http://www.thermacore.com/thermabase.htm

Heatpipe / chamber heat spreader plates:

Ok, anybody seen a retail HSF based on these? They hint that this is in the pipe (pardon the pun:), and Sun uses them for UltrasparcIIIcu. BTW, they do hold the patent.

They look absolutely ideal. They even allow for way off-center heat source placements. Standard wick allows up to 80 watts per heat source. There have been a few stabs at heatpipe technology coolers, but most of them (except maybe Coolermaster HHC's) seem to be moving heat uneccissarily from A to B with little advantage (or perhaps notable disadvantage). I propose:

step 1: A thermabase + copper thin fins, largish, good for low airflow/high heat. If MOBO allows for it, could be much larger than socket (hang off side of MOBO).

step 2: A MOBO with CPU, main chipset, and GPU (or Nvidia2?), all onboard mounted together to allow 1 large thermabase heatsink to cool all 3 chips together (yes, multiple heat sources are OK according to Thermacore). 1 quiet fan cools all.

any comments?

that would be a good idea and to sit one of the therma-base spreaders under a big heatsink like a Slot A one like the VOS 32+ (me thinks getting a sample of them is in order, the only way I could think of getting one of these types of heatsinks commerically would be to order one OEM from Sun good idea see if u can score a "evaluation sample" or something

Most of Thermacore's products are really cool (pardon the pun). I've been watching them & been in touch with them for 9~12 months -- with an eye on getting a review sample of a ready-made solution. I finally met with them at IDF in San Jose last month. (See IDF 1 coverage in articles) Unfortunately, it seems they ONLY make custom solutions. They did promise to send me a http://www.thermacore.com/pr_thermavent.htm but I got the feeling the product is not exactly high on their priority list.

quokked ...to order one OEM from Sun good idea...

Unfortunately they only seem to sell whole assembled processor cards with HS attached, for $5500usd (how does ultraspark compare with an athalon cluster at those prices eh?).

MikeC ...it seems they ONLY make custom solutions...

They obviosly must have a stock of 'generic' thermabase spreader plates, or an open liscenced model they have produced before that they could spare a few of... Talk about promoting the industry eh? It's often the computing grasstoots these days that's really fiddling out the details of this fun stuff, and the experimentation leads to publicity & designs leads to demand leads to products leads to sales leads to profit for them and there damn patent (ok, sorry for the resentment, but one of the established quality HSF manufacturers would surely have used this by now if wasn't tied up, and meanwhile our ears are left bleeding).

NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! seems the only way I could get one is to get one of these babies would be to get lucky and pick one up at the auction from a dead sprac somehow
time to hunt round eBay I think

If we couldn't somehow convince them to "give" us a few.

I wonder if they'd accept an order if we were a few people ordering a bulk shipment?

I'm in

I guess this is signup time then... heheh.

You wouldn't have any idea what the OEM's would have to pay for something like this, would you?

so it basically evenly distributes heat along the heatsink instead of the heatsink getting hotspots then?

That's the general idea, yeah.

Íf it works like it should, that would mean better cooling effect at lesser airflow since the heatsink is being used more efficiently.

Check out the technical docs area on their website (link at top of my original post).

The thermabases seem to do an extremely excellent job. They use thin copper as the 'envelope' with a sintered copper wick inside coating. The heat loads they handle are as high as 100's of watts, and they make an isothermal space: that is the water vapor cycle conducts heat something like 4000 times better than copper, so the entire outer surface goes to the same temp almost instantly, including the entire bottom of the heatsink attached on the 'other side' (I would have said 'on top' but they work on the side too). Basically even copper and silver are way higher heat resistances at any thickness than a system like this, which is the biggest limitation to enlarging a solid metal heatsink base to improve cooling: you just can't get heat very far through metal without it building up at the starting point and forming a hot spot. Then when they bond thin copper fins right on top of the upper side of the housing, you have the very smallest amount of metal possible: the small layer on the bottom of the envelope + the small layer on top of the envelope + the fin bases, say a total of maybe 3mm. Can you imagine how badly a large (say 80*80mm spreader plate would perform at 3mm thick? Definitely hot spot deluxe. Basically these thermabases will move heat from say 1sqcm (CPU die) to say 64sqcm (fin base) in about 3mm of metal resitance.

All this also adds up to allowing multiple heat sources on one big heat sink, and they are all locked in at almost exactly the same temp. If you did a GPU and a MOBO chipset along with the CPU (would be a neat MOBO IHMO), the two lower power chips would actually act as heatsinks to the MOBO for the CPU. They also say the bottom can be designed (it's stamped then machined) to accomodate mutiple components at different contact hights. In high power applications they use this to cool several high power components with one fan, but have the temps matched for even performance balance in a circuit. They also use them especially for way off-center heat sources (like right at one edge or corner) where normal heatsinks badly loose it.

Final detail: they can put in through holes for mounting. They would be light anyways, but it would work great on an AMD platform done like that.

I WANT TWO !!!

Consider me signed up, for 2. I nominate Mike to ask them, since he is already on their stupid ignore list. Just joking Mike:) But if you do ask, see if they just happen to have ones with the satandard AMD through-hole pattern .

Aside: I could dream really big and imagine a thermabase case side, insulated inside, with a BIGASS heatpipe onto the CPU. Can you say passive cooling? But I haven't forgotten qokked's sig.

Yes, I also vote for Mike, after all I wouldn't trust my hard earned money on a stranger's good will... errr.

I think I could only afford one by the looks of those heatsinks, but that would also be enough. I don't plan on building an entire cluster of computers.

im curious as to see if it will work, but im not putting any money down, sorry guys, but you can do a review of it or something if your lucky/persistent enough to get one.