"kornball" wrote:
> I'd have thought Newegg was one.
> How many do you need? It's not as though this will be hard,
> everybody and their brother is an example seller of products
> with heatsinks.

Here are some interesting discussions and comments:

http://www.thermaflo.com/crosscut.shtml

"Turbulent air breaks the stagnant air boundary layers
around the pins and, as a result, enhances the heat sink's
thermal performance."

http://www.frostytech.com/articlevie...articleID=2001

"To induce turbulence within the fins and improve thermal
transmission between the air and metal, Thermalright have
modified the aluminum fins by adding 'proprietary bent winglets'."

http://sound.westhost.com/heatsinks.htm

"Simple convection is not as effective (even for the same rate
of flow of air), because of the "laminar" flow of air (where the
air at the surface of the heatsink moves slower than that further
away). This effect can be easily seen on a windy day. If you stay
close to a wall or other large area (lying on the ground works too),
it will be noticed that it is less windy than out in the open. Exactly
the same thing happens with heatsinks (but on a somewhat
reduced scale). Creating turbulence is an excellent way to defeat
this process, but this requires fans, and fans are noisy."

http://www.fischerelektronik.de/fisc.../KKoneng_e.htm

"The heat transfer towards the flowing air that can be achieved
with plain fins is relatively restricted. The laminar air flow that
emerges is not sufficient to carry off the heat. Therefore, attempts
are being made to improve heat transfer (fins to air) by producing
more turbulent flow using an appropriate fin geometry."

http://www.hilltech.com/products/uv_...radiators.html

"Optimizing cooling efficiency in an LIA is achieved by using
a heatsink-based aluminum reflector, where the material has
a high thermal conductivity and the design maximizes the effects
of surface area and turbulence. Within reason, the more surface
area the better the lamp cooling. Also important is turbulence,
because of the skin effect in cooling. A thin layer of air surrounding
a cooling surface acts as a thermal insulator impeding the effect
of forced air-cooling. This layer needs to be disrupted by turbulent
airflow, which can be created by providing irregular fins and fin
geometries."

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/6729383.html

"at least some said protrusions affect said streaming of said
fluid so as to enhance the turbulence of said streaming of said
fluid, thereby enhancing convective heat transfer from said
object to said fluid."


The goal of cooling an object is to transfer its heat to something else.
If the cooling fluid gets hot, it's because it drew away heat - just what
you want.

In short, the goal of PC component cooling is not to just get the
largest volume of air into and out of the case per unit time, it's
to get the largest volume of air IN CONTACT WITH THE HEATED
PARTS per unit time, the turbulent flow in the vicinity of those
parts, regardless of how that turbulence is generated, is more
important.

*TimDaniels*