Material Of The Heat Sink Fins Of The Radiator

The material of the heat sink refers to the specific material used for the heat sink. Each material has different thermal conductivity, arranged in descending order of thermal conductivity, namely silver, copper, aluminum, and steel. However, using silver as a heat sink would be too expensive, so the best solution is to use copper. Although aluminum is much cheaper, its thermal conductivity is obviously not as good as copper (only about 50% of copper). The commonly used materials for heat sinks are copper and aluminum alloy, each with its own advantages and disadvantages. Copper has good thermal conductivity, but it is expensive, difficult to process, heavy (many pure copper heat sinks exceed the weight limit of CPUs), has a small heat capacity, and is prone to oxidation. However, pure aluminum is too soft to be used directly. Only aluminum alloy can provide sufficient hardness. The advantages of aluminum alloy are low price and light weight, but its thermal conductivity is much worse than copper. Some radiators take advantage of each other and embed a copper plate on the aluminum alloy radiator base. For ordinary users, using aluminum heat sinks is already sufficient to meet their heat dissipation needs.