Building A System from Scratch, Part 2 - Heat sink
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Next up, and possibly one of the hardest parts to fit, will be the heat sink, a chunky metal block consisting of a series of metal slates layered close to one another to aid heat transfer away from the CPU. My advice is to go for a bronze one, as these have been shown to dissipate more heat than aluminium ones.
Around the edge of the processor socket will be some fittings to enable you to fix the heat sink to the top of the processor, and the heat sink itself will have a moving arm going through the center of it that clips it in place and holds it there firmly. Getting this clip locked down in place is, without doubt, the single most butt-clenching moment you will have when building a PC. If you’ve never fitted one before, when you lock down the clip, you will probably think you’ve cracked the processor.
Included with either the motherboard or heat sink should be a tube of silicon heat transfer gel; check the documentation that comes with the heat sink, as this may have been pre-applied by the manufacturer. If you need to use the gel, apply a thin layer to the parts of the processor that come into contact with the heat sink; in this situation, less is definitely more.
If there is not one fitted to the heat sink, there will be holes in the top in which to screw a fan onto the heat sink, so add this now if necessary. The fan will need to be powered, and there will be a cable coming from it that needs to be attached to a small three pin connector somewhere near the CPU socket. These are normally clearly marked on the motherboard itself, but refer to the motherboard manual if in doubt.
This cable is invariably excessively long and I have found it useful to wind the excess wire around the casing of the fan at the top of the heat sink several times to take in the slack and generally keep things tidy.
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