Copper Heat Sink vs Aluminum Heat Sink

The common CPU coolers in today's PCs, whether mainstream or high-end products, almost all adopt this structure: the structure that contacts the CPU/GPU surface is made of copper, which is what we often call the copper base, while the heat pipe. The fins or the water cooling row fins are made of aluminum. The so-called "copper-aluminum combination" refers to such a structure, and the radiator using copper fins or copper water-cooling row, which is what we commonly call "pure copper heat sink" can be said to be short-lived in the PC field. Appeared in earlier years.
copper heat sink vs aluminum heat sink

So why can "copper-aluminum combination" become the mainstream design of PC cooling? If you search on the Internet, the most common statement is that "the combination of copper and aluminum has the best balance after synthesizing various factors", which can be simply understood as considering the volume, weight, process, cost, heat dissipation efficiency, etc. The comprehensive choice after the aspect, there are even claims that the heat dissipation efficiency of aluminum is actually better than that of copper, and copper just transfers heat faster. Therefore, the combination of copper and aluminum combines the advantages of the two, and the heat dissipation efficiency is higher than that of pure copper structure. will be higher. These claims all seem plausible, but is that the truth?
Thermal conductivity: represents the ability to transfer temperature
Under the condition that the CPU temperature is variable and the total heat flow remains the same, as long as the structure, size, air temperature and convection method of the heat sink do not change, the "heat dissipation efficiency" of the heat sink does not actually change with the change of material. changes, but the ability to control the CPU temperature is indeed closely related to the material, that is to say, the performance of the copper radiator in the CPU temperature will not be worse than that of the aluminum material under the same conditions. The so-called "aluminum material" It is more conducive to heat dissipation" is just an imprecise and incorrect statement.
So why are the radiators almost never made of pure copper? First of all, we can see from the previous calculation that the difference in CPU temperature between the copper radiator and the aluminum radiator in actual use is not very large. Basically, only those who pursue the ultimate heat dissipation effect need to use a pure copper structure. In this case, the aluminum heat sink of the same structure can also meet the needs. The second is the radiator of the two materials. In actual use, the time from the start of work to the temperature stabilization is almost the same. In heat transfer, when the temperature of the entire system stabilizes and does not change, it is generally called steady-state heat transfer, which is equivalent to what we often call "maximizing heat dissipation efficiency". Therefore, for a heat dissipation system, the more The sooner you enter the steady state heat transfer, the more favorable it is for heat dissipation.

Copper Heat Sink vs Aluminum Heat Sink

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