Copper conducts better!

Hey i have noticed majority of the heatsinks for cooling are aluminum. Now, is there a big difference in temps with a copper and aluminum conductor? At the moment i have a copper thermaltake v1. ive seen the same in aluminum. Anyone have good info on this? Lemm know! Thank you!

yup...copper transfers heat better than aluminum...simple as that...thats why copper heatsinks cost more...

usually you can find aluminum heatsinks with copper plating...which helps, but its not the same as being entirely made from copper...

QFT

Pure copper heatsinks are expensive because it's more expensive, but that in no way makes them better.

On the other hand, pure copper looks quite nice

The two main reasons for the copper aluminum combination over pure copper is cost and weight. At a given weight they can put many more aluminum fins than copper. Back when the heatsinks were smaller there were many more pure copper and all the best were the all copper ones. When the large heatpipe coolers started to appear is when all copper units became too expensive and heavy for the small advantage they had over the hybrids.

That's why water cooling with copper contact heat-pipes works so well. Water has one of the highest specific heat of any substance - 4185 joules per gram, so it is great at absorbing a ton of heat.

Guys, a "water cooled" system is still being cooled by air.

The water just acts as a replacement for the heat pipes.


The advantage is that you are not limited to the form factor of your case, but instead you can use a huge, very effective radiator outside your compy case.

True, the thermal conductivity of water is quite low compared to copper and alu, however, since the water is constantly pumped around between the radiator and the cpu/gpu/whatever, that is not an issue.

Well technically, pure water does not conduct electricity, as in de-ionized water. The water that we see each day is filled with ions that give it its conductive properties.

Also there are plenty of non conductive liquids that are used for liquid cooling that will not fry your components if they leak.

good points, but the thermal resistance from fin to air is the largest resistance in the thermal equation, the schematic you would use to model the CPU-interface-heatsinkbase-interface-heatpipe-interface-fin-air transition.

and the transition from fin to air is affected hardly at all by fin material.

ya, that's what I meant. The water takes the place of aluminum - lower thermal conductivity but higher specific heat. The water acts as the heatsink to hold the heat for dissipation while the copper acts as the heat conductor.

The short answer is that copper is generally better. The long answer is to go study thermal dynamics

Hmm.... lol.... should I come up with a sim (CFDesign, FloWorks, Thatmal Desktop) for this?

LOL

jonsy2k write>Well technically, pure water does not conduct electricity, as in de-ionized water. The water that we see each day is filled with ions that give it its conductive properties.

Also there are plenty of non conductive liquids that are used for liquid cooling that will not fry your components if they leak.

Well, good luck with that as tests have proven that NONE of the selling SO CALLED non conductve cooling liquids ARE actually non conductive.
The only ones that are really non conductive are mineral oil and fluorient, both not suited for watercooling.

I suggest you actually check as much as posible on water cooling so u get a general idea, then post a new thread mayb .

And BTW, as far as i know best heat conductor is a diamond, so tell me when someone is crazy enought to actually me those heatsinks .

Pure water DOES conduct electricity; and that is because of the auto-dissociation of water molecules...

Taken from Wikipedia:

"Purified water can also be used in PC watercooling systems. The lack of impurity in the water means that the system stays clean and prevents a build up of bacteria and algae. Also, the low conductance leads to less risk of electrical damage in the event of a leak or spillage. This enables the machine to work at optimal efficiency even after extensive periods of time without water exchange."


However, on the same page it also states:

"The very lack of ions make deionized water unusually corrosive and one of the most aggressive solvents known. It is not generally considered acceptable to spray water on electronic circuits that are in use or with power applied. It is wise to avoid mixing water and electricity."



Good read:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deionised_water

I'm not sure if you are just looking for info on the whole theory of copper vs. aluminum, or if you are seeking advice on a good cooler. There is already a fountain of info on the former in this thread so I'll just tell you that if you are looking for a good cooler, I use the Thermalright Ultra120 Plus. It cools my system extremely well when combined with some AS5 thermal grease. My cpu temp never has gone above 46C since adding the cooler. It also has a good reputation of being one of if not the best air cooler on the market and will cool better than some water cooling systems. There are also a couple disadvantages to this cooler, however: 1) measure your case for clearance as this cooler is very tall. and 2) it doesn't come with a fan out of the box, so you will want to grab a decent fan to go with it.
I'm sure someone here will disagree with me and say theirs is better, or whatever. Just telling you that I bought it after reading dozens of reviews and it works very well for me.

At the end of the day, it is not really about the effectiveness of a given cooling medium. It is about the effectiveness of how fast that medium can conduct the heat away from the source, and xfer it to the sink. Usually in the case of PC's the sink is the air interface, ignoring ln2 or he or other exotic mediums...

So for any heatsink, it is about how fast the heat can be moved away from the source (cpu, gpu) to the sink - the air outside of your system. Then there are some other factors that come into play, such as how much noise are you willing to put up with vs. how much cooling do you really need to keep your system happy? A water cooled system with a poor radiator and a smallish fan all mounted inside of your case will likely perform very poorly compared to a decent air cooled HSF with good high CFM low noise fan(s).

No matter what system you eventually use, if it cannot conduct the heat away from your system effeciently, it will end up not being adequate.

I agree silver is the best metal to use as the base and heatpipes for CPU cooler. Too bad it's so expensive but if someone wanted to make a custom bling bling CPU cooler for computer shows, maybe one dau we'll see an all silver, or better, all gold (no corrosion) cooler.