Thermal Integration TI-RV104N Heatsink Review
The
forked-fins of this extruded aluminum heatsink make it pretty evolutionary for
its class; especially considering Intel's recently announced bifurcated reference
heatsink for the socket 775 Tejas-FMB1. The 'sun' shape of the Thermal Integration TI-RV104N, with copper in the
center surrounded by aluminum, is a hint of what you can expect when computers make the switch
to socket 775 - only the heatsink will be about 80mm in
diameter.
In the past we have tested a couple heatsinks made by AVC of very similar design to the TI-RV104N which exhibited very
good performance, so I would expect nothing less from Thermal Integration's
socket 478 Pentium 4 cooler. In any case, at the center of the TI-RV104N we find
a hefty copper slug measuring 34mm in diameter, larger than most other copper
slugs in fact. with a diameter that large, it leads me to wonder if plans aren't
also in the works to come out with a Socket 754 Athlon64 version based on the
TI-RV104N. In any case, it is too early for that so let's get started and see
how the Thermal
Integration TI-RV104N performs thermally, and
acoustically!
The TI-RV104N is an extruded aluminum
heatsink, but there are several differences between it and what most of us are used to seeing. For starters,
the main components of the heatsink are all very thin - typically no more
than 2mm thick at the widest.
The
copper core which measures 39mm in diameter forms the
contact area of the heatsink, and through an interference joint with the surrounding
aluminum transfers whatever heat it absorb's out to the many thin bifurcated
(forked) aluminum fins.
The fins
themselves are just 1mm thick at the base, but branch out with a slight curve to
~2mm thickness before forking into two 0.3mm thick fins. It is difficult to say
how effectively the heat energy will flow out to the edges of the
aluminum fins at this point, but the designers have certainly gone a long way to keeping surface area high,
and problems with back pressure low.
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