360° View - Phanteks PH-TC14S Heatsink Information on Frostytech's test methodology is available here.
The Phanteks PH-TC14S heatsink stands 161mm tall and ships with a single 140mm PWM fan sandwiched between a set of 19mm thick, black painted aluminum cooling fin towers. Six, 6mm diameter nickel plated copper heatpipes run from the height of the 107mm tall cooling fin arrays. Each painted aluminum fin measures 0.4mm thick and is spaced 2.0mm apart from the next. The bottom fin is elevated 39mm above the socket for clearance, not that it really matters as the PH-TC14S has a very narrow footprint.
The PH-TC14S heatsink measures 72mm thick from front to back. Each narrow aluminum fin stack stands 106mm tall, 105mm wide and 19mm thick. The 140mm fan must be removed in order to access the spring-tensioned mounting screws of the mounting plate. The top of each heatpipe is capped for aesthetic reasons.
At the base of the Phanteks PH-TC14S heatsink we find a nickel plated copper heatspreader with the heatpipes running front to back -- typically, heatpipes are oriented the opposite direction. The base plate measures 35x42.5mm in size and is between 2-5mm thick. Looking at the top of the PH-TC14S we find an 8mm plenum in front of the fan.

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 nickel plated copper base of the Phanteks PH-TC14S heatsink has been machined on a lathe with a very slight raise towards the center (by design or inaccuracy, we cannot say). Thus, the base is very slightly convex in both axes. The metal is machined very smooth, surface roughness is at or better than ~8 microinches.

Sound level measurements are coming up next on Frostytech...