Is a copper based heatsink worth it?

[neilencio]

Okay, backstory: I'm content with my temps right now. The temps are a bit higher than the norm due to the ambient temps in my location, and I'm not even sure how accurate the reading really is because I have a C0 revision of the e8400 (which is known to have inaccurate temp readings on low temps).

Basically I get 51C - 53C at idle and 55C to 62C during normal use/gaming. The highest I've seen it is 70C, during the end of each pass of a 10-pass Intelburntest. As for physical tests, I just did the basic, which is to touch the heatsink during idle and when running under heavy load (the heatsink was cool to the touch after an hour of so of idling, and warm/hot but not painful to the touch during heavy load).

I know for a fact that I am using an aluminum based heatsink and have googled enough to surmise that a copper based one is definitely better all around. So here's my situation: I saw a similar heatsink/fan combo lying around at my sister's house, it's the same kind as I have, except the bottom is copper based.

I built the PC myself, and know how to remove the heatsink, clean the old thermal grease, and reapply a new pea-sized batch. But I find it too much work and am worried that I might snap the motherboard through some freak accident with the pinscrews. So is the temp difference between the copper and aluminum worth the bother? Or should I just stick with my current setup? (If it's just a difference of 3C to 5C I won't bother.)

[silverback]

the copper doesn't make it cooler just happens to conduct heat away better.

The copper based one will indeed draw more heat away and it should run cooler. This is of course assuming the bottom is machined properly and the chip is flat as well.

I'd change it even if for no other reason than longer CPU life

[Hobie-wan]

The copper will draw the heat away into the the heatsink better, but depending on the design of the fins and the fan, it could end up being better or worse. If these are name brand heatsinks, you could look for reviews. Though if they're not both in the same review the results could be sewed enough that you can't tell which is better. However, you shouldn't just be putting a pea sized bead of thermal compound in the middle of the processor die and expecting it to spread when you put the heatsink on. You should use the edge of a credit card or something to spread it into a thin coat on the entire metal cap on the processor.

[Niode]

Buy a Titan Fenrir if your socket is compatible with it. Pretty much the best cooler you can buy for the money. I have one on my Q6600 running at 3.4GHz keeping it nice and chilly at 45-50c depending on ambient.

[elvis]

Copper draws heat more quickly (cold->hot), however it's slower to release compared to aluminium (hot->cold). You'll find a number of heatsinks on the market that have a copped core and aluminium fins in an attempt to get the best of both worlds.

The other downside to copper is that it's heavy. It will put more strain on motherboards and cards than an aluminium heatsink will, which is something to consider if you don't have adequate mounting in place.

Here's a very old article detailing some of the technical aspects of copper and alumium:
http://www.benchtest.com/alum&copp.html

[neilencio]

Thanks for the replies. I think I'm going to stick with my current one, as both of the heatsinks I was talking about were just stock Intel ones (the ones that came with the 65nm conroes, which were taller than the 45nm ones) so I don't think the temps would magically drop down to the lower 40s/higher 30s, am just a bit unnerved with the temps because this is my first time with a high end cpu (my previous cpu was an e5200, which idled at 37-40C with the stock heatsink)

Niode is running in temps that is only slightly lower than mine on an OCed rig, so I guess I should be fine long term on mine since I don't OC this rig. Only tweaking I have done is to set the core voltage to 1.20 instead of leaving it on at auto. My motherboard's auto seems to have a problem in the sense that after waking out of hybrid sleep, the voltages were automatically bumped up to 1.35.

[neilencio]

Okay, I gave in. I used the one with the copper base. I had to do some replacing with the pinscrews because the one on the upper left has a broken end (I used the pinscrew from the old one).

At first the PC would lock upon POST, so I took it out and reseated the CPU. Then everything went fine. I followed hobie-wan's advise about using a plastic card to spread a thin coat of thermal paste on the heatspreader. Checked if everything is firmly in place (I basically just checked if the heatsink looks even and if it's perfectly clamped not moving around.)

I'm actually getting higher temps right now, about 53C idle and during intel burntest, I get as high as 75C. The only difference is it seems is that it takes less time for the temps to go back to idle levels now. It used to be that I have to idle for about half a minute before the temps go back to the lowest. Now it takes around 5 secs before the temps go down.

[Niode]

Sounds like the fan isn't taking heat away fast enough. Get a bigger more efficient fan and it should perform better. Give the heatsink a good lapping, use some decent thermal grease such as arctic silver and you should see an improvement. Failing that, get a decent HSF like the Titan Fenrir (if you have a socket compatible with it, use CPU-Z to identify what socket your CPU uses) and you will see a noticeable difference in your temps.

If it's an old HSF then make sure the fins are free of dust. Blast some compressed air down it and make sure you can see through the entire HSF. Any dust in there will insulate and not allow air to move freely over the heatsink. It also decreases surface area, which is very bad for a heatsink, when the whole point is to increase the surface area that heat can transfer to as much as possible.

I think from what I've gathered is you've swapped a stock heatsink from one revision of the same CPU with a later one. If that's the case then you're not going to see much difference regardless of the material it's made out of. If it's the cooler i'm thinking of with the 4 push pins, it's a particularly bad design by default. Having the fins in a circular pattern means that air can't move across the heatsink in a uniform fashion, making it inneficient. Any other cooling you have in the system is made redundant since it can't flow through the HSF efficiently.