4 kg Literal Hunk of Copper Cools a Core i9 Processor

[btarunr]

An 8 lbs (roughly 4 kg) solid cylinder made of copper was used as a fanless heatsink to cool an Intel Core i9 processor. This isn't a heatsink in that it's made of extruded copper, but a literal hunk of copper that is used as raw material. The metal is both extremely malleable and ductile, so it's shipped in such cylinders. The best part—the contraption is surprisingly good at the job, with That-Desktop-User, the Redditor behind this feat, claiming 35 °C idle and 80 °C load temperatures. The processor is essentially a heat-source that's trying to heat up the entire block of metal (with much lesser surface area for heat-dissipation than a real heatsink), which is how temperatures are being held at only up to 80 °C.



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[Dammeron]

"The best part—the contraption is surprisingly good at the job, with That-Desktop-User, the Redditor behind this feat, claiming 35 °C idle and 80 °C load temperatures."

Author said they tested it for 15min. This amount of copper has high heat capacity, however it will just gather it and heat up, but have no real means to dissipate it into the air. The temps might not be as low as ~80°C after a longer time, eg. 1h.

 

[Space Lynx]

"The best part—the contraption is surprisingly good at the job, with That-Desktop-User, the Redditor behind this feat, claiming 35 °C idle and 80 °C load temperatures."

Author said they tested it for 15min. This amount of copper has high heat capacity, however it will just gather it and heat up, but have no real means to dissipate it into the air. The temps might not be as low as ~80°C after a longer time, eg. 1h.

Don't worry baby, that's when it's time for a little fan like mine! I call it Passive* with asterisk.

 

[TheDeeGee]

Going back to idle temps is gonna take half a day

 

[lemonadesoda]

Surface area. A massive hunk of copper has a very large thermal capacity, but poor cooling capability. AND A LUMP OF CONCRETE would be just as effective. And a copper pot containing WATER would be 10x as effective. (look up specific heat capacity if you are interested). So this is a total fail. Radiators need maximum surface area (fins) and to transfer the heat to another medium in the most efficient way.

 

[TheoneandonlyMrK]

Surface area. A massive hunk of copper has a very large thermal capacity, but poor cooling capability. AND A LUMP OF CONCRETE would be just as effective. And a copper pot containing WATER would be 10x as effective. (look up specific heat capacity if you are interested). So this is a total fail. Radiators need maximum surface area (fins) and to transfer the heat to another medium in the most efficient way.

And as a news release wtaf.

Big massive lump of metal absorbed heat, kin genius.

 

[lemonadesoda]

And as a news release wtaf.

I agree. This news should not be on TPU, it brings the tone down. What next? Cooking and house cleaning tictok videos? This can't be btarunr posting this but someone logging in as him. This needs taking down and replacing with real content. If btarunr is posting bait content to drive clicks, then TPU is losing it!

 

[Xeanoa]

TPU should open a new column for those funny takes. The 46 % Dead Space piece and the AMD undershipping "article" would fit in well with this one.

But for what it's worth
That silly image with that chunk of copper made me smile for a good minute

 

[Vayra86]

And as a news release wtaf.

Big massive lump of metal absorbed heat, kin genius.

This is social media level news.

Built to amaze idiots that never left their room or info-bubble.

Note the fact its a 'literal hunk' of copper, too. Literally, like, seriously, dude, woahhh. It just screams bottom barrel US 'language' skills.

 

[Space Lynx]

This is social media level news.

Built to amaze idiots that never left their room or info-bubble.

Note the fact its a 'literal hunk' of copper, too. Literally, like, seriously, dude, woahhh. It just screams bottom barrel US 'language' skills.

hey now, its fine if you want to insult the copper boyo, but you got to love my brick cooling!

 

[the54thvoid]

This is social media level news.

Built to amaze idiots that never left their room or info-bubble.

Note the fact its a 'literal hunk' of copper, too. Literally, like, seriously, dude, woahhh. It just screams bottom barrel US 'language' skills.

I hate doing this but...

It is a literal hunk of copper.

 

[AusWolf]

"The best part—the contraption is surprisingly good at the job, with That-Desktop-User, the Redditor behind this feat, claiming 35 °C idle and 80 °C load temperatures."

Author said they tested it for 15min. This amount of copper has high heat capacity, however it will just gather it and heat up, but have no real means to dissipate it into the air. The temps might not be as low as ~80°C after a longer time, eg. 1h.

Going back to idle temps is gonna take half a day

Surface area. A massive hunk of copper has a very large thermal capacity, but poor cooling capability. AND A LUMP OF CONCRETE would be just as effective. And a copper pot containing WATER would be 10x as effective. (look up specific heat capacity if you are interested). So this is a total fail. Radiators need maximum surface area (fins) and to transfer the heat to another medium in the most efficient way.

Exactly what I thought. This contraption might have excellent heat soak capabilities, but it's shit at transferring that heat to the environment.

I'd like to see it hold 80 °C for a day, two days, etc. under full load, and then get back to room temperature.

 

[Bones]

I can do the same with my T-Rex pot and as others have said, it will absorb the heat but can't transfer it to atmosphere efficently so heat energy builds.
My pot has been modified so it does a little better but you still can't just let it sit and run like that all day.

Even as a huge hunk of copper with it's large thermal capacity it will eventually become thermally saturated and that's when things get "Spicy" in terms of thermals seen.

 

[Space Lynx]

I noticed my brick absorbed heat too... more than I thought it would actually, I found that rather interesting, it was like two heatsinks merged into third heatsink, but not by design, brick was just for weight...

Not that anyone cares.

Just saying, mine was better and more newsworthy. Eat shit laptop cooling manufacturers!

 

[Jacky_BEL]

Imagine the strain on the MB

hey now, its fine if you want to insult the copper boyo, but you got to love my brick cooling!

At least it has cooling fins , so it is effectively cooling.

 

[Bwaze]

This could be interesting (not really news) article, if it explained the method by which a "hunk if metal" cooler actually works.

Such as it is, it's just misleading and stupid.

Even if the stored heat would somehow dissipate into air (although a 4 kg copper cylinder has to small an area for that), even the material itself costs above 30 EUR. Add machining, attacment hardware - and you stll have a "hunk" that can potentially crack your motherboard or CPU with a small mistake.

 

[Vario]

This is social media level news.

Built to amaze idiots that never left their room or info-bubble.

Note the fact its a 'literal hunk' of copper, too. Literally, like, seriously, dude, woahhh. It just screams bottom barrel US 'language' skills.

I hate doing this but...

It is a literal hunk of copper.

I agree, it is definitely a large, strong, and sexually attractive piece of copper .

 

[Bones]

I agree, it is definitely a large, strong, and sexually attractive piece of copper .

Well... All I can say to that is it does have holes in it.
Your thing - Not mine and leaving it at that.

If I had a copper slug and some machining equipment I could improve on what's seen for better thermals with a chunk of copper like that.
I'm also wondering how much they had to pay just to get a copper slug like it.

 

[Chomiq]

What a hunk.

You could get a proper cooler for the price of that block of copper and then some.

 

[Wirko]

It's not that bad actually!

Online calculators calculate that about 20 watts can be dissipated by natural convection. An undervolted i9 could do some reasonably useful work at that power, it's in the range of U-series processors. If you keep the rig right under your nose you can improve that to maybe 40 W by just breathing into it.

Just think of potential savings if you build an equally capable PC with a Pentium instead of an i9.

(The parameters I took: height = 200 mm, diameter = 60 mm, hunk temp = 100°C, ambient temp = 20°C, ignoring the effect of motherboard on air flow)

Surface area. A massive hunk of copper has a very large thermal capacity, but poor cooling capability. AND A LUMP OF CONCRETE would be just as effective. And a copper pot containing WATER would be 10x as effective. (look up specific heat capacity if you are interested). So this is a total fail. Radiators need maximum surface area (fins) and to transfer the heat to another medium in the most efficient way.

Water would be roughly equally effective if you look at heat capacity per unit volume.

 

[Frick]

So this is more gossip than news, and that is fine.

Well... All I can say to that is it does have holes in it.
Your thing - Not mine and leaving it at that.

If I had a copper slug and some machining equipment I could improve on what's seen for better thermals with a chunk of copper like that.
I'm also wondering how much they had to pay just to get a copper slug like it.

Without digging any further, I'm assuming it's someone who works with metal and just tried it for fun. And I mean it is kinda fun.

 

[Bwaze]

I remember the calculations people were doing if it's worth to have a large water tank for water cooling - what effect would larger thermal capacity of 2, 5, 10 or more litres of water have. And it was very minuscule - because water is usually moved very quickly, 100 litres / minute or more in custom water cooling. Effect of storing thermal energy was therefore really minuscule compared to heat dissipation in radiators.

 

[Vayra86]

I hate doing this but...

It is a literal hunk of copper.

View attachment 282110

Its a hunk of copper.

Literally, just a hunk. Not a literal hunk. There is no literally sexually attractive hunk either

 

[AusWolf]

It's not that bad actually!

Online calculators calculate that about 20 watts can be dissipated by natural convection. An undervolted i9 could do some reasonably useful work at that power, it's in the range of U-series processors. If you keep the rig right under your nose you can improve that to maybe 40 W by just breathing into it.

Just think of potential savings if you build an equally capable PC with a Pentium instead of an i9.

(The parameters I took: height = 200 mm, diameter = 60 mm, hunk temp = 100°C, ambient temp = 20°C, ignoring the effect of motherboard on air flow)


Water would be roughly equally effective if you look at heat capacity per unit volume.

You have cheaper and better options to passively dissipate 20 Watts of constant heat *khm (link).

Its a hunk of copper.

Literally, just a hunk. Not a literal hunk. There is no literally sexually attractive hunk either

What about realistically absolutely literally sexually attractive hunks?

 

[Haile Selassie]

Skipped basic physics course. Both the redditor as well as this reporter.