halfwaythereThe only solid argument for hdt is price. But even than if you search well you can find non-hdt alternatives priced similarly.

I'm not sure what coolers are you talking about that don't have grooves inside the baseplate beside Scythe which btw offers great value for money.

Don't mistake a marketing gimmick with something that really works. And a decent hdt heatsink, ie Thors hammer, is not very cheap:

www.xbitlabs.com/articles/coolers/display/alpenfoehn-nordwand_7.html

cdawalloh so does the xigmatek dark knight suck now cause thats still very cheap and gives very good performance

IcejonThe Dark Knight actually performs worse than the Xigmatek s-1283. This is because the dark nickel plating actually decreases thermal conductivity a little bit for making it look black. For $44 on Newegg its not exactly cheap. You could get a S-1283 for $39.99.

This compares to the Hyper 212 Plus at $29.99 which performs much better. $29.99 for me is cheap.

I think what he refers to is the diminishing returns of HDT technology. For example with no copper base heat spreader there is a limit to how many heat pipes are placed over the hot CPU core. Usually this number is maximum 4, and sometimes more. Some manufacturers "cheat" by using larger 8mm heatpipes and flattening them. Its the stacked heatsink fans that cool the CPU, not the heatpipes. All the heatpipes do is transfer the heat really well.

This means if you have good soldering on the copper base like a Megahalems, you can perform better than a heatpipe direct contact cooler. Also since you are limited by the lack of any heatspreader the pipes on the sides of the cpu cooler are less efficient. This means that if you have a CPU cooler that works really well with multiple heatpipes like the V8, it will cool better in the long term at higher wattage heat. You would never be able to build a V8 with a heatpipe direct contact since there are 8 heatpipes and no room on the base. This is why in reviews where high wattage dissipation is required, heatpipe direct contact coolers end up having more thermal resistance due to lack of heatpipes and above mentioned issues. This is why Megahalems and V8 have solid copper baseplates.

Heatpipe Direct Touch technology has one advantage. It uses less copper, and copper is one of the main expenses on an average heatsink other than the fan. With less copper, this is why you can see the Hyper 212 Plus at such a low price in comparison.