Choosing a Heat Sink and CPU Fan for Your Computer

If you choose to buy an OEM version of the processor or CPU that you wanted, then your next step in the computer building process will be to purchase a suitable heat sink and fan for the processor. If you bought the retail version of the processor, then the heat sink and fan should already be attached to it. However, you can still upgrade it according to the details outlined below.

What's the purpose of a heat sink and fan? The heat sink and fan aid in quickly removing excess heat generated by the processor away from the processor as quickly as possible. As a processor works, it generates heats. The harder it works, the more heat it generates. In order to assure the stability of your computer, you must have a system that removes the heat from the processor quickly. Quick heat removal allows the processor to continue to carry out its operations without slowing down. Processors are smart chips and as they heat up, they will slow down operations to ensure that they do not overheat.

By choosing a quality heat sink and fan you can be assured that your processor performs to its potential all of the time. The heat sink and fan is usually sold as one combined unit. Often it is referred to as an HSF. I will refer to it as an HSF throughout the rest of this article.

An HSF is rated based on a few attributes. One is its thermal resistance. The thermal resistance indicates the HSF's ability to remove heat. The lower the rated thermal resistance number is, the quicker the heat sink material can draw heat out of the processor. The heat sink portion of the HSF is designed to move heat from the processor and into the heat sink.

The second rating of an HSF is its airflow. This number is listed as CFM or cubic feet per minute. The number tells you how much air the fan portion of the HSF moves. The higher the airflow of the fan is rated, the greater its ability to cool the heat sink and in turn the processor.

The final rating is usually sones. Sones is a sound rating. Sones refers to how loud the fan is while it is operating. A fan with a low sones rating will be quieter than a fan with a high sones rating. This rating is especially important when you want your computer to operate quietly. However, a fan with a low sones rating and therefore low noise usually cannot move as much air or cool as efficiently as a fan with and high sones rating and higher airflow rating.

The relationship between sound level and airflow is almost always a trade off. You need to find a middle ground that suits both your needs for airflow and low noise levels.

Finally, you must choose an HSF that is compatible with your processor and motherboard. An HSF is listed by what type of socket it attaches to. For example, an HSF may be compatible with an AM2 Socket. This means that it will attach to an AM2 Socket motherboard and will work with an AMD AM2 socket processor. Pay careful attention to these numbers as many are very similar but incompatible with each other.

Now that you have your computer build well underway, there are only a few more components left to purchase. Read along with my other articles to help with choosing the rest of the components that you will need to build your own computer.