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MORE PHYSICAL DETAILS & INSTALLATION
Unlike previous Intel coolers, the fan is easily removed. It is secured via
three tension clips.
Three arms extend from the fan hub, pushing against a notch in the fins to
keep it in place. It's a simple but crude way to mount a fan. Ideally, you
would not want the fan to touch the heatsink in order to avoid vibration transfer
via conduction. The fan is made of rigid, translucent plastic to scatter the
light from three blue LEDs. It's amusing to see superfluous LEDs on a piece
of hardware with an Intel sticker.
The fins are soldered to a copper core, which had an odd-shaped wick sticking
out at the top. Frostytech
apparently cut it open, or obtained exclusive photos from Intel revealing a
vapor chamber inside:
"The 41mm diameter copper 'thermal chamber' works
along a similar principle as a heatpipe, using a working fluid under a vacuum.
The low pressure causes the fluid to change states when heat is applied,
allowing the vapour to rapidly conduct heat between hot and cold surfaces.
A solid metal block by comparison would rely upon the metals conductive
properties to move heat from the base and distribute it along the cylindrical
walls to which the fins are soldered."
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A closer look.
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"The Intel FCLGA4-S reference heatsink by comparison
has relatively thin copper walls around the hollow chamber... The walls
are no more than 0.5-1mm thick, and a sintered metal wick is evidently used
to return condensed working fluid back to the hot side. The copper base
is surprisingly thin too, about 4mm. The net result is a really lightweight
heatsink for its thermal performance capabilities."
This is quite a departure for Intel. Up until recently their idea of improving
heatsink efficiency was to put a thin piece of copper in the middle of the base,
and now they're using a vapor chamber. Aftermarket heatsinks usually use heatpipes
as the main method of heat transfer — the Asetek
VapoChill Micro is the only product we've come across that uses anything
like a vapor chamber. It featured an enclosed reservoir of gas/liquid connected
to three different columns or pipes. It was a mediocre performer.
