The term is used pretty loosely in PCs. I agree those bits of copper you see in coolers are often solid, which just means they’re conductors rather than heat pipes in the technical sense.
If they’re solid, they aren’t heatpipes. I have not heard of anyone defrauding consumers with fake heatpipes in that manner, although I’m sure it must have happened at some point.
@Stepsongrapes: Yes, they have liquid inside. But metal isn’t porous, and they’re soldered together, and it’s a very small amount of liquid. I have never heard of one leaking, unlike AIO and certainly custom water cooling.
Can you guys point me to a CPU-mounted aircooler that has “true” heatpipes with liquid in them? I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything other than those that have the solid metal conductors. The only things that I would have suspected as having true liquid heatpipes are the type that Brian got: a case-mounted fan unit with flexible tubing and some sort of mechanical pump. I’ve always used the terms as essentially mutually exclusive: “air-cooled” means no liquid and “liquid cooled” means tubing. Obviously, even most “liquid cooled” are essentially air-cooled via some sort of active fan, though I have seen some passive (non-fan) designs with tubing connected to large radiators.
They all do. 100% of them. That’s what a heatpipe is.
Stusser is correct about the heatpipes.
Relevant video:
Right, the whole point is that when the liquid gets hot, it expands in volume slightly, pushing it out toward the ends, where it cools more rapidly.
Welp, the new PC is home! If I didn’t have a podcast at 6 AM tomorrow, I’d be hooking it all up now, but it’s gorgeous y’all. GORGEOUS. Can’t wait to start playing stuff on it tomorrow!
Pics!
Once it works and is all hooked up, I will.
Lift Off!
It’s taking every fiber of my being to resist the urge to hook it all up now. Uugghhh.
As much as I want to, I need to make sure I can record a podcast tomorrow, then wipe the old PC.
Look at you being all adult like and stuff. Waiting for others to build it for you, then waiting to hook it up because you have podcast responsibilities.
Me, myself, and I would have ripped open the boxes and started building it while trying to dress our little guy for school then turned it on before the last screw was in.
Livestream your PC… not you doing anything on it, just your PC sitting there looking beautiful!
And now I have to wait to wipe the old system before passing it onto a friend so that’ll take a couple of hours.
Tom Petty was right.
Don’t back down?
Free fallin?
Avoid the dentist?
She loves Elvis obviously
The wayayting is the hardest part!
You guys. You. Guys.
Wow.