*** Arctic Cooling MX-3 Thermal Compound @ £6.99 inc VAT ***

[setter]

Ive read about liquid pro, it sounds very extreme (and capable of ruining components) ive lapped coolers and cpu's before to very fine finishes, and it certainly helps with temps, for my i7 rig im gonna try mx3 with a TRUE black, not sure on fans as i have a selection of sharkoons, either 2000 rpms or pwm 400-1200 rpm's.

 

[Merlin5]

I read liquid metal mustn't be used on aluminium, it corrodes it. I'd say stay well clear, you'll probably get as much temp drop with MX-3. You should read this thread, it's very interesting, and will put a few people off no doubt. And here is an interesting quote from the last page of the thread:

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=72814

"Oh dear!

Oh dear, dear, dear!

Went to swap-out the motherboard on my test rig. Heatsink would NOT budge. Tried heating, tried freezing. No joy. Tried a TINY bit extra force on the frozen heatsink and AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRGH! The CPU came out of the socket. Frantically checked for broken/bent pins ... all OK. Phew!

Recap & advice.
a) Liquid Metal gave slightly sub-standard temps but mechanically OK when applied to ONLY ONE SURFACE (heatsink or IHS).
b) Liquid Metal gave slightly sub-standard temps but mechanically BAD when applied to BOTH SURFACES (heatsink and IHS).

More, miscellaneous info:-

Once removed from the motherboard socket it took a LOT of force to part the CPU from the heatsink. Checking the IHS & copper core I found that the Liquid Metal had taken on the consistency of Super Glue i.e., it wasn't liquid anymore and the two surfaces had hard patches of Liquid metal. I tried Brasso but had to re-lap the heatsink - also there seemed to have been a small reaction with the copper and the once-mirror surface looked - um - "wavey". Cleaning the IHS was a nightmare, as you can imagine. All in, getting rid of the Liquid Metal from the heatsink and IHS took 10 hours with every technique, material and chemical known to man. That includes a little bit of lying down to stop getting angry! And recalling how conductive Liquid Metal is, I was mindfull to be extremely careful about residues at every stage of the cleaning process. I'm not entirely convinced that I've removed all traces of this stuff from the IHS but it is now very, very shiney.

I have no clue why Liquid Metal is OK when applied to just one surface yet works so differently when applied to both mating surfaces. It's almost like it's a different compound "

 

[setter]

Merlin, did you fit your TRUE and new fan? interested to see what your temps dropped by.

 

[Hotwired]

My word.

*whips out electron microscope*

Yup, definitely seeing that improvement there.

I swear you're going to get more difference in temps if all you did was wipe off the thermal, reapply, whack the cooler back on and recheck. Repeatedly.

A better cooler >>>>>> marginally better thermal paste

 

[Merlin5]

Merlin, did you fit your TRUE and new fan? interested to see what your temps dropped by.

Not yet setter, received it today (thanks OC for such efficiency!) but been out on a gig so I have this weekend to do it. Once mobo is out, I must first do better cable management using the case tray holes (which I didn't know about before), and then I'll get stuck into installing this. Not quite sure where the fan clip holes are yet, I guess it's any of those holes running right down the centre. Tell you what though, this heatsink just oozes quality, (compared to the sunbeam which was nice but the fins on that were too thin and bendy), it's beautiful to hold and look at. Oh and the MX-2 has a different colour tube than advertised, looks more like MX-3

 

[JonJ678]

"Probably do as well with MX3" isn't really empirical evidence.

In theory the liquid pro dominates, when properly used. It runs into the flaws in the surface of the heatsink/processor and alloys with the metal. This gives a far flatter end result than lapping. Given a small amount of excess between the two pieces of copper, it will exclude air and form a continuous join between the two. It's essentially soldered, but in less dangerous fashion. Compare the thermal conductivity of thermal paste and solder if you will, note that removing the ihs of the i7 makes temperatures worse because the solder was so much better than the paste. Then note that the resistance to heat flow across a grain boundary is far less than between metal and paste. There is simply no chance that the MX3 can beat this.

I would like to know why on earth he tried so hard to remove it all. Were it left on the surface and normal paste used, you would get the same/marginally better results than if you'd relapped it. Copper conducts heat better than gallium, but both thrash thermal paste.

Yes, this means the blocks will be bonded together. However this is required in this case, the mechanism is different to that of normal paste. This also means the surface will be discoloured, as the alloy is a different colour to the copper. I agree that a better cooler will generally achieve more, but some of us can't really improve on the cooler without moving to sub ambient methods. I personally fear condensation more than a block joined to the cpu.

However so far this is conjecture. My point is that gallium solution has the potential to be far better, not that it is the more sensible choice.