Does Liquid Metal TIM make sense if not deliding the CPU?

epic1337 · Jun 2, 2021

mongoled said:
They are my images (it also says it btw)

Here is another one by the way.... Kryonaut

View attachment 2512900

If you have used Conductonaut before (or any liquid metal) you should be able to tell by how the IHS looks

by the way, X pattern is more than good enough, would have less edge spillover that way.

aveamurechi · Jun 2, 2021

My takeaway from this thread is so far:
- the liquid metal will not affect the WB, since it is nickel plated
- the liquid metal will have an esthetic (but not functional) effect on the IHS of AM4 processors.
- liquid metal tends to have worse coverage that regular thermal paste (due to surface tension), but that will be mitigated by careful application and the VARIO type waterblock
- cross shaped thermal compound leads to best coverage (nice gif, I had no idea and was always applying a dot in the middle)

Summary:
- for my combination of processor and WB, it is perfectly alright to use liquid metal, provided I can live with the side effects on the IHS, and I exercise extreme care when applying.

mongoled · Jun 2, 2021

epic1337 said:
by the way, X pattern is more than good enough, would have less edge spillover that way.

Ive tested many scenarios, using just X is perfectly fine, however as the TechN waterblock has a bow in the middle I add the little extra just incase

aveamurechi said:
My takeaway from this thread is so far:

the liquid metal will not affect the WB, since it is nickel plated

the liquid metal will have an esthetic (but not functional) effect on the IHS of AM4 processors.

liquid metal tends to have worse coverage that regular thermal paste (due to surface tension), but that will be mitigated by careful application and the VARIO type waterblock

cross shaped thermal compound leads to best coverage (nice gif, I had no idea and was always applying a dot in the middle)

Summary:
- for my combination of processor and WB, it is perfectly alright to use liquid metal, provided I can live with the side effects on the IHS, and I exercise extreme care when applying.

Yup, thats pretty much it!

Have fun whatever you decide to go with

UltraMega · Jun 2, 2021

using liquid metal on a non-delidded CPU would not be worth it unless that CPU was soldered to the heat spreader. If the CPU uses regular paste under the IHS then that's where the bottleneck is and that's what needs to be fixed. Yes there could be some temp benefit from doing liquid metal on top of the heat spreader but it would be negligible.

blu3dragon · Jun 2, 2021

Guru3d tested this fairly recently and found ~2.5C improvement over Kryonaut Extreme, or ~4.5C over arctic MX-5 on a 3700x with an AIO. I'd guess the gains with zen3 will be slightly higher since that seems to run hotter than zen2. Probably only worth it if you are chasing those last 3 degrees though, which for all practical purposes will not be noticeable when using the system.

Guru3D Thermal Paste Roundup - Round 2 (2021)

It has been almost two years since we made part 1 of Thermal Paste Roundup. You gave us good feedback for it; thus, we have prepared the second round of that article. As a short reminder - you should already know that the TIM (thermal insulation material) is often overlooked when setting up the...

www.guru3d.com

Falkentyne · Jun 3, 2021

epic1337 said:
by the way, X pattern is more than good enough, would have less edge spillover that way.

X is a good pattern.
On very thick pastes however, you need to use X + drops in quadrants. I've seen X pattern with TFX simply not cover the entire IHS (causing two cores to have higher temps than proper) because parts of the IHS didn't get the paste spread. X + drops in quadrants fixed that.

Another method I've not seen mentioned, with very thick pastes, is large drops (rather than the 5 drop method shown in your gif) which may use potentially less paste than X + Quadrant drops.

epic1337 · Jun 3, 2021

Falkentyne said:
X is a good pattern.
On very thick pastes however, you need to use X + drops in quadrants. I've seen X pattern with TFX simply not cover the entire IHS (causing two cores to have higher temps than proper) because parts of the IHS didn't get the paste spread. X + drops in quadrants fixed that.

Another method I've not seen mentioned, with very thick pastes, is large drops (rather than the 5 drop method shown in your gif) which may use potentially less paste than X + Quadrant drops.

yes indeed, for very thick pastes or heatsinks with rather lacking mounting pressure, the X pattern would not spread properly enough.

Does Liquid Metal TIM make sense if not deliding the CPU?

epic1337

aveamurechi

mongoled

UltraMega

blu3dragon

Guru3D Thermal Paste Roundup - Round 2 (2021)

Falkentyne

epic1337

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