Thermalright SP-94/97

How big is the performance impact on the mount direction of thease things?

Yeah, there is a reason to ask, IF the heatpipe does its thing, there should be a clear differncedependin on if the pipes are laying down, or standing up.
If there aint, then the heat pipes really aint doing there thing.

What i mean? Well, simple, if its a heatpipe it works by "boiling" (making vapor) of a liquid,
having it trevel somewhere cooler by the lifting force it creates on it self by being hot (like hot air, and steam, it gous up)
untill it hits a cold surface, or get cooled off enough to reform as liquid,
transfering the heat energi with it every step of the way.

What does this mean?
Well, frankly, everyone with one of these coolers, in a tower, proboly fooled themself,
and should (to make me happy) try and put there tover on the side (mobo down, so that the heat pipes get in action)

I havnent seen anyone asking this, and no review mentioning it, so now im asking if any of you have seen anything about it.

B!

You raise a good point. Does the heat pipe get hot enough to do its thing? My SP-94 is in the least favorable possition according to everything I've read. I may lay it on its back to test it one day.Like in the summer months,when cooler temps are at a premium.My current temps are pretty good. THE FANMAN

well i made some liqides in school a bit back and i made somethin boil at 26C ... so making something to boil at 30-20 C is what its made for...not water at 100 lol

I have no doubts that it boils what ever liquid, heck, you can have water to boil at room temps, but the question is,
does the heatpipe versions perform any better then the SLK900 cooler, its basicly the same,
and everyone with the sp-94/97 in a tower is basicly having just that.
This as the heat pipe cant perform in sutch a position.
Archilochus, if its not that much of a hassle, would you comment on what end you got the bend on the heat pipe on,
probobly would the left/right be the best, keeping it working a little atleast. in bottom the worst,
having most, if not all liquid in the bend, out of the heat. Just guessing tho.
And, if you have time left some day, just turn the case, wait 15 mins, and tell if it does any diff...
I mean, your folding, so ir should be obviues pretty fast...
B!

My bend is at the top. I'll lay the whale on its back tomarrow.I have some pretty consistent ambient temps now.I'll post back here tomarrow..Good enough..THE FANMAN

id be willing to be that laying down your case so the mobo is flat on the floor would give you some improvment with it. also the same for that deepimpact dp-102 cooler (but im sure it still wont touch thermalright)

With the bend at top, most of your fluids are likely to (now) be in the outmost pipe, and do little to no good, that should change when you lay the case down...

Ooooh, im so exited, i cant belive nobody else have raised this question b4.

IF the heatpipes are at all working, and not only eyecandy, you should have a temp drop when turning the case over. if you dont, well, i dont know for you, but i'd be mad as h**l. actually, if you dont have a temp drop, i'll probobly go and buy one, just to try it out myself, and raise a blody noise if it does the same for me.

BIG thanks.
B!

The question has been raised before.I've read some reviews on the issue.Hell maybe I'll get 30°C FULL LOAD @ 20°C ambient.I wouldn't raise hell if it doesn't run cooler laying on its back.The extra money is worth the looks if nothing else.Looks like a super charger on my CPU.Keep your flow up and heat pipes parallel to the floor. THE FANMAN

that or mabee thermalright has a really good heatpipe design that will carry liquid upwards. either way the sp94/97 is still the king and there is no disputing the fact that it kicks every other heatink's ***. (besides that pelt swifty, but that doesnt count)

I cant see how making liquid running upwards would help, the conensation of the vapor would still happen at the bend, making it WAY less effective. along with that i dont see how they would do it neither. Then any increase in cooling performance in a tower by swapping the SLK900 for a SP94/97 must be explained by something else. i have NO idea what tho, but there must be a reason. if anything the pipes are in the way of airflow, making less air go "all the way down" to where the heat is, and that should mean the SP94/97 if designed alike the SLK900 and made the same material should be less good at cooling.

One can only assume they are NOT identical, as it seams most get better temps anyway, but that still dont mean they should tell everyone "we made this with a heat pipe, for your sake" without telling you you got to use a desktop / rack for it to take advantage... they could just as well made a SLK 900+ and said "design and material experiences showed how to get a little extra out of this thingy"

B!

I think the pipes have a wick in them to carry the vapor for when their in a horizontal position. They would still move heat better than a normal heatsink when sideways, and are even better when vertical.

a wick will to some extent lead liquids up over a end, yup, that could work. i have never seen anything that leeds hot vapors down tho. unles a power is forsing it under preasure that is.

The idea with a heat pipe (forgive me my language, ok?)

Heat (boil) a liquid to get vapor. make vapor travel to cold area to condense bringing the heat avay from where its generated, and to where its condensed. the condensin area must then be properly cooled, in order to keep new condense forming, bringing more (new) heat. this while the liquid that condenced runs back forced by gravity.

Now, how do we make vapor travel? giving it a free way up. thats all needed, its like a hot air baloon, it wants up, using any way possible.
So far i should have everyone noding, mabey also saying "whadayathink we morons?"

Here is why i question the performance of the coolers.

what happends when the beend is in the bottom of ower heatsink? the liquid is in the bend, getting poor heat, and not working.

What happends when the pipes are level with the floor? you get someliquid along the full length of the pipe, and some vapor, as the vapor in the outer pipe condenses there is room for "fresh" vapor, making it atleast a bitt efective. dont know how many motherboards that let you mount the cooler in this direction, and i havent noticed anyone saying that this is the way you should mount it in a tower, if given any option.

What happends when you got the bend at top? you probobly start with all the licuid in the right pipe thread, since its been laying on the side, letting it all run in to the lower pipe. when its turned upright, theory says it heats up, goes to the bend, and dont really have anywhere to keep going. as new hot vapor forms the coolder vapor will be forced down , making it somewhat enter the other pipebut by then its allready given some of the heat to the bend, where it aint cooled, and just builds up heat. after a while all the fluid will be in the outer pipe, with at best vapor left in the inner pipe, the one where it should be...

Well, thats the theory. Stupid mentiond a possible wick, and that could keep atleast some liquid going back, but the wick cant be that big, cos then it would be limiting the way for the vapor, and in its own making cooling less effective. I have no sience degree in this, so i looked around, . there is ways to make a heat pipe work in sutch a position, they all include a little different aproach. one is a straight pipe, starting at the bottom of the heat sink, and running to the top. not verry effective, due to not enough contakt with the heat. the other is to simply place all thre pipes in a similar matter to the top one of the three, when level to the floor. that would leave all possabilities in the world. Heatpipe tubes generaly are coverd in some material leaving the liquid to run on the "outside" of the vapor, too keep it as efective as possibly, if that is true for a small config as this i dont know, as the material is restricting both the space and amount of licuid you can have in there. Oddly enought there is not much mentiond about smaller heatpipes in the books at my local liberary. guess they figured it wasent intressting at the time.

Comone now people, just flop your case over, and tell me if it helps, as Archilochus says its been proven to do (i have yet to be able to uncover any rewiew showing it tho) or if its just good looking pipes with no real purpose, or if they made magic vapor.
B!

Oops, this grew rather largy, sorry.

Its been brought to my atention, that thease links might sheed some light over the issue.

System cooling

SilentPcReview

Happy as i may be, it shows that i was right, even tho it seams to have a smaller impact then i assumed, but offcourse, to ruin my day, there is a picture of a "Alignment sheet" supposed to be included in the box with the cooler, wich shows that Thermalright do acnowledge that there is a performance hit, and that they estimate it to be the highest when the bend is in the top, somewhat supprising for me, untill i realised i had simply looked at a shorter time perspective. after the licuid is cooled of in the outer bend, it never has any acces to a way back to the hot pipe, when its in the bend, it atleast fills the hot pipe with steam, and slowly builds up a preasure, until there is enought to force the liquid back so there is a small "bubble hole" for the wapor... Atleast thats as far as theory takes me. sigh, why dident you guys say that Thermalright HAS a document just that they dont care to mention it on the webpages? that explains why they on there install web instructions mount the cooler in a way so that the bend is in the bottom, wich i have mailed asking them about... guess i know what im getting for a reply, a scanned image of there alignment sheet :- ))

Still intressted in seeing what actual temp impact you may have Archilochus, as you have the bend in what Thermalright says is the worst place... Just goes to show its still a good cooler :- )
B!

Mr. B,
I have to agree with your assessment of the efficacy of the heatpipes in the SP-97.
Currently, I use two heatpipe coolers in my PC, both Zalman's- one on the video card and one on the HDD.
Obviously, the VGA cooler will only mount one way, but I have experimented with the HDD alignment and results are inconclusive.
At this point, at least as far as the HDD cooler goes, I have to conclude that it's bling factor outweighs it's performance as temps don't vary enough to clearly show an advantage.

BUT...given the basic theory behind heatpipe technology, it's hard to see how the layout of the the pipes in this HS could be doing much at all.
Intuitively, it would seem that your assertion that it would work better laying horizontally should prove correct and I look forward to Archilochus testing this out.

Normally I am a follower of Blkgti's policy of testing before concluding ( and still think that is the way to go), unfortunately I am not in the financial position to be able to just buy parts on a whim and check them out. Sometimes you've gotta go with your gut, and in this case my first impression is that the heatpipe tech is simply being used incorrectly.

I found this comparison to be most illuminating as I own the Zalman 7000cu and have quite a bit of data compiled on it's performance. I was, to put it mildly, surprised to see that the Zalman outperformed the Thermalright in this test, as I don't hold the Zalman in very high regard.

As the SP is fairly new, and many people are using AS5 as the TIM, it will be a while till valid data is available.
I'm looking forward to the results.

They use these heat pipes on the SHUTTLE space ships.I guess they work diff. in space,but I dought they worry about the craft being in a certain possition.You will get your results TODAY...
THE FANMAN

archilochus said:

They use these heat pipes on the SHUTTLE space ships.I guess they work diff. in space,but I dought they worry about the craft being in a certain possition.You will get your results TODAY...
THE FANMAN

Click to expand...

Really?
In what capacity?

Looking forward to your results....

As there is no gravity (or rather no way making sure gravity comes from one angle) i guess it works on pure heat out there. with little to no weight to worry about, the fluid on the inside should move around freely and transported back to the hot spot on its own by moving atmosphere, while the heated vapors expand untill they find a cooler surface to cool of at? still no more then a qualifyed guess...

Never thought much about it really, out there it should be fairly easy to get rif of exesive heat, put up a "sun block" and in the shadow keep your cooler, i been tought that in space all the heat there is comes from direct exposiure to light (as the heat comes from stars, and stars are hot, not only infrared heaters work the same way, but its an example)

i wonder what they use for fluids out there?
B!

Hey guys,I got my results for you. The results are negligible.
Ambient thru out test = 66.3°F.
Upright case = 32.0°C FOLDING
Case on back = 31.6°C FOLDING
All fans where left at upright position speeds. 2 x 2 lumber was placed under the case to support case wieght.Here's a article I thought you'd enjoy reading.This answers a Q or 2 I've had too!
THE FANMAN

PS:When I bought the SP-94,I had no idea I was going to OC my rig,just wanted the best.

ARTICLE LINK

Dang, thats not much of a difference, specialy as you have the heatsink in what thermalright themself describe as the worst possible orientation... Kinda makes one want to get one,try the same, and cut it open to se if there really is anything inside or if its just eyecandy...? Nah.. Thermalright has to much of a rep to pull a scam like that, guess its just a welldesigned coler, that provides more then enough cooling on its own, to keep the impact of the heat pipe performance low.

Thanks mate, conclusion would then be that it does matter, but not by far as much as i was afraid it would.
B!

Best way I know to get the potential out of a HS is to have cool air to dissapate the heat.Having good flow and low case temps helps immensely.It has to be all brought together,for the cooling scheme to work. THE FANMAN