Thread: Copper vs. Aluminium

What’s better for cooling, copper or aluminum? I herd that copper absorbs heat faster but the aluminum dissipates heats faster, and new vga cards are coming out with aluminum heatsinks.

Thanks.

Copper=better heat transfer
aluminum=cheaper and lighter.

When you are talking about mounting a heatsink on an add on card, going heavy is asking for trouble, especially in the OEM market. I am sure that is the last thing you want is to buy a brand new brand X putter only to have your vid card snapped in half from shipping.

Copper is better than aluminum when it comes to heat transferring, that is why mostly all heat pipes on cpu coolers are made of copper. Aluminum is not as good but it is lighter and they made up of mostly all radiators and fins on CPU HSF or water-cooling rads where weight is a concern. Some of the best CPU coolers and water cooling rad are made up of both copper and aluminum.

Copper is better at heat transfer; however it is heavier than aluminum. Also copper will tarnish after a while but aluminum wont.

The thermal resistance of copper is lower than aluminum as is its electrical resistance. This is the case with all precious metals. From lowest to best conductivity of heat and electricity; aluminum, copper, silver, gold, platinum. That is the scale of the precious industrial metals excluding high noble metal processes and alloys. The bottom line on the video heatsink are as previously stated light weight against brittle silicon PCB and aluminum is way cheaper and easier to work with. It's all economics mostly but some heatsink manufacture use a copper heat spreader with a massive aluminum fin structure to get the most surface area per unit of weight.