The characteristic you're looking to minimize is Thermal Resistance.
I'm no thermo expert though so possibly do some googling on what that is
exactly.
Copper will tend to suck the heat away faster and then the objective of
the "fins" is to maximize contact between the copper and the air (much
larger surface area than cpu core alone) to improve conduction between
air and copper as the copper to copper conduction will occur readily to
transfer the heat from the area of the CPU core up to the fins.
--MonMotha
Ray Strode wrote:
My feeling is that copper would tend to hold the heat, for example a
copper clad bottom on a pot or skillet. I'm pretty certain that
aluminum cooling fins are the most efficient, although aluminum car
radiators aren't very good while car radiators with copper fins are
common and easy to repair.
Actually, I read somewhere (my physics book? not sure) that copper,
aluminum, silver, and gold were all good conductors of heat, but the
order of best to worst
is: silver, copper, gold, aluminum.
The idea is, if it's a better conductor of heat, then when it's used as
a heat sink, the heat will away from the chip to it. where it can be
cooled by the air (That's why
heat sinks are in fins i think).
Anyway, i'm certainly no expert, and could probably be wrong. Maybe one
of the other people on the list that are, could verify what i'm saying.
--Ray
