on the CPU or motherboard. Just grabbing any massive aluminum heatsink is probably not for the best, of course, given the importance of heatpipes, surface smoothness, and copper's place in the world.
Surface roughness is a measurement of the base plate's smoothness measured in microinches and overall ability to connect directly with the surface of the CPU. In a perfect world, there would be no thermalpaste and the copper base plates would come in direct, flush, perfectly smooth contact with the CPU The reason we even need thermalpaste, as we explained in this previous post , is because microscopic divets in the surface of the connecting materials create air pockets.
Air gets trapped in these pockets at high temperatures, causing uneven thermal distribution and resulting in hotter core temps.
A thermal interface, while significantly lower thermal conductivity than pure copper or aluminum, provides an air-tight sealant between the divets that allows heat to cleanly migrate from the CPU surface to the cooler base plate. Smoother is better. Thermalpaste's thermal conductivity will impact the temperature moderately, but not normally enough where it's justifiable to spend lots of money on thermal compound.
If you're doing serious overclocking and need every single degree you can muster, then by all means, consider a tube of MX But for most of us, 5. And it's affordable. And now we're back to heatpipes! There are two prevailing chamber designs in the CPU heatsink market: Vapor chambers and traditional capillary heatpipes.
We'll cover the latter first due to their dominance. As this image shows so well, a heatpipe contains a very small amount of coolant or liquid normally a mix of ammonium and ethanol or distilled water which undergoes chemical phase changes - this is the catalyst for our reduced temperatures. The evaporator CPU surface region evaporates the liquid, where it travels in gaseous form toward the condensor. The condensor then—you guessed it—condenses the gas back to liquid form, where it travels down grooved, sintered, metal mesh, or composite tubing as a result of capillary action.
The grooved wick design looks precisely like you'd think -- it's grooved cleanly down the interior of the tube, meanwhile the sintered design carries a more foamy and porous look. Metal mesh designs are more common among consumer heatsinks and vaguely resemble a basket's woven pattern. Thermolab cut open some heatpipes to reveal their insides, which makes the explanation a bit easier.
Left to right: Sintered, Grooved, Mesh Weave. Source: Thermolab. Many approve of the design, with an all-black sleek look and large, RGB-filled pump. The size is another plus, measuring just x It should fit in most modern cases. Two transparent mm Air Balance fans running up to a speedy rpm, along with 57 fins, make it a steady performer. The four copper heatpipes bend in a U-shape to make direct contact with your CPU. The RBG lighting is very full-on, stunning if you like some bling. The LEDs are around the fin stack, rather on the fans, aswell on the side and top of the model.
Temperatures reached Lining up the screws on the mounting bar with the holes is fiddly. The Cooler Master Hyper Evo was always one of the most popular budget air heat sinks, and for good reason. For the money, this series generally outperforms all the competition.
A brushed aluminium top plate on top of the cooling towers is a nice touch. The translucent fan is an improved 9-blade mm which spins up to rpm. Temperatures were It comes with a 2-year warranty, perfectly acceptable in this price bracket. The big question is can you get away with using this? Silent PC Review has been providing expert advice and detailed reviews of PCs and peripherals since Home blog Best Heat Sinks in Are you looking to buy a heat sink for your precious CPU?
What Makes a Good Heat Sink? The whole thing is xxmm and weighs 1. Installation is also fairly easy. Like the NH-D15, you get a top-level 6 year warranty.
Overall a great all-round liquid option. Unfortunately, it only comes with a 2 year warranty. Facebook-f Twitter Youtube Instagram. If you're feeling exceptionally courageous, you could also create a complete custom water cooling loop , which can include GPU as well as CPU cooling. Still, that way lies tube-bending and a whole lot of installation effort—not recommended for first-time PC builders. Each of the coolers below was put through rigorous testing on our PC Gamer test rigs so we can tell you which ones offer the most optimum CPU cooling for your dollars under different workloads.
If you're looking for other ways to help increase your system's cooling performance, you can check out our guide to the best PC fans. In the world of liquid cooling, EK is a name that needs little introduction. The EK Basic series focuses on value for money and performance. Its absence sure helps to keep the pricing down too. The EK Basic really stands out thanks to its build quality. It just feels hefty and well built. The included EK- Vardar fans are very good and have a wide operating speed range.
Most of the time it stays essentially silent. What really impresses us is the cooling performance on offer. We find it goes very close to mm levels of cooling capability, It does get noisy if you try to push an overclocked Rocket Lake CPU, but then pretty much every other cooler does too. With its build quality and high performance, it's a cooler that you can surely set and forget, out of sight, out of mind and out of earshot.
Deepcool is well known for its capable AIOs at affordable prices, and the Gammaxx L V2 is one of the cheaper mm coolers on the market. That makes it a great option for users looking to step up from air cooling into the world of AIO cooling.
The Gammaxx mm features basic RGB lighting on the pump head and fans. The Gammaxx is capable of cooling most processors, too, though like many of the chip chillers on this list it draws the line at AMD's Threadripper beasts. But it keeps the rest running with remarkably low noise levels, which is one of the main reasons we recommend it. At idle the L is effectively silent. Under load, the fans can and do ramp up quite a bit.
The Corsair H60 has been around for some time. Over the years it's seen its tubing, fan, pump and mounting upgraded.
Notably, it lacks RGB, though there is some white lighting around the head. The H60 V2 is well suited to processors under about the 95w level.
Sure, it will be beaten out by a decent tower cooler or AIO with a larger radiator, but their dimensions often rule them out of SFF builds. It becomes clearly audible at that point. The Corsair H60 V2 is perfect for a compact system. It's affordable and should outperform most low-profile air coolers and doing so without having to resort to unreasonable noise levels. The Deepcool AS received worthy attention when it was released, but the AS Plus with its additional fan elevates it to the point where it can compete with any single tower cooler on the market.
At the same time, it undercuts competitors in price. There aren't many dual fan ARGB supporting coolers at this price. Even if you spent double the money on a premium single tower cooler, your cooling performance won't be a lot better. Its cooling ability belies its compact dimensions. Only more expensive dual tower coolers beat it, and even then, not by a whole lot.
Its dual fan design no doubt helps. The Deepcool AS Plus punches above its weight and price. It cools very well, it stays quiet, it's got great build quality, a subtle ARGB splash with its own controller and on top of all that. And, finally, it is great value relative to many dual fan single tower coolers. Short of stressing it with a heavily overclocked high-end processor, the AS Plus ticks all the boxes. Highly recommended. That means it's very quiet indeed.
It feels really solid too, an indicator of good build quality and it comes in at a low price. But if you do have a windowed case, you could consider the black version which is certainly more attractive than the plain aluminium finish of the base version. The Pure Rock 2 is primarily designed to cool - unseen and unheard.
0コメント