HSF/Water Block Purpose

[synergy]

What is you thoughts/knowledge about HSF and/or water blocks. Are they primarily to bring colder temps to the CPU or to draw heat away from the CPU. If you have sources please state them.

[b1gapl]

The purpose of the HSF/water block, is to draw heat away from the CPU.

[peterhuang913]

The HSF it to take heat away. The water block is to bring in cooler water, not to cool down the CPU, but to take its heat away.

[bmxfreakrider]

wiki is your friend. Article

it helps to transfer the heat from the core to the atmosphere, and prevents a potential meltdown of the core. have you ever noticed that a hot cpu, clogged heatsink, and/or a non functioning fan has decreased performance, but a working setup has great performance?

Most enthusiast groups perfer to have liquid cooling as they yeild the greatest cooling performance, or they perfer to have some top-notch heatsinks like the tuniq tower, or the ninja. Personally I perfer the ninja, as my core idles at 20C, and loads at 32C.

Thermal transfer compounds also assist in the thermal transfer of heat from the core to the heatsink / block. The most common of these are Arctic silver and what this does is fill in the little pits that are on the bottom of the cooling device and fill in the little pits on the top of the core. It may not seem like there are any, but on a micro level, there are, just imagine trying to tranfer heat from one object to another, and there are a bunch of open areas where there is no contact at all, just a little space of air, and air acts as an insulator.

[Apokalipse]

What should i be getting ?

Originally Posted by Apokalipse

getting a better cooler does not automatically mean the temperature will be lower all the time. It depends on a number of factors, including the temperature of the surrounding air, and the amount of heat the processor is generating.

1) in reality, there is no such thing as "cold" in the physical sense. there is only amount or absence of heat
2) Also, any item at a certain temperature is always emitting (or transferring) heat to its surroundings at a rate proportionally to the temperature it is at.
3) But at the same time, the surrounding air or other materials are also emitting or transferring heat back to the said item (eg the heatsink)

The way a heatsink cools the CPU is by transferring the heat from the CPU and into the air
However, since the air is also transferring heat back to the heatsink, the only way it will be getting cooler is if the temperature of the air is lower than the heatsink (refer to 2 and 3), and thus doesn't transfer as much heat to the heatsink as the heatsink transfers to the air

If the air and the heatsink are at equal temperatures, there will be no net cooling. The air and the heatsink will be transferring the same amount of heat to each other.

This means that the heatsink cannot be of a lower temperature than its surroundings (air)

However, when the CPU is processing, it is always generating heat which is being transfered into the heatsink. This means the heatsink is almost always going to be at least a little above room temperature.

A better heatsink will be able to transfer more heat to its surroundings in a given amount of time (this is measured in Watts, which is the amount of Joules per second transferred).

Generally, the way heatsinks are made more efficient is by increasing their surface area

With more air contacting the heatsink, there is more air to transfer the heat into.

However, because heat is being transferred to the air, the air heats up. That's why fans help. they are supposed to move cooler air onto the heatsink to replace the air that was heated up by the heatsink.