If you go back far enough in chip cooling lore you’ll find the "orb" design to have been popularized by the good old ArctiCooler followed up by the core crushing power of the other orb designs that followed it. Thankfully we have heatspreaders once again.
Hi Tech Legion has a review of the Themaltake MaxOrb EX CPU heatsink and its aggressive usage of heatpipes which should go a long way to improving performance:
The Thermaltake MaxOrb EX is a horizontal flow, circular heatsink designed for high air flow. The Thermaltake MaxOrb EX features six copper heat pipes for improved heat exchange performance. The circular design allows for a lower profile than most stacked heatsinks, but is optimized for maximum air flow and cooling characteristics.
It’s quite a performer, keeping up with some of the high-end air-coolers on the market.
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