Liquid Metal TIM & cooling
 

Collaboratory {The manufacturers}

http://www.coollaboratory.com/fotos/kleine_flaschen.jpg

It shares a distinct similarity in outlook to mercury.

And lets not forget manufacturer based results too ;)

http://www.coollaboratory.com/fotos/...l_118e6bc8.gif

Besides all the tonge in cheek comments, with liquid metal cooling in the news recently, what are the potential pitfalls and say perfect situations for such usage in the computer cooling arena?

A liquid metal TIM seems more reasonable form the cost end of things than liquid metal as a cooling fluid. Although it does give me a bit of pause -- does it ever cure? How would you clean it? Is it going to squeeze out when pressed into a film under the heatsink, and the little extra become a contaminate in my system?

Wouldn't we be looking at a different set of properties for a TIM than a cooling fluid? Hopefully one of the knowledgeable folks can correct me if I am wrong, but my naive first thought is for a TIM a very low specific heat capacity would be best, whereas cooling fluid would want a very high specific heat capacity.

Exact same questions I have when looking at this. Just how does one apply it for use in a heatsink/block setup?

What is "K" supposed to mean? Certainly not Kelvin...


Assuming that is C I would say they are full of shit. 16C difference is just not logical. I don't get than much difference using NO TIM at all vs. the radio Shack stuff I use in testing.

K would be difference between cpu and room temperature, in Kelvin or Celsius, doesn't matter when we are talking about a difference.
Would be reluctant to trust the result from a reseller that has never been heard of before though..

Scroll down their page and you can see they expect you to spread it on thinly with a paint brush.

Looking at the syringes they sell the stuff in, I think it could result in some interesting questions from customs.

Yeah, I found it interesting they spread it on the entire heatsink as opposed to more common practices of just spreading it were it is needed on the CPU die/IHS itself.....

Not sure Jaydee.

This might not be too unreasonable. I haven't read too closely but am disappointed that their test is such low resolution.

I need to get myself back up and running. This would be interesting. Their Conductivity numbers are not uncompelling. Would be cool to put them to the test.

Unfortunately my test setup is down. I had a fluxblock melt down a few months ago and life has been a bit unstable lately but I should be up and running again by christmas.

Verification would be good. I highly doubt those numbers though. Especially the AS5 and the AS Ceramique being identical and not as good as the coolermaster stuff. I still don't see a 16C degree difference.

You have to remember that it's just a 1 degree difference between the AS5/Ceramique vs the Coolermaster stuff

One degree C is huge in TIM material. :shrug:

Yeah, but 1 degree is within error of testing. We don't know how they went about getting these results. (Settling time, amount applied, process used to apply, etc..) Many variables, so I wouldn't say that either of those three fell behind or were subpar.

Exactly my point. There is low resolution and no method of obtaining those results. They should simply be ignored all together untill further varification can be done. Those results are completely useless as they are presented.

Perhaps their problem in testing was that they applied all thermal compounds like it shows at pictures for that new material. Therefore they got air in the TIM and the results are as we see them :shrug:

I will eat crow and claim my head is up my ass. I just seen a 5C drop from changing from the RadioShack crap to some Dynex Silver Compound. This stuff claims "9.2428 w/m.C". Seems to work... I still think 16C is out of line though.