GPU heatsink/fan on a CPU?

[Ramroids55]

New member here, so bear with me. My GTX460(old, i know) died on me the other day. I was toying around with it and took the heatsink off of the card. It's a copper base, with aluminum fins and 2 copper heat pipes. It's low profile, and looks rather spiffy. The heatsink on my CPU is a stock cooler that came with my quad core. Does it's job, but the fan is annoying and doesn't match the rest of my rig.

So my question is this. Would the GPU heatsink/larger fan combo work for my CPU? I know the reverse is popular for some reason. I'm not above buying an actual heatsink for the CPU, but i'm a DIY'er. Any thoughts would be appreciated.

 

[synphul]

It might work. No way of knowing until you did it. The biggest concern/hurdle might be a way to secure the gpu heatsink to the cpu since they probably don't mount the same way. You'd need to find a compatible retention system to get it secured nice and tight to the cpu for maximum contact. Also I think cpu coolers are more powerful than gpu coolers. Not always, but most of the time gpu's can handle higher temps than cpu's by design so may not require as much cooling. Especially considering many graphics cards (even double height) only have a fraction of the room to fit the cooler to prevent blocking the next pcie slot vs the room a cpu cooler has.

 

[synphul]

Here's a similar thread as your question, not sure if any of these comments on the matter will help you out any.

http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1667364