New alpha prototype Swiftykiller

[Bender]

This is an alpha prototype called the Swiftykiller. No I don't hang out at places besides O/C I just spy on them.

 

[William]

thats not even made out of copper. That doesn't make any sense.

 

[Colin]

Look at the size, it extends to the four mounting holes on the motherboard. If it's from Alpha, it makes sense.

 

[Plat]

william

look again. it has a copper base. look right below the cpu. it is based on the same principle as the swiftech, use copper where the hs touches the core and aluminum pins.

 

[Bender]

Correct me if I am wrong but doesn't aluminum dissipate heat better than copper, but copper conducts heat better. It makes total sense since the copper base conducts the heat, spreads it out into the alu fins to lose the heat faster than copper. I am sure Alpha knows what they are doing. They have all copper heatsinks for other applications so I know they aren't afraid of the stuff.

 

[klosters64a]

A very knowledgeable chap, I believe he was a retired Navy engineering type, wrote an article for Overclockers.com's Front Page some months(maybe a year?)ago. He said that copper indeed radiates heat better than aluminum does. The catch is that VERY little of a heatsink's heat is radiated. Most of a heatsink's thermal energy is "stripped" off of it by the forced air(don't mean to leave water cooling out of it, but the article only addressed air cooling--if I remember right) that blasts through the fins or pins of the HS.

With this in mind, he wrote that copper has no practical advantage over aluminum, at least as far as radiation goes. Personally, copper has a practical dis-advantage when compared to aluminum. It's too danged heavy! And it oxidizes. Sure, aluminum does too. But aluminum oxide has the magic quality of stopping. Then the rest of the metal is protected from further oxidation by the thin layer of oxidised aluminum.
AFAIK, copper keeps oxidising until only green powder is left.

I'd love to see a new Alpha designed specifically for Socket A. The folks at Alpha really do their R&D meticulously. The Millennium Glaciator weighs about one and three quarter pounds. That weight scares me, no lie.

 

[YahooDave]

That really looks like copper paint on aluminum. Otherwise that has to be a VERY good job of inserting that piece of copper into a piece of aluminum.

 

[Colin]

The copper insert looks like the one in my PEP66. It's not paint.

Edit: On second thought, look at the recessed corners. Where is the copper?

Edit again: I blew the pic up in Photoshop, the copper is there in the recessed corners. I stand on my original statement, it's not paint.

 

[Richard]

Design is king. A well designed aluminum heatsink will outperform a poorly designed copper heatsink. However, a well designed copper heatsink will vanquish the inferior aluminum and copper aluminum hybrid.

A year ago there were very few "high quality" designs. We are now seeing the limitations of design and material. (Thus the all too common, and annoying, Delta 38.)

The fact of the matter is the socket A CPUs are emitting a ridiculous amount of heat in a very concentrated area. It won't be long before even the absolute best designed air-cooled heatsink will be unable to cope.

Bender (Jul 19, 2001 08:38 p.m.):
Correct me if I am wrong but doesn't aluminum dissipate heat better than copper, but copper conducts heat better. It makes total sense since the copper base conducts the heat, spreads it out into the alu fins to lose the heat faster than copper. I am sure Alpha knows what they are doing. They have all copper heatsinks for other applications so I know they aren't afraid of the stuff.

 

[William]

a copper aluminum hybrid is key. Copper will distrubte the heat better, and aluminum will transfer it to the air better. I don't think a lot of the heatsinks using a delta on the socket are bad designs, the heat output requires either a monster hsf(Glaciator) or a delta to overclock it and keep it in a good temp range.

 

[Richard]

Baloney.

Aluminum doesn't "release" heat better. (If that was the case aluminum waterblocks would perform better than copper waterblocks.) Aluminum, is cheaper and lighter (that's why it is more common in heatsinks) but it doesn't have magical heat releasing properties. The all copper sink may seem hotter to the touch, but that is because it is conducting MORE heat from the core. Pair up the cupric based sink with an adequate fan or water supply and the aluminum/copper hybird will NOT perform as well.

Plus, I never said that the monster delta fans were in place due to poor design. Merely that they are in place to maximize design. Case in point. A water cooled aluminum block will outperform an air cooled copper sink. However, a water cooled copper sink will outperfom an aluminum sink with the biggest fan you can find.

William (Jul 20, 2001 03:18 a.m.):
a copper aluminum hybrid is key. Copper will distrubte the heat better, and aluminum will transfer it to the air better. I don't think a lot of the heatsinks using a delta on the socket are bad designs, the heat output requires either a monster hsf(Glaciator) or a delta to overclock it and keep it in a good temp range.

 

[Richard]

I decide to do a search on google.com Just to make sure I wasn't putting both feet in my mouth.

I typed the following into google...

does aluminum radiate heat better than copper

What's the first article that popped up?

Why, one from overclockers.com, of course.
"Cooling - An In-Depth Look" Mike Larsen - 9/6/00

Give it a read.

http://www.overclockers.com/articles223/index02.asp

Just as an FYI. Radiant cooling isn't the idea in relation to the manufacture and use of heatsinks. Convection cooling is. Thus, the fan in heatsink/fan.

 

[Hoot]

Great Article. I just bookmarked it for future insertion into posts. Thanks Richard, for doing the legwork.

Hoot

 

[CalCoolage]

>There is no such physical phenomenon as to how well a material 'gives up heat'. This is an
>internet-overclocking myth that has propagated for far too long and will now be laid to rest!
So why do Swiftech and Alpha use copper bases and aluminum fins?
Geez, those poor idiots at Swiftech and Alpha just don't know how to design a proper heatsink. I feel sorry for them. Yeah they tried to save money on those poorly crafted Swiftechs. Think of how much money they saved by sticking in aluminum pins instead of copper. Maybe as much as a nickel. I sure wouldn't want to pay five cents more for a Swiftech.


>So why don't the current copper heatsinks far outperform (all tests I have seen show that
>copper heatsinks do outperform aluminum, just not by much) their aluminum counterparts?
>In my opinion it is because of a few things; namely poor design, multiple piece heatsinks
> (remember thermal contact resistance!), impure copper, and difficulty of producing a
>copper heatsink in the desired form.

These are feeble excuses to cover the fact that the theory presented doesn't account for real life performance.

>Whenever there are multiple layers through which heat must conduct, there is what is
> called a contact thermal resistance. This is defined as such that where the two
>solids meet (i.e. the CPU slug and the heatsink) there will be a thermal contact
> resistance that results in an immediate temperature drop across the joint.

Assuming this is something besides poor contact:
What is the thermal contact resistance between aluminum and copper? Are there tables of these resistances? Why is there no thermal contact resistance.between air and copper?

 

[inertia]

CalCoolage (Jul 20, 2001 09:08 a.m.):
So why do Swiftech and Alpha use copper bases and aluminum fins?

Because by the time the heat gets out to the fins instead of being concentrated at a single point over the core, the thermal conductivity becomes less significant. I'm not saying it's not significant, but the weight becomes a more significant factor by then. Solution = use copper where heat is most concentrated and thermal conductivity is crucial, use aluminum where thermal conductivity is important, but weight is more so.

CalCoolage (Jul 20, 2001 09:08 a.m.):
Assuming this is something besides poor contact:
What is the thermal contact resistance between aluminum and copper? Are there tables of these resistances? Why is there no thermal contact resistance.between air and copper?

Yes, there are tables for measurements taken at standard temp and pressure (STP = 25C 750mm Hg). Why do you assume there's no thermal contact resistance between air and copper? This question demonstrates how much knowlege you are lacking. I happen to have a degree in chemistry (entirely not necessary in this application, but it serves as qualification methinks) and can tell you how to determine the the contact resistance: 1) Measure the temp of the exhausted air 2) Measure the temp of the heatsink 3) subtract air temp from the heatsink temp and viola you've got the contact resistance for the specific conditions of your system (pressure is a function of the fan you're using.) This'll work for the aluminum pins and the copper base as well. When doing this, you should get as close to the junction of the two materials as possible. You'll find that while the air/copper or air/aluminum temps are significant, the copper/alum is minimal.

Actually, a thermocouple temp probe works on this same principle only it's with electrical conductance and not thermal. I could go into it, but I won't.

 

[cjtune]

inertia

CalCoolage (Jul 20, 2001 09:08 a.m.):
Assuming this is something besides poor contact:
What is the thermal contact resistance between aluminum and copper? Are there tables of these resistances? Why is there no thermal contact resistance.between air and copper?

Yes, there are tables for measurements taken at standard temp and pressure (STP = 25C 750mm Hg). Why do you assume there's no thermal contact resistance between air and copper? This question demonstrates how much knowlege you are lacking. I happen to have a degree in chemistry (entirely not necessary in this application, but it serves as qualification methinks) and can tell you how to determine the the contact resistance: 1) Measure the temp of the exhausted air 2) Measure the temp of the heatsink 3) subtract air temp from the heatsink temp and viola you've got the contact resistance for the specific conditions of your system (pressure is a function of the fan you're using.) This'll work for the aluminum pins and the copper base as well. When doing this, you should get as close to the junction of the two materials as possible. You'll find that while the air/copper or air/aluminum temps are significant, the copper/alum is minimal.

Once you measure the temperature of air, you are also including the CONVECTIVE thermal resistance of the heatsink -alongside the thermal interface resistance and the conductive thermal resistance between the mating interface to the surface exposed to airflow. The only way would be to measure temperature between two standard sized pieces of (insulated at sides but not at the ends of the heat source and heat sink) copper and aluminium so you can calc. and substract their conductive thermal resistance as well as being able to *assume* a uniform heat flux (Q/m²). Then you can get a more accurate value of contact resistance per area. For even more accurate results, you gotta include the contact resistance of the thermocouples at the ends.

A can see this thread has been influenced by the thread 'Copper and Aluminium' by JigPu.

 

[Plat]

this copper and aluminum thing.

how can a copper base w/ aluminum pins/fins ever be better than an all copper hs other than the weight issue?

it seems to me that the zalmans have the best idea, because the base and fins are one continuous strip of copper. there is no way that a marginal advantage (if such an advantage exists) that aluminum has of releasing heat can make up for the loss of efficiency due to the joining of copper to aluminum.

 

[CalCoolage]

inertia (Jul 20, 2001 10:03 a.m.):
Why do you assume there's no thermal contact resistance between air and copper? .

I didn't assume it. I was asking why to the guy that wrote the article I quoted from, who made that claim, IMO, when he said ALL things transfer their heat EQUALLY to air. Later he said there was such a thing as thermal "contact resistance" for differing substances. However if it exists for air-aluminum, it is the same thing as "how well aluminum transfers its heat to air". If there are tables, as you say there are, it would give the values for copper-air and aluminum-air. But if heat transfer depends ONLY on the thermal conductivity, why would there even be a "contact resistance table", since there would be no such thing as contact resistance in this case.

>This question demonstrates how much knowlege you are lacking.
No doubt. Thankfully you are not so lacking. So what are the numbers in this table for aluminum-air and copper-air?

>Solution = use copper where heat is most concentrated and thermal conductivity is
>crucial, use aluminum where thermal conductivity is important, but weight is more so.

There are sinks that use copper for both, so why do the premier heat sink designers suddenly get concerned by the weight? Could it possibly be that they really designed their sinks for maximum thermal performance? NO! IMPOSSIBLE! And there is no need for concern about weight in the Swiftech and the new Alpha, because they use bolts to attach the sink, instead of the little plastic nubs.

A completely copper sink would be well under 3 pounds.(The all-copper Thermalright SK6 is 330 grams which is 12 ounces.) 3 pounds is not much to carry for the bolts. The bolts could carry 10 or 20, or even 200. I'm not sure 3 pounds would even be excessive for the plastic nubs considering that the clip pressure is something like 25 pounds, dwarfing the weight of the sink.

Quote from Swiftech:
"We conducted crash tests by dropping repeatedly a computer equipped with the MC462 from the roof of a one story building, with no damage to the processor."

 

[asmodean]

I think people should use a weight spreader behind their mobos, if using the 4 boltholes. Just to minimize the possibility of damage...

I'm not getting in to the debate over pure copper vs copper/aluminum hybrids, better to wait till they release that HSF and judge it after few reviews.

Daniel~ might move this post soon, lol.

 

[most deaf]

bout time they made another heatsink