Thermalright themselves have stated that the heatpipe orientation (at least for their heatsinks) does not affect performance. And some tests: http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=79765
But that guy didn't test the worst orientation of all because the heatsink will never be installed that way on a CPU. And one more thing about the difference between the XP120 and SI-97 is SI-97 depends 100% on the heatpipe in order to work because the top fins are not connected to the base of the heatsink directly unlike XP120, which makes matter worse.
Actually, Thermalright would disagree with you there. Here's a quote from Thermalright's website: "Heatsink Orientation issues: V-1 cooler should always be placed with the stacked fins (stock fan) on top as in a standard ATX tower case. Opposite placement (such as in a Lian-Li PC-V1000/PC-V1200 case) may result in dysfunction of heatpipes and risk damaging the GPU." Heatpipe orentation can save you a few hundred dollars. As Chai said before, the XP-120 has enormous amounts of fins contacting the base. The performance of the older model (without heatpipes) vurses the same design with heatpipes (XP-120) is only about 2 degrees celsius. The difference would be much greater on the SI because it has no fins to instantly cool the base. That's why those large ThermalTake heatpipe heatsinks with no base fins perform poorly when compared to the XP-120. In the case of the artilce's SI, all of the cooling is dangerously reliant on the heatpipes. If they aren't positioned correctly, little or no coolant is heated and evaporated. The video card mod article posted here should state this, so that anyone who is about to perform the same mod won't fry their GPU's on a hot, sunny, July day.
Hmm..my mistake about the orientation, it seems that only applies to the XP-90/120. But it still doesn't explain the cooler temperatures
Well, that's true. But our climate here is almost July summer everyday, average temperature of 30+C I don't think it has caused the author any problems. Well, we have to wait for him to reply.
Well I don't know but my SI-97 still works normally even when positioned upside down, just as what Thermalright stated in their FAQ. Perhaps thermalright is using heatpipes with wick structure in the SI-97 while the V1 is only using normal heatpipes?
Looks like you're trying to rattle a hornet's nest, Mob1u5. Just to add a little of what has been said before me and what will most probably be said after this, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Other than that, welcome to ARP. EDIT: Crap, I didn't notice that that post was a long time ago!
whatever anybody says in theory about heatpipe orientation makes no difference in the fact that the SI-97 mod works better then any other air cooling solution for a video card. the temps don't lie. this mod allowed me to get a 108.8% increase in my video cards performance (with the pipes opened, voltmod and OC) and as I'm looking at the little screen of my temperature probe at idle it shows 28.2C and when I play quake4 at max resolution for my 19" monitor and everything at high settings, it never goes over 43C (now that the AS5 is cured). my cases ambient temp is 22C (thanks to good airflow in my case).
