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IT Support & Hardware · Foundational

Heat Sink

A passive metal component with fins that draws heat away from a chip and dissipates it into the air.

Definition

Heat sinks are usually aluminum or copper and are mounted on CPUs, GPUs, chipsets, and VRMs. Thermal paste fills microscopic gaps between the chip and heat sink. Most CPU heat sinks pair with a fan (active cooling), while some low-power designs are fanless (passive).

Example

A tower air cooler uses heat pipes to move CPU heat to a fin stack cooled by a 120 mm fan.

Exam tip

Reapply thermal paste whenever a heat sink is removed and reinstalled.

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