CMetaphor | February 22, 2010 02:09 PM | Horizontal vs Vertical - Some evidence? Was just reading through Nexus' site, looking at some of their products when I noticed this page: Nexus LOW-7000 R2 UNIVERSAL Ultra Quiet CPU Cooler, only 7cm high!
Specifically, these two images: http://www.nexustek.nl/images/lowr2mountingok.jpg http://www.nexustek.nl/images/lowr2mountingng.jpg
Now I scratched my head for a moment there, wondering why Nexus would restrict the mounting of this cooler with the heatpipes oriented perpendicular to the "VGA card slot".
Then I noticed this: "Please follow these positioning instructions as much as possible when installing your LOW-7000 CPU cooler into a tower chassis PC Case. The correct positioning guarantees an optimal performance of the heatpipes. When installing the LOW-7000 in a desktop or horizontally oriented pc/htpc case (where the cooler will be positioned with the fan horizontally) you can choose any positioning method." I believe this to be the first definitive proof I've seen that heatpipe coolers do not always behave the same depending on their orientation (horiz. or vert.). I remember I mentioned this in a HSF review comment thread a while back, but it's interesting to see a manufacturer admitting to the differences. In the case above, it seems as if when using this cooler in a vertical (tower) type setup, the heatpipes would not work efficiently with the heatpipes being vertical as well.
Interesting food for thought - perhaps a reason to re-test some of the HSFs and why sometimes they perform better or worse without explanation. It seems to come down to its orientation and the orientation of the case. Discuss? |