Originally popularized by the Scythe Ninja back in gosh, what, 2004 or so? It was a super effective design, main refinements over time have been more and more "slices" and direct contact heatpipes. Nobody afaik has beaten efficiency of the tower heatpipe design to date.
did you read the patent? it says: "Priority date Aug 30, 1999" and the first sentence of the description is: "[0001] This application is a continuation of application Ser. No. 09/386,103, filed on Aug. 30, 1999."
http://www.google.com/patents/US20040200601
Stock Intel coolers do look like this today and have for a while.
I used to spend a lot of time thinking about heatsinks. It is all tower and heatpipe models today, though, e.g.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/6830/cpu-air-cooler-roundup-si...
Originally popularized by the Scythe Ninja back in gosh, what, 2004 or so? It was a super effective design, main refinements over time have been more and more "slices" and direct contact heatpipes. Nobody afaik has beaten efficiency of the tower heatpipe design to date.