Thermal resistance

[Zenthar]

I don't know much about physics, so can someone tell me exactly what is thermal resistance. In a heatsink, should we be looking for high or low thermal resistance?
On the thermaltake website, they say the Volcano II competes with the FOP32 (but generates only 31dBa for people interested) and they also say it has a thermal resistance of 0.64 C/W, is that good?

 

[Guest]

you want low thermal resistance; the heatsink needs to take heat from the cpu and dissipate it as fast as possible. higher heat resistance means it doesn't 'soak up' the energy as well. don't know what figures are good/bad, though. sorry.

 

[gregorarch]

Here's how to interpret thermal resistance figures. They are quoted in degrees centigrade per watt, so multiply the figure given by the wattage of your processor to get the theoretical core temperature.

As for what's good/bad, most OEM coolers are about 0.5 upwards, top end aircooling is between 0.2 and 0.3, watercooling can get down to about 0.1. These figures are from memory, so I may be a bit off.

Dunc

 

[Zenthar]

They are using a 60x60x25mm that is supposed to throw 36CFM at 4500RPM, is that possible? Most fan manufacturers that have fans of this dimension with that airflow has much higher RPM and about about 10dBa to 15dBa louder! If this s true it would just be fantastic, I would put that on a FOP38 HS and would get all the benefits without the inconveniences ... But I am just waiting for someone to tell me that these numbers are false and get things straight, it is strange that pessimism is more often close to reality than optimism LOL.