Quote Originally Posted by Calmatory View Post
1) The "bottleneck" isn't heatpipes, rather the contact between the heatpipes and the base and fins.
each heatpipe has a limit, there are only so many you can add into a heatsink design

2) IHS surface area has nothing to do with it. CPU die<-> IHS surface area is much more important, as the W/mm² is WAY higher. We're talking hundreds of percent.
sure it has partially something to do with it, as the larger the CPU DIE surface area, the more heat can be transferred to the base -> heatpipes -> fins

3) Add more fins -> more surface area -> better cooling.
CPU contact area plays a crucial part, the Scythe Orochi has an extreme amount of surface area, so does the Coolermaster Hyper V10, neither of those excel or come out on top when compared to more compact heatsinks...

Clever using of copper, silver and artificial diamond will surely get the price up, but allow lots more potential with the coolers. Understanding basic thermodynamics and thermal physics will help with this stuff.
if you go back 5 years and see how CPU heatsinks improved performance every 3-6 months, you'll notice that this trend has stopped; now every 3-6 months we get a re-release with a tweaked design which barely manages to outperform the predecessor, or sometimes even can't match the older one.

Extreme oc-ing and silence don't go well together. And those temps are at 30 degrees ambient.
same OC with water cooling setup will allow for better temps at low noise. when servers are shipped with water cooling to deal with the heat http://www.xtremesystems.org/Forums/...d.php?t=260680 I think it's clear heatpipes can only take cooling "so" far.

If they didn't jump down the throats at anyone who managed to get their hands on a sample and published a little data t
how so?