J3r3my

You can see those round tubes sticking out of high performance heat sinks, but what are they? They are called heatpipes. They may look solid but they are actually hollow and filled with a special fluid. The inside of the tube is coated with an absorbent wick.



How does it work? It is actually very simple. The heat from the CPU boils the fluid in the pipe. It then evaporates and travels to the cooling fins and condenses. When it condenses it releases heat and that is transferred to the fins where they are cooled by air. Once the fluid condenses, it is absorbed by the wick and taken back to the CPU where the whole process starts over again.

Heatpipes have an advantage cause they can carry heat much further and take it away from the CPU much faster. Copper can only conduct heat so far. Thats why big heatsinks need heatpipes to work well.

J3r3my

Just a bump for some comments/suggestions.

Krunk_Kracker

Good FAQ :D

somody

always wondered what those uber things were! w00t! rep++

J3r3my

Thanks guys. I had to write the whole FAQ from memory cause the site I learned it from is no longer around.

|talian $tallion

cool i have a heatsink with heatpipes and i didnt know it was that complex

HrnyGoat

Awesome. I knew that they were filled with fluid but never knew that it used evaporative cooling. (Got 2 of them in my laptop)

Korke

nice faq, i didn't know that at all, i just thought they were there to look nice :P ;)

Transonic

Good job. There's a lot more info for those that like reading here:
http://www.heatsink-guide.com/
and here:
http://www.heatsink-guide.com/heatpipes.shtml

radbirts

awesome, i'd never even thought about that.