What is holding TRUE, OCZ V2 and S1283 back?

[Calmatory]

Is it surface area? (can someone measure?)
Is it bad contact between heatpipes and fins?
Is it too thin fins? (Heat doesn't transfer efficiently to the center of fins)
Is it bad contact between heatpipes and the base of the cooler?
Is it poor performing heatpipes? (Can't transfer enough heat up to the fins)
more possibilities?

What I think is that the biggest bottleneck is the contact between heatpipes and fins, heat doesn't transfer efficiently, second one is too thin fins, the center of the fin is not as good at removing the heat due to the low temperature delta, as the edges are.

[zanzabar]

i think that they dont get the heatpipes on the sided loaded, and that they need more fin density

[STEvil]

Heatpipes.

Heatpipe density in fins.

If you took a TRUE and hollowed out all the heatpipes then pumped water around it (through the heatpipes only) you might get some interesting performance.

[zanzabar]

isnt some1 doing that with a metallic liquid compound thats out in q3

[Razmatazz]

I second the thought that the bottleneck is likely between the heatpipes and the fins. Idea about too thin fins is probably right but this would be in reference to idea number one (at the heatpipe/fin interface). Perhaps more contact with the fins at the heatpipe/fin interface would make a difference. I would suspect that this has all been thought of and tested by R&D though. It would be interesting to know how their designs have come to be however.