From a technical point of view I don’t understand the purpose of a heatpipe on an M.2 heatsink. Isn’t the purpose of a heatpipe to transport heat from a point (source) of high density to another point where it can be dissipated (eg. where there is space for a large surface area fin-stack).
But this transports heats to an exact same area size ‘finstack’ as could be placed directly on the SSD without heatpipe. You could just as well put the ‘top heatspreader’ (what they call it) directly onto the SSD. Maybe it would only have a bit less thermal mass. Is that the point? Adding thermal mass?
Or not. I feel this is just adding heatpipe for the sake of adding heatpipe.
You’re 100% right, it’s a shit design. Ultimate power rejection to ambient is governed by surface area in contact with fluid… And this design doesn’t have much surface area.
If I were doing this sink, it would be forged aluminum pin fins like from alphanovatech. Good for any direction of forced convection, or any orientation under natural convection.
No need for heat pipes in this application. Maybe just one thru the base of the sink depending on the heat flux density of the controller. But I doubt it.
Source: I design heatsinks for electronics using CFD software
From a technical point of view I don’t understand the purpose of a heatpipe on an M.2 heatsink. Isn’t the purpose of a heatpipe to transport heat from a point (source) of high density to another point where it can be dissipated (eg. where there is space for a large surface area fin-stack).
But this transports heats to an exact same area size ‘finstack’ as could be placed directly on the SSD without heatpipe. You could just as well put the ‘top heatspreader’ (what they call it) directly onto the SSD. Maybe it would only have a bit less thermal mass. Is that the point? Adding thermal mass?
Or not. I feel this is just adding heatpipe for the sake of adding heatpipe.
You’re 100% right, it’s a shit design. Ultimate power rejection to ambient is governed by surface area in contact with fluid… And this design doesn’t have much surface area.
If I were doing this sink, it would be forged aluminum pin fins like from alphanovatech. Good for any direction of forced convection, or any orientation under natural convection.
No need for heat pipes in this application. Maybe just one thru the base of the sink depending on the heat flux density of the controller. But I doubt it.
Source: I design heatsinks for electronics using CFD software