Some time ago in one of my threads the question came up if the orientation of the Heatpipes on modern CPU and GPU coolers does have an impact on thermals or not (due to gravity)...
Noctua already did their own tests and confirmed: the orientation of the heatpipes does not matter.
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Noctua already did their own tests and confirmed: the orientation of the heatpipes does not matter.
Noctua: Heatpipe Orientation Does Not Affect AMD Ryzen Chip Cooling; Airflow Might
Noctua says rumors about Ryzen-3000 cooling problems due to heatpipe/die alignment are not to be believed.
www.tomshardware.com
Anyways, @tinyitx and I were curious - so I did a few own tests with my Thermalright Silver Arrow.
General Test Conditions
Test 1: Cooler oriented like it is supposed to be (0 degrees)
CPU Temperature after 30 Minutes: stable 61C +/-1C
Test 2: Cooler flipped 90 degrees
CPU Temperature after 30 Minutes: stable 61C +/-1C
Test 3: Cooler flipped 180 degrees (upside down)
CPU Temperature after 30 Minutes: stable 61C +/-1C
(I also performed a similar test with my RTX2070 and came to the same results.)
My conclusion: There seems to be no noticeable effect on thermals / cooling performance with modern CPU and GPU coolers no matter in which orientation the heatpipes are oriented. Nowadays CPU and GPU coolers usually use sintered heatpipes so that they can be operated in different orientations without measurable impact on cooling performance. The general airflow concept of your build will have a more noticeable effect here.
General Test Conditions
- Cooler: Thermalright Silver Arrow
- TIM: Thermalright OEM
- CPU: i5-6600
- Fan Speed: fixed to 500 RPM (+/- 5 RPM)
- Stress Test: Prime95, Small FFts
- Ambient: 20C
Test 1: Cooler oriented like it is supposed to be (0 degrees)
CPU Temperature after 30 Minutes: stable 61C +/-1C
Test 2: Cooler flipped 90 degrees
CPU Temperature after 30 Minutes: stable 61C +/-1C
Test 3: Cooler flipped 180 degrees (upside down)
CPU Temperature after 30 Minutes: stable 61C +/-1C
(I also performed a similar test with my RTX2070 and came to the same results.)
My conclusion: There seems to be no noticeable effect on thermals / cooling performance with modern CPU and GPU coolers no matter in which orientation the heatpipes are oriented. Nowadays CPU and GPU coolers usually use sintered heatpipes so that they can be operated in different orientations without measurable impact on cooling performance. The general airflow concept of your build will have a more noticeable effect here.
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