PCA Forums

Is a mirror shine good for cooling or have any effect other than looking better for things like fins?

I wouldn't want to slow any heat from leaving a sink! I am thinking about making some custom Aluminum sinks, should I leave a stock finish (rough) smooth out mildly, or polish to a mirror shine?

I have a good bit of Aluminum laying around and plan to try casting some parts, plus buying some flat stock and bar stock for brackets and rails.

I figured on polishing to a High shine most of the parts. Stuff not heat related I might look for a coating of some type to keep them bright and shiny. Wasn't sure if I should polish the fins for a heat sink though.

With the window, lights, round cables and such I thought a little crome shine would look nice.

canton_kid

Rough=more surface area = better cooling

I know it's good to lap (sand) the bottom that makes contact with the CPU core in order to make full and direct contact with the core to get rid of as much heat as possible. And when you do that it's usually very shinny

For the fins I don't think it matters. Most heatsink makers seem to think having one side rough and one side smooth is best. But having a smooth finish on the bottom where it contacts the cpu is best for more even heat transfer.

Its a balance between these two things:
a: Surface area so rough would be good.
b: Air flow and dissipation of that air, so maybe rough would be worse.

As the air tends to be blown down into the fins and gets squashed outta the sides it prob is better to be rough. Then you got more surface area.........

but the fan would IN THEORY be faster and more efficient and QUIETER if the fins were smooth.

Its a killer but I love this kinda thing....wish I could make heatsinks and test em in a lab!

Luck man

I should do that... We've got some copper and brass and alu at work... Wouldn't take much to rig up a program in one of the CNC Mills to tear up 3 pieces of material and make some heatsink...

I think I will test this subject in the near future!

I like the AX-7, looks nice. I got busy with other stuff and have not done anything yet. BUMMER, got a box of parts sitting since MONDAY!

My main idea was just polishing the edges of the fins. Give them a mirror shine, pretty much just for looks. Aluminum can be polished to have almost a chrome look to it. Figure that would look better than plain in a mod case. I don't want to raise temps doing it though, of course!

If I could control the room temp, I would test this to see if it made any difference, but I can't get acuate results around here that would mean anything unless it just totally shot the temps off the scale.

I have been trying to get an Idea of the difference between room temp and cpu temp. Right now I think the cpu is normally running about 33C -34C higher than room temps outside the case. Hopefully this weekend I can work on the system all the time!

I have to pull the M/B out of the case, or the power supplie out in order to get to the clip. Since that is such a BIG job to do many times, I may only install the AX-7 and forget it. What I would LIKE to do, is clean the CPU and sink I have now, re-install it with Artic SIlver 3 and see what diffence that makes, then install the AX-7 and see how that works, then polish the fins and see how the old sink does again!
If it didn't make a difference on the old sink, then polish them on the AX-7 latter and see what happens.

With the case and board I have now, it would be too much to keep changing the sinks around for ever, something is bound to go wrong somewhere if I did rebuild this system 7 times just to test the sinks.

Might be a project for when I get the custom case built, I'll make sure I can get to the sink clips easy in it!!

canton_kid