SOLVED Silver plating,Or maby even Gold Plating

[BorisDaSpider]

Ok I have a home made water cooler system,My block in Aluminum,But I was talking to someone that does plating of metals,And he said that if I make a copper block,He can plate it in silver,or even gold for cost($40) Should I see what happens?My temps are at 26C idel,and 30 at load.(PIII700e@1022)
Ive been wanting to make another block,Copper this time. Im gonna be adding a Pelitier,Will the gold hold up???or even the silver??

Whatcha Think?

 

[ReNeG@dE]

I can't remember where on this site, but there was a graph that showed the thermal conductivity (?) of various metals and silver was one of the top (beating copper, aluminum, gold, etc.) so go for silver.

Plus silver looks so much cooler than gold.

 

[Bender]

Squeal... How cool, a gold plated water block. I knew gold was good for something. Well it may improve the surface finish but other than that it probably won't do much in the way of keeping temps down.

 

[Mr_Goat]

All the gold plating is going to do is make that water block of yours more pretty and more expensive...the silver plating is going to do the same... When you have two contacting materials transfering heat from one to the other there is a factor called Contact Thermal Resistance...this impeads the flow of heat between the two materials, when you start mixing more materials you make more area's that have Contact Thermal Resistance...which in turn slows down heat transfer...

So, the gold and silver lating ideas are bad unless you wanna window your case...

 

[Overload]

I think a copper block with a coat of silver between the cpu and block would be enough if you realy want to try it. coating the entire thing would just be a waist.