If lapping is so good..

well it helps with heat dispersion I'd guess

coolers with more heatpipes most likely benefit from the base being further away from the heatpipes so there is a more even heat distribution across all the heatpipes
 
It won't be lap-smooth because it will have been machined, but it's not going to be mountainous either.
 
Also, lapping the base of every cooler takes a good while, and it needs to be done by hand really, so it would cost more to make.

For the small improvement it makes to the temps, it's not really worth doing considoring how much it would cost in terms of time.
 
^ I don't think that's what he's on about, look at a picture of the D14's base, there is a raised area which is what he's talking about, I think
 
if you look at the base of the Noctua it has fairly evenly spaced ridges, i think this is to increase surface area. Interesting to note that arctic silver suggests a very thin application of TIM on the HS base which you wipe off leaving an extremely thin residue in these ridges and then a line of TIM on the CPU itself
 
^ I don't think that's what he's on about, look at a picture of the D14's base, there is a raised area which is what he's talking about, I think

Was responding to Muel ;-).
But yeh regarding OP, it doesn't make that huge difference ( ¬ 1-5c ) and obviously increases the cost of making a bit so it depends on the particular manufacturer. It's up to them if they want to do it or not, same as not every graphic card has heavy copper pipe cooler with silent fans and not every mobo has extra cooling on chipsets.

The D14 might not have mirrored base but it still is best air cooler on the market.
 
Ok so my New Noctura d14 had a perfect mirror finish ; so maybe they have changed this? I'm not sure mine is 100% flat as I'm not getting an even spread of thermal paste.
 
the only reason i would lap is if i was getting un even temps on an Intel CPU. But i probably wouldn't bother again.
 
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