Now the heatsink is almost equipped with heat pipes, this is because the thermal conductivity of the heat pipe is better than most of the pure metal, lighter and more suitable for "remote" heat conduction, so you can hold up the heat sink, away from the high heat area, so that the heat sink can efficiently dissipate heat, but also to the motherboard memory and power supply module, graphics card components and so on to make room. So the question is, when buying a radiator, is the more heat pipes the better? And how do you know if the heat pipe is still good or not?
First of all, we have to understand the principle of heat conduction of heat pipes, its main thermal conductivity is to rely on a small amount of liquid in the tube, these liquids will be heated along the wall of the tube to the cold end (fins) to run, or simply become a gas (phase change) rush to the "cold end", can quickly absorb and conduct heat. Here it should be noted that the liquid flows from the cold end to the hot end and the return after cooling is along the pipe wall, so the larger the pipe wall area, the more and faster the liquid flows, of course, the better the effect.
In order to increase the area of the pipe wall, it is of course the easiest to increase the diameter, but this is not enough, the inner wall of the heat pipe will have some structure that helps the liquid to "crawl" quickly, that is, similar to the effect of towel water absorption, of which the powdery inner wall is the best, slotted or mesh slightly worse.
In addition, the heat absorption and heat dissipation ability of the heat pipe also affects the efficiency, in fact, the combination of the heat absorption base and the heat dissipation fin is good or not. In the heat absorption part of the common is the heat pipe embedded in the base or the bottom surface direct contact two ways, we can observe the combination gap, the heat pipe not only and the bottom surface of the tight combination, the bottom surface direct contact design should also be trimmed enough to be more close to the top cover of the processor.
Heat pipe and fin and contact part we are difficult to see directly, you can try to shake gently, there should be no heat pipe off the fin shaking situation, in actual use can also lightly touch the heat pipe intermittent and fin, should not appear the heat pipe is much hotter than the fin. It should be noted here that if there is a small hole next to the position where the heat pipe is pierced, it is not that the fit is not tight, but the characteristics of the reflow soldering process, which is actually a good fit.
Obviously, for radiators, a small number of large-diameter, powder-like sintering processes, well-fitted heat pipes may be better than a larger number of small diameter heat pipes with general workmanship, and in turn, fewer and more efficient heat pipe configurations can also make the radiator lighter, smaller, and possibly even cheaper. So when choosing a radiator, of course, don't count the number of heat pipes.
If you feel that the radiator is not very powerful, check the heat pipe before the summer comes, we can put a basin of hot water (you can also use a lighter, etc., but the temperature is too high, some danger), put the base or heat pipe heat absorption end into it, heat up in a few seconds and quickly rise to a higher temperature to normal. If the waiting time is long and the heating is slow, it may only be the wall metal in the pipe that conducts heat, there must be a problem, and there is no obvious heating for a long time, then the heat pipe and the base may be completely detached, and it will not be repaired and directly replaced.