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New TIM eats AS-5's lunch?

T

Top Nurse

Supreme [H]ardness
Joined
Nov 4, 2003
Messages
7,346
Was wandering around this morning and came across something that tweaked my mouse finger. A new thermal interface material that is some kind of liquid metal (no it isn't mercury) that claims in independent testing to have beaten Artic Silver by a whopping 3 degree centigrade. :eek: Made by a company called Cool Laboratory.

Here is the review I found in Germany already translated to English. Kind of hard to read, but the chart says it all. I originally found it while cruising around on eBay. Anyone else know about this?
 
interesting... it probably causes cancer or somthing... :p

i wonder a: what its made of... b: how electricly conductive it is... might want to apply it to the cpu while it isnt in the motherboard... if it drips on a trace ... you might release the magic blue smoke...

otherwise looks like good stuff, makes sence that it would beat out as5 , the only thing you could do next to get better temps would be to melt the heatsink right to the die... :D

thore
 
The review suggested that newbies might want to stay away from this product if that answers your question about conductivity. ;) Personally I would use it, but I'm very meticulous about using any kind of TIM. I don't think I would use it on a video card or an open die CPU, but an IHS is a totally different ball game. :D
 
Top Nurse said:
~snip~ I don't think I would use it on a video card or an open die CPU, but an IHS is a totally different ball game. :D
Click to expand...


agreed

thore
 
That 'liquid metal" is mixture of Galluim, Tin, and Indium.

Speaking of "melt" ....... don't use that CoolLaboratory stuff on an Aluminum heatsink
unless you want a hole in it.

That stuff is old news actually. Not many have dared to try it and those that have didn't
see stellar results. And nobody has said how difficult it is to remove afterwards.

Would be nice to see a comprehensive review on this "liquid metal" TIM. SilverSinkSam over
at the O/C forums is supposed to give us some opinions soon.
 
The link on the OP is a 5 page review with temps and such. I think there was a strong warning about putting it on an aluminum heatsink. ;) It is also not newbie friendly and only for [H]ard peeps.
 
Very true. Yet we all know that many won't take the time to read the review. Especially since
it has been translated from German. Words like "grobkoernigkeit" don't translate well. :p

An interesting aspect of the paste shootout in the review is where the Zalman diamond paste was the
worst performer. Not a surprise really.
 
ive seen some reviews on it and even seen this stuff for sale on ebay... from what i read removal isnt that hard but the guy said he did notice where it seemed to "bond" with some of the impurities in his heatsink

my only concern is putting it in a vertical environment (although it is fine in a vertical application) is the possibility of "seepage" if you have an extremely hot cpu and having it drip onto some other component and causing a short
 
i don't think you'll ever notice THAT big a difference when using different TIMs. Dan's data had a review on different TIMs and he used all the silver pastes, white pastes toothpaste and vegemite and there were no huge differences between any of them. The toothpaste actually worked the best but it got caked up after a while I guess haha
I'd like to see more about this stuff but it's not something to get ridiculously excited over, especially if it eats at your hsf haha
 
^^^ so true. I think application technique makes a bigger difference than anything.

Obviously 100% contact between sink & CPU would be ideal. But that is not easily attained
so we use a TIM to fill the voids. Too much can act as an insulator though. Which is why
getting a very thin layer is all the more essential if you have two extremely flat and smooth
surfaces. Like when overclockers lapp our sink and CPU heatspreaders.
Idealy you want little TIM as possible but still fill the voids. Can be a delicate balancing act.
 
on another note, anyone notice that as5 has a new mixture? i bought some a few days ago and its super easy to apply and its much less viscous
 
ryuji said:
on another note, anyone notice that as5 has a new mixture? i bought some a few days ago and its super easy to apply and its much less viscous
Click to expand...

More filler and less silver? :D

I decide to order some of that new stuff from Germany and try it out. When it comes in I will post a mini-review of it here. :)
 
Top Nurse said:
More filler and less silver? :D

I decide to order some of that new stuff from Germany and try it out. When it comes in I will post a mini-review of it here. :)
Click to expand...
sweet lookin forward to it :)
 
Top Nurse said:
More filler and less silver? :D

I decide to order some of that new stuff from Germany and try it out. When it comes in I will post a mini-review of it here. :)
Click to expand...
the new stuff is higher performing it seems tho
 
ryuji said:
on another note, anyone notice that as5 has a new mixture? i bought some a few days ago and its super easy to apply and its much less viscous
Click to expand...
I wouldn't be surprised. AS is good about developing new products. Strange they would make no
mention of a new AS5 formula at the websyte though.

DanK said:
"Grobkörnigkeit" means coarseness.
Click to expand...
Thank you :)
From the sentence context I figured it was something like that.
 
Here's something overclockers.com looked at a few months back:

http://www.overclockers.com/articles1268/

It's a low melting point metal thermal pad.


Seems safer than blatant liquid metal, although there's still a risk that excess metal from the pad may come loose over time and fall off.
 
spine said:
Here's something overclockers.com looked at a few months back:

http://www.overclockers.com/articles1268/

It's a low melting point metal thermal pad.


Seems safer than blatant liquid metal, although there's still a risk that excess metal from the pad may come loose over time and fall off.
Click to expand...
TherMax Korea said:
the TherMax Korea HiFlux TIM HF-60110BT starts to flow at 62ºC - TherMax recommends that you run up to 65ºC to ensure melting.
Click to expand...

If you need to run the temperature of the CPU up to 65C to ensure the compound works, what's the point?

Arctic Silver for the win.
 
aren't processor heat spreaders anodized aluminium?

you'd better not lap your IHS prior to using this stuff........
 
_Korruption_ said:
If you need to run the temperature of the CPU up to 65C to ensure the compound works, what's the point?

Arctic Silver for the win.
Click to expand...
It beat arctic silver even without having to be fully melted. I expect that if you ran a normal overclocked cpu with it, over time it'd just get better and better. Unlike like arctic silver products whihc tend to degrade beyond 6 months.

I don't think the 65c temp is neccessary, but probably helpful.

In any case, you could always underclock your cpu, over volt it a bit and let it get real hot with no fan on. Sounds dodgy, but frankly, I'd be prepared to do it for a few minutes.
 
DFI Daishi said:
aren't processor heat spreaders anodized aluminium?

you'd better not lap your IHS prior to using this stuff........
Click to expand...

most, if not all, are nickel plated copper (kind of like a quarter)
 
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