Re: What's better, extruded heatsinks or machines heatsinks?

Some folks building high performance or overclocked computers lap
both the heatsink and CPU with progressive grades of wet and dry
paper on a sheet of plate glass, then use a tiny amount of silver
paste. ( note. don't try this at home on your CPU )
Looks like I'll be doing this to my Gecko 340s as a couple of screws
extrude slightly from the face, making a good heatsink contact
impossible.

Rab

>
> It generally makes no difference. One thing is that extruded heat
> sinks may not have a truly flat surface for the heat source to be
> clamped to. So, you might need to machine that flat. Some do
> come out very flat, but I've seen some that are way off of flat.
> Otherwise, thermal conductivity doesn't vary much either way.
> make sure you use a thermally conductive grease or silicone
> pad to transfer heat from the Gecko to the heat sink. Bolting
> two nearly flat surfaces together can provide VERY poor thermal
> transfer without something to bridge the gaps.
>
> Jon