rads and heatercores?????
 

this may be a noob question, but whats the difference between a radiator and a heatercore??

thanks in advance for any response.

A heater-core specifically refers to a radiator that's used in a car as part of the mechanism that warms the car cabin when you turn the car heater-on.

The difference is more a matter of mincing words. A heater-core is a radiator.

so one is not necisarely better than the other?

They're pretty much the same thing, the name just denotes weather or not its used on cars or something else.
right?

Many times you will get better performance out of a heatercore than the radiators you will find online due to their size and construction methods. Some of the radiators sold by some of these companies online are just rebadged heatercores anyway with different barbs attached. Check out the database in the top link to find one that will fit your system properly (all shapes and sizes, hehe).

Yes, you've got it... :)

"Radiator" is the name of a general class of heat exchangers. An automotive "heatercore" is a specific type of radiator used in automotive cabin heaters. The good news is that the size and design of many heatercores lend themselves very well to the requirements of PC water-cooling (size, material, surface area, flow rate, etc.). As airspirit said, an automotive heater core (like the popular '86 Chevette core) may often give better performance than a radiator specifically made for PCs (like the BIE) because it has more surface area and less flow resistance.

That explains a lot

thanx for the help:D

EDIT:
airspirit, i like your sig.
I have that shirt:p

is there any way to classify which radiator is better?
or is it just the bigger it is, the better it is?

Most guys just go by the demensions of cores to judge volume. And that isn't a bad way, and on the net it's about the only way.

But if you go to a car wrecker yard and look at the heater cores in person there is another additional way to judge. Look at the number of fin folds per inch between the flat tubes of the core. They may range from 14 - 20+ and the more the better.

Except for size that is the only other thing I know to look for.