What is a Heat Sink?

A heat sink is a device that incorporates a fan or another mechanism to reduce the temperature of a hardware component (e.g., processor). There are two heat sink types: active and passive. The picture is an example of a heat sink with both active and passive cooling mechanisms.

Active heat sink-

Active heat sinks utilize the computer's power supply and may include a fan. Sometimes these types of heat sinks are called an HSF, which is short for heat sink and fan. There are also liquid cooling systems, which have become popular in recent years.

Passive heat sink-

Passive heat sinks are those that have no mechanical components. Consequently, they are 100% reliable. Passive heat sinks are made of an aluminum finned radiator that dissipates heat through convection. For passive heat sinks to work at their full capacity, there should be a steady airflow moving across the fins.

What are heat spreaders?

Heat spreaders are another type of passive heat sink used to help dissipate the heat produced by RAM modules.

What devices in a computer use a heat sink?

The components that generate the most heat in your computer is the CPU (central processing unit), video card (if your computer has one), and the power supply. They always have some cooling, usually a fan. Other components that may have a heat sink include the north bridge, south bridge, and memory. It is also not uncommon to find heat sinks on other expansion cards and hard drives.

AGP-

Short for accelerated graphics port, AGP is an advanced port designed for video cards and 3D accelerators. Developed by Intel and introduced in August 1997, AGP introduces a dedicated point-to-point channel that allows the graphics controller direct access to the system memory. Below is an illustration of what the AGP slot may look like on your motherboard.

The AGP channel is 32-bits wide and runs at 66 MHz, a total bandwidth of 266 MBps and much greater than the PCI bandwidth (up to 133 MBps). AGP also supports two optional faster modes, with a throughput of 533 MBps and 1.07 GBps. It also allows 3-D textures to be stored in main memory rather than video memory.

AGP is available in three different versions, the original AGP version mentioned above, AGP 2.0 that was introduced in May 1998, and AGP 3.0 (AGP 8x) that was introduced in November 2000. AGP 2.0 added 4x signaling and was capable of operating at 1.5V, and AGP 3.0 was capable of double the transfer speeds.

Where is AGP on the motherboard?

A computer with AGP support has one AGP slot next to all other expansion slots or an onboard AGP video. If you needed more than one video card in the computer, you can have one AGP video card and one PCI video card or use a motherboard that supports SLI.

What is AGP Pro?

AGP Pro is an AGP interface extension specification for advanced workstations. This specification delivers additional power to video cards, includes an extended connector, thermal envelope, mechanical specifications, I/O bracket, and motherboard layout requirements.