100% Silver heatsinks

[Poop]

Silver is the best thermal conducting metal known why dont they sell pure
silver heatsinks, Silver is about 5.50 cents an ounce, at most a heatsink
would need 3 ounces of pure silver 16-17 dollars of metal, plus the fan, at
most 30-40 dollars retail but you would have a bad ass pure shining silver
heatsink, call it the silver bullit

 

[Ralph Wade Phillips]

Howdy!

Silver is the best thermal conducting metal known why dont they sell pure
silver heatsinks, Silver is about 5.50 cents an ounce, at most a heatsink
would need 3 ounces of pure silver 16-17 dollars of metal, plus the fan, at
most 30-40 dollars retail but you would have a bad ass pure shining silver
heatsink, call it the silver bullit

Because silver oxide sucks at heat transfer ...

RwP

 

[Tony]

Silver is the best thermal conducting metal known why dont they sell pure
silver heatsinks, Silver is about 5.50 cents an ounce, at most a heatsink
would need 3 ounces of pure silver 16-17 dollars of metal, plus the fan, at
most 30-40 dollars retail but you would have a bad ass pure shining silver
heatsink, call it the silver bullit

Wow - have you led a protected life! There's no way that ANY company is going to
retail a product for $30-40 when one component (especially one that follows the
ups and downs of world metal prices and exchange rates) costs $16-17.

$150 retail maybe if there was a mass market, but there isn't - only the game
freaks with acrylic-windowed / neon-lighted purple PCs would buy one (but then
they probably also have a 10kW car stereo and attend all the SPL face-offs too,
so their disposable income is relatively easy to divert).

Engineering is mostly about finding the best performance per total dollar.

Tony (remove the "_" to reply by email)

 

[philo]

Silver is the best thermal conducting metal known why dont they sell pure
silver heatsinks, Silver is about 5.50 cents an ounce, at most a heatsink
would need 3 ounces of pure silver 16-17 dollars of metal, plus the fan, at
most 30-40 dollars retail but you would have a bad ass pure shining silver
heatsink, call it the silver bullit

economics

 

[Gene Puhl]

Silver is the best thermal conducting metal known why dont they sell pure
silver heatsinks, Silver is about 5.50 cents an ounce, at most a heatsink
would need 3 ounces of pure silver 16-17 dollars of metal, plus the fan, at
most 30-40 dollars retail but you would have a bad ass pure shining silver
heatsink, call it the silver bullit

You'd be better off getting one made for you. When you have, come back and
tell us the cost. The caster can use your preferred H/S as a mold positive.

 

[somebody]

Silver is the best thermal conducting metal known why dont they sell pure
silver heatsinks, Silver is about 5.50 cents an ounce, at most a heatsink
would need 3 ounces of pure silver 16-17 dollars of metal, plus the fan, at
most 30-40 dollars retail but you would have a bad ass pure shining silver
heatsink, call it the silver bullit

Others have already ripped your economics to shreds, so I won't waste
effort on that, - but:
"at most a heatsink would need 3 ounces" !?
How did you ever come up with that estimate? Taking the weight from
_aluminum_ heatsinks?

- It would need about 2 pounds!

To cut down waste, the heatsink would have to be cast. Complex casting
too. Now, if you were prepared to add the cost of complex casting to
the production process, what kinds of advanced designs and what kinds
of results would you be able to achieve with copper, copper/aluminium,
even aluminum then?

I think this simple table tells it all:

Density in 10^3kg/m^3
Heat Capacity in J/kgK
Heat Conductivity in W/mK

Metal Density Heat Capacity Heat Conductivity

Copper 8.96 385 400
Silver 10.5 236 418
Aluminum 2.7 903 238

Very minute 4% changes in cross sectional area and distance to
cooling surfaces, will compensate any small advantage silver might
have at transporting heat. Since copper's density is almost 15% lower
than silver's, copper is clearly the superior cooler material, even
not counting in its massive advantage in heat capacity.

ancra

 

[Anon]

Silver is the best thermal conducting metal known why dont they sell pure
silver heatsinks, Silver is about 5.50 cents an ounce, at most a heatsink
would need 3 ounces of pure silver 16-17 dollars of metal, plus the fan, at
most 30-40 dollars retail but you would have a bad ass pure shining silver
heatsink, call it the silver bullit

Ummmm . . . because it's only about 7% better than copper, but a LOT more
expensive. Besides which, most CPUs can be cooled just fine with aluminum,
which isn't as efficient as copper or silver, but less expensive than both.
Be thankful that silver is NOT NEEDED yet. Of course, if CPUs get hot
enough to require something better than a pure copper heatsink, watercooling
will probably be the norm. -Dave

 

[philo]

- It would need about 2 pounds!

and i bet computer theft would be pretty damn high!!!!!

 

[Terry Wilson]

Silver is the best thermal conducting metal known why dont they sell pure
silver heatsinks, Silver is about 5.50 cents an ounce, at most a heatsink
would need 3 ounces of pure silver 16-17 dollars of metal, plus the fan, at
most 30-40 dollars retail but you would have a bad ass pure shining silver
heatsink, call it the silver bullit

I've got one! It's called the Silverado. Its about 2 ounces.

Unfortunately, its only for PIII's and older AMDs

find a review here:

http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=1116

 

[Daniel P]

I knew I'd see a silver heat sink before.

 

[Overlord]

I've got one! It's called the Silverado. Its about 2 ounces.

Unfortunately, its only for PIII's and older AMDs

find a review here:

http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=1116

But that's only a silver disk. I thought he wanted solid silver.
If that's the case, perhaps he'll settle for a large copper heatsink
entirely plated with silver.....

http://www.frostytech.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=823

~~~~~~
Bait for spammers:
root@localhost
postmaster@localhost
admin@localhost
abuse@localhost
postmaster@[127.0.0.1]
(e-mail address removed)
~~~~~~
Remove "spamless" to email me.

 

[jeffc]

I've got one! It's called the Silverado. Its about 2 ounces.

Unfortunately, its only for PIII's and older AMDs

find a review here:

http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=1116

Now that is funny. You take the small theoretical advantage silver might
have in heat dispersion, and then screw it onto an aluminum heat sink using
thermal paste!! Something about a chain being no stronger than its weakest
link comes to mind.... The worst of both worlds in this particular
design....

 

[hona ponape]

I have a salad fork and a butter knife strapped to my CPU right now.
It works great!

 

[Gary Tait]

I have a salad fork and a butter knife strapped to my CPU right now.
It works great!

Don't forget tooling and machining the silver.

 

[Caden]

Now that is funny. You take the small theoretical advantage silver might
have in heat dispersion, and then screw it onto an aluminum heat sink using
thermal paste!! Something about a chain being no stronger than its weakest
link comes to mind.... The worst of both worlds in this particular
design....

Kind of like an oil "cooled" engine then being cooled by water then being
cooled by air. It'll never happen!

 

[William G. Anderson]

Kind of like an oil "cooled" engine then being cooled by water then being
cooled by air. It'll never happen!

The main reason is that there is no real advantage to it. Air is a
really poor heat transfer medium, so almost all of the temperature
drop is in the air. Changing from Aluminum to Silver might increase
the temperature of the heat sink surface by a few degrees, but that is
no real difference (although silver plating might look neat).

Bill A,.

 

[jeffc]

(although silver plating might look neat).

Hey I'm for stuff that looks cool, but you can't even see the silver on this
thing once it's installed!

 

[Al Dykes]

Hey I'm for stuff that looks cool, but you can't even see the silver on this
thing once it's installed!

Silver in air tanishes and eventually turns an uneven black.

 

[somebody]

Now that is funny. You take the small theoretical advantage silver might
have in heat dispersion, and then screw it onto an aluminum heat sink using
thermal paste!! Something about a chain being no stronger than its weakest
link comes to mind.... The worst of both worlds in this particular
design....

This is no good design.
The purpose of the silver base is to transport the heat, horisontally,
to the aluminum cooling fins. This is sound thinking in itself. But
the big problem is that copper is so much better for this purpose than
silver. While I think this is a good opportunity to become cynical
about "reviews", the failure of this rather large heatsink to perform
is evident in the tests. Even so the reviewer seem to think "updated"
design could do something about this. Which illustrates the power
perceived properties have over peoples understanding of the world.
As I said, copper is superiour for this purpose. It can be fused to
the aluminum. It's heat conductivity is only 4% less than silver, but
due to both its lower weight and cost, we can make the base much
thicker in copper. Copper is also vastly superiour to silver in heat
capacity, making it much better in the role of 'buffer', or reservoir
of 'cooling'.

ancra

 

[jeffc]

Silver in air tanishes and eventually turns an uneven black.

That's what we hire maids for, right?