HeatPipes?
 

I plan on having a new watercooled setup in a few months. But I am also curious about heatpipes. Are GOOD heatpipes at the point where they can be setup for less than $150? How good do they work compared to water? Any one know anythin about 'em?

shuttle makes one for a p4 and a amd one will be out later this year

quite an extensive disscussion going on over @ overclockers.com about heatpipes...http://forum.oc-forums.com/vb/showth...hreadid=161052 for y'all register-ee's :)

To sum it up picture-wise:

http://www.deltatronic.info/Technik/...CPU2_gross.jpg

http://www.tsheatronics.co.jp/zen/ht...h_NCU-1000.jpg

http://www.teccentral.de/reviews/coo..._ks07/tech.jpg

And some others. Most are not avaible outside their respected contries, and in fact that blue thing I don't think really even is a heatpipe, but all the same, there they are.

Honestly, until the capiliary action (black) technical model starts being modified and copied, I'd watercool. The US military is contracting a major company to do advanced research on these heatpipes, but I don't think you'll see them on the shelf for more than a few years to come.

With the exception of the capiliary driven ones, heat pipes work primarialy through a liquid (usualy under pressure) boiling once it reaches a certin tempature, carrying the heat to another location to dissipate through either the air or a larger surface (the case with the deltatronics one), recondense, and start all over again. Even with a liquid with a very low boiling point (ie 40C), you would NEVER see tempatures lower than 40C. You'd unlikely see temps above that either, though, so it's really your choice. No pump noise, but I'd imigine your case would heat up pretty well after a while.

Also I'd like to mention seeing companies like Shuttle & Zalman manfacture heatpipes makes me shudder. They're compliciated devices; a few engineers at a small company don't have a chance of making an efficient one.

I like that first heatpipe design that you have shown there Axle. I would not be able to handle a modern day Athlon/P4 but for the older chips running at close to idle 90% of the time, it seems like a nice alternative.

Actually, that first one might not work too bad in an aluminum case.

Not to mention, it is finally an example of a situation where an aluminum case actually could keep your PC cooler than a steel one, based on the material alone. :D

Actually that's a P4 2.0 GHz under there...

Another finely unavaible Deltatronic's product: http://www.deltatronic.info/Technik/...u-kuhlung.html

How about that company in Japan that is making and selling passive coolers there as fast as they can make them.

And they expect to have a passivePOWER SUPPLY out latter this year! That will be great.

edit:
Hope it won't take years for them to get here.:(

You must have seen the same post on SPCR that I did :)

You never know. I doubt they'll have them this year here in the good ol USA, but they might...