360° View - Gelid Black Edition Heatsink Information on Frostytech's test methodology is available here.
The eleven-blade front fan measures 15x120mm and drives air towards an internal seven-blade fan that helps overcome the thicket of heatpipes and aluminum fins without too much loss in velocity. Each aluminum fin measures 0.4mm thick and is spaced 2.0mm from the next.
The four 6mm diameter and three 8mm diameter nickel plated copper heat pipes are sandwiched between an 9mm thick aluminum base cap and 5mm thick copper base plate, all joints are fully soldered. The two fans are attached to the 112x126x32mm aluminum fin stacks with springy wire fan clips. The bottom-most aluminum fin is elevated 37mm above the CPU for clearance.
At the business end of Gelid's 'the Black Edition' heatsink we find a 5mm thick slab of copper with seven heatpipes of various diameters running through it. The base measures 39x39mm and has a perfectly flat, smooth machined surface finish. Looking at the top of 'the Black Edition' heatsink, we see the heatpipes are spaced ~12-4mm apart in a staggered row.

Base Finish and Flatness

Flipping a heatsink over to inspect the business end is often a simple indicator of overall cooler quality. More practically speaking, a heatsink is in many ways only as effective as the contact it makes with the processor - the flatter and smoother the better. Base finish is one of the criteria that Frostytech measure in the course of evaluating heatsinks, and it involves two distinct aspects. Surface Finish is the first; this is calculated with the aid of Surface Roughness Comparator that has a cross section of common machine surface finishes and their numerical surface roughness equivalents in microinches. The second is Surface Flatness. This is tested with an engineer's straight edge or proven flat surface, in two axes.

The copper base of Gelid's 'the Black Edition' heatsink is perfectly flat in both axes and has a very smooth machined surface finish, with surface roughness at or better than ~16 microinches.

Up next, heatsink sound level comparisons....