Individual or looped heatpipes-which is better?

[PingPonguin]

As the title says. Are individual heatpipes better than looped heatpipes?

Example of looped heatpipes: Zalman CNPS9500AT (most of their CNPS coolers), Cooler Master Hyper T2

Example of individual heatpipes: Cooler Master Hyper Tx3, Hyper 212, Noctua NHD-15, etc

 

Also are direct contact heatpipes better than having a metal base?

[Shepanator]

It probably won't make a measurable difference, and there won't be a circular flow or anything like that. The way heatpipes work is that there is a metal sponge inside the pipe (in the attached pic), the fluid in the sponge evaporates absorbing energy and the gas flows down to a cooler part of the pipe, there is condenses back into a liquid. Capillary action then wicks the fluid back to the hot area. The heatpipe being circular wouldn't affect this process.

 

As for metal based heatsinks, there won't be much of a difference there either. As long as there is proper contact between the cpu and the heatsink it doesn't matter. The metal base will be made out of a highly heat conductive metal and it's mass is fairly low so it's really not much of a barrier for the heat to travel into the heatpipes.

 

The only thing that makes an actually measurable difference to heatsink performance is sheer mass and surface area (assuming your fans and airflow are the same).

So basically biggest is best.

[TheRandomness]

-Thread moved to Air Cooling. 

[PingPonguin]

13 hours ago, Shepanator said:

It probably won't make a measurable difference, and there won't be a circular flow or anything like that. The way heatpipes work is that there is a metal sponge inside the pipe (in the attached pic), the fluid in the sponge evaporates absorbing energy and the gas flows down to a cooler part of the pipe, there is condenses back into a liquid. Capillary action then wicks the fluid back to the hot area. The heatpipe being circular wouldn't affect this process.

 

As for metal based heatsinks, there won't be much of a difference there either. As long as there is proper contact between the cpu and the heatsink it doesn't matter. The metal base will be made out of a highly heat conductive metal and it's mass is fairly low so it's really not much of a barrier for the heat to travel into the heatpipes.

 

The only thing that makes an actually measurable difference to heatsink performance is sheer mass and surface area (assuming your fans and airflow are the same).

So basically biggest is best.

The liquid inside the heatpipes don't have to go all the way to the end of the heatpipe? It can turn into a liquid and go back down in the middle of the heatpipe?

[Shepanator]

9 hours ago, PingPonguin said:

The liquid inside the heatpipes don't have to go all the way to the end of the heatpipe? It can turn into a liquid and go back down in the middle of the heatpipe?

the fluid inside the heatpipes only needs to move to a cooler section to condense, it doesn't need to go to the end

[LogicalDrm]

I don't think just the way pipes look has much to do with anything. Other than them taking less space. Direct contact pipes are slightly better. But when you have bigger heatsink area, that part becomes minimal.