Do Heatpipes Really Work ?

EdT · Post by **EdT** » Wed Dec 29, 2004 1:04 am

Has anyone here use them without a fan ? and if so which ones ? I wanna use it and get rid of my Globalwin fan/sink

Bluefront · Post by **Bluefront** » Wed Dec 29, 2004 4:06 am

Of course they work....why do you suppose all the new designs employ heatpipes?

Getting one to run passive is another story. And strictly depends on your own setup.

strogian · Post by **strogian** » Wed Dec 29, 2004 10:20 am

http://www.jab-tech.com/customer/produc ... =47&page=1

yes, heatpipes work.

shathal · Post by **shathal** » Thu Dec 30, 2004 3:08 am

MOST CERTAINLY

.

Or - maybe from the other side of things - why is it that you feel uncertain about it?

JohnMK · Post by **JohnMK** » Sat Jan 01, 2005 3:29 pm

Bluefront wrote:Of course they work....why do you suppose all the new designs employ heatpipes?

Sarcasm?

EdT · Post by **EdT** » Mon Jan 03, 2005 5:59 pm

Bluefront wrote:Of course they work....why do you suppose all the new designs employ heatpipes?

Getting one to run passive is another story. And strictly depends on your own setup.

Marketing hype, 99.9% of people jump at the newest and fastest labelled performance specs. I know heatpipes work in high end mission critical spacecrafts and HVAC systems, but for under $50 I had to question them heatsinks !

Mats · Post by **Mats** » Mon Jan 03, 2005 6:31 pm

Well my 50 W case heater (ATI Radeon 9800 Pro) wouldn't make any heat at all if it weren't for the Zalman cooler (no fan), it would be dead!

If you're right, then it wouldn't make any difference if I made a hole in the heatpipe and let it work as a plain pipe.

...wait, just let me try... ..aah sh*t!!

Post by **MikeC** » Mon Jan 03, 2005 8:03 pm

EdT:

Heatpipe technology has been around for a long time. It works. The real issue is not whether a heatpipe moves heat efficiently from the heat source to another place where it can be more easily dissipated -- it does! -- but whether a particular heatsink utilizes heatpipes well enough to make it more efficient at cooling than one without heatpipes.

In some cases, the answer is no, the heatpipe is just being used as a marketing gimmick and doesn't really change the basic cooling power of a HS. In other cases, yes, it is well integrated into the design and the HS works very well as a result.

Prime examples of good heatpipe implementation in HS are the Shuttle SFF heatpipe HS, the Thermalright XP series, the various Scythe HS. Bad ones generally have really short pipes that move the heat less than an inch: What's the point of that!?