This paper has been made to investigate the thermal performance characteristics for the several types of heat sinks such as extruded heat sink, aluminum foam heat sink, layered heat sink. The various types heat sinks are prepared and tested for natural convection as well as forced convection. The experimental results for natural convection are compared to those for three types of heat sink so that the appropriate heat sink can be designed or chosen according to the heating conditions. The overall heat transfer performances for layered heat sink, extruded heat sink and aluminum foam heat sink are almost comparable to those under natural convection and forced convection. The forced convection of layered heat sink become 1.2 times as high as those of extruded heat sink, and the forced convection of extruded heat sink become 1.2 times as high as those of aluminum foam heat sink. This study shows that bar height, bar distance and number of bar for layered heat sink are important parameters, which have a serious influence on thermal performance for layered heat sinks.