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The Thermal Paste Revolution
arhines writes "ZZZ is running an article about an interesting new thermal paste which surpasses even solder in thermal conductance by 33 percent. If this paste makes it to the market sometime soon, we'll all surely be thinking about putting it in our boxes. In fact, if use of the paste becomes commonplace, it may even give the semiconductor industry a little speed boost."
"In fact, if use of the paste becomes commonplace, it may even give the semiconductor industry a little speed boost."
Not if it doesn't dry as quickly as solder, not if it's more brittle than solder, and not if it's stronger than solder. That's the thing with solder - it's a "good enough" solution so it'll probably last quite a while yet.
Bash script for FP whores
surpasses even solder in thermal conductance by 33 percent. If this paste makes it to the market sometime soon, we'll all surely be thinking about putting it in our boxes.
I dunno, personally, I really think Astroglide Is just fine for my purposes as it is.
" Lots of OEM or low end cooling setups use either a thermal interface pad (TIM) or that white goop you get at radio shack. The fact is that neither of those does a great job of transferring heat from the processor to the heatsink. While they work ok, they don't exactly assist Moore's law in fulfilling itself by limiting clock speeds with heat." Actually, that's hardly true at all. RS's compound has been found to be one of the best out there. Just take a look at some reviews that include it.
I got a +5, Troll
Hopefully it wont be so difficult to apply as the previous implementation of this goop
Maybe this stuff can be put in all those crappy DSL modems and routers that freeze up due to overheating. It would be easier than modding the whole damn thing to pieces with fans and whatnot...
They seem to have just duplicated the inventor's press release - the article doesn't contain any independent evaluation of the substance whatsoever.
of 0.004% that thermal paste actually makes a difference
bite my glorious golden ass.
Any of you who have ever even thought about overclocking are probably familiar with thermal paste and its function. Lots of OEM or low end cooling setups use either a thermal interface pad (TIM) or that white goop you get at radio shack. The fact is that neither of those does a great job of transferring heat from the processor to the heatsink. While they work ok, they don't exactly assist Moore's law in fulfilling itself by limiting clock speeds with heat. Yeah, CPUs are still getting faster, but one needs only to look at overclocking results with stock cooling versus those achieved with a good heatsink and good thermal paste to realize that better cooling = faster computers. Heck, if we'd stuck with the tiny old anodized fanless heatsinks on 486es, we might not be past 1GHz yet.
.1 micron diameter carbon filament was also tested. One would think that the carbon filament, being only .1 micron thickness would perform better - but this is not the case. The reason, Dr. Chung believes, is because of the porosity and compressibility of carbon black. Porosity plays a big role because wh
Current high end pastes range widely in composition, but in terms of performance they all fall within a very small degree range. Arctic Silver has been a longtime favorite among many, simply because they were the first company to release a competitive paste - one which was actually well suited to the task of transferring heat. Nanotherm is another big name these days, and lots of people are talking about PCM+, their upcoming metal-free product. But as I said, all of these products still get very similar results. A degree or two at most is all you can hope for in moving from one brand to another. So you might resign yourself to defeat saying, "Pastes have achieved perfection, so the bottleneck must now be the heatsink and the die of the CPU itself." And that would seem to me a very reasonable thing to say...the fact that several companies are putting lots of resources into the development of more efficient thermal transfer and seeing diminishing returns is fairly strong evidence to support such a statement. But according to materials engineer Dr. Junis Chung, current thermal pastes are rubbish, hooey, and applesauce, and he has something much better.
The paste he has created is based on dispersed carbon black (a particulate form of industrial carbon used to reinforce rubber) mixed in a soup of ethyl cellulose and polyethylene glycol. In tests comparing it to solder (a method of thermal transfer not typically used with electronic components because of the temperature required to bond it to both surfaces), the carbon paste surpassed the pure metal bond in thermal conductivity by 33%, and surpassed the taco-sntotting bond by 45% It was also superior to diamond and carbon nanotube based pastes currently undergoing development. Even if the carbon paste were to merely match the diamond and nanotube pastes, it would be a significant improvement because of the cost differences.
Why does it work so well? Spreadability. The problem with current commercial pastes is that they have focused too long on the thermal conductivity of the material, and not on the fundamental principle of a thermal paste, which is gap filling. Silicone based 'goop' from radio shack is fairly thermally conductive, but the size of the particles and the terrible spreadability cause it to be more of an insulator than a conductor. On the other hand, using something entirely liquid such as mineral oil doesn't cool well either because it isn't conductive enough, so the key is to find something with the right balance of conductivity and spreadability. The diamond paste contained particles 25 microns wide, about as small as they can be ground down to. This is what keeps the incredibly conductive material from winning - the diamonds actually end up pushing the two surfaces apart. To check for the importance of particle size in the opposite direction (smaller than the carbon black particles), a paste based on
Thought about doing the same to the RIAA, but I'd need a whole tanker truck load at least there.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
>"we'll all surely be thinking about putting it in our boxes"
;-)
I won't be doing this. Such a think could void warranties. Stability and reliability is more important than speed IMHO - especially since I don't play games.
If manufacturers start using this paste, and it doesn't deteriorate after 5 years, then that is different.
Obviously it won't be used in resistors - as conductance is not very good in such components
Mike
The Thermal Paste Revolution
Oh you bet, it will be like 'before and after', a marking point in history. As in; I remember back in the days, before the revolution.
Remember these days people, its one of those great turning points in history and you are part of it.
You know, that's just perfect. Just yesterday I was looking at my Power Macintosh G4 and saying "You know, if there's one thing this computer's missing, it's paste. If only there were some way I could just take paste and smear it all over the inside of this computer."
And now here we are!
got hacked yesterday too, crazy :)
see http://www.realgn.com for more info.
It's been true for some time that the thermal junction between the top of the chip and the heatsink isn't nearly as important as the internal heat disipation (sp?) of the chip. While a modern chip with a decent heatsink can feel merely warm to the touch the internal gate temperature can be aproaching bounderies where the thermal stress is actually damaging gates. This is one of several barriers keeping 3D memory chips from becoming reality (the other major one is cost of manufacturing a working chip of multiple layers, but even pie in the sky lab samples have problems because of heat disipation from the core of the stack.)
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Open Source villian.
Please update your bookmarks kthnx.
In fact, it was ( /.ed to hell now ) one of the more techy-nerdy-geeky sites that I've seen for quite awhile. I'd love to see more, but now I'll have to wait for 2 days.
I'm a subscriber - I pay for my right to bitch about /.
We could just all just do extreme coolingcooling
Rus
Cheap UK and US VPS
Working in a test lab for PCs I encountered one problem with heat conducting paste: Since Intel introduced the mPGA 478 housing for their CPUs the ZIF socket on the mainboard is much smaller than the heatsink above. That means, if the paste between processor and heatsink is too much adhesive it is like the processor is glued to the heatsink and every time you remove the heatsink (e.g. for changing the CPU) you pull out the processor from a closed ZIF socket! Ok, so far the processors survived but I don't think that this is nice anyway.
I have a tube of Arctic Silver 2 (yeah, I'm like two generations behind) but I'm not sure that I really needed it. This dude tried out several non-conventional thermal transfer compounds, including vegemite.(!) When properly applied, there wasn't a huge difference between them. In fact, in the (extremely specific) conditions, the vegemite and toothpaste outperformed the Arctic Silver! (Obviously, you should read the article for details.)
The article's point isn't that you should be using toothpaste; rather, it's that make sure you properly apply whatever thermal compound you do use, and don't expect miracles. No matter how effective your thermal transfer, you've still got to dump the heat somewhere. If you're running close to the edge of thermal failure, there are almost certainly other, much more effective cooling solutions. This new paste is probably a good thing, but don't expect miracles.
Of course we should not forget that Using thermal grease on your Athlon will void your warranty.
Im dreaming ofa big bndwdth, That can resist the
How does it compare to water cooling, and when would something like this become mainstream enough for chip-makers to build their hardware around it?
Seems like a promising technology, just might take a while to get here.
manufacturers will be able to push their clock speeds a little higher.
But of course, clock speeds are already getting very high, and bus speeds are lagging behind again.
What I wonder is if it makes the cooling process more efficient. My CPU gets to a certain temperature where in the summer it makes my legs uncomfortably warm with the blown-off heat. Would this conduct more heat away from the CPU initially, thus keeping older CPU's from reaching leg-burning potentials?
Only on Slashdot would you ever see the words "interesting" and "thermal paste" used together.
The article on thermal paste is quite interesting, such advances are sure to aid in the cooling levels for the near future. However, I often wonder why there hasn't been much development in the way of devising viable (read: cheap) alternative cooling solutions (e.g water/fliud, air piping, effective passive cooling). It seems that the now archaic heatsink/fan just isn't cutting it anymore, at least down to a bearable level that is (the amount of noise my cpu fan creates is ridiculous).
Part of this is the chip maker's fault, for running the chip too hot/fast. Likewise, part of the fault rests on the case/fan manufacturers, as the cases become increasingly smaller, dealing with cooling becomes harder, as there is less space to work in.
It is getting to the point where I feel that my peace of mind with regards to noise is well worth the sacrifice of speed. After all, I don't need the full power of my cpu most of the time, just when compiling/rendering/encoding. The cpu just isn't the bottleneck anymore, and it's useless to continue in this speed race, not until the other system components catch up. Why doesn't the industry work together to create a better solution? It's high time I'm rid of the constant roar of these machines.
This seems a very odd comparison to me; when was the last time you soldered a heatsink to a hot component or used paste to assemble a circuit board? The use in chips seems a little suspect too..
:-)
I can just see the warnings now. "Do not mount vertically or internal circuits will drip out!!!"
* who runs within 2 degrees of max temp for their CPU? some crazy overclockers, but it's not exactly reliable practice, is it? if it was 10 degrees, maybe but it's not going to make that much difference
* stop knocking the thermal pads. retail CPUs use these because joe sixpack can't f*vck it up and claim on their warranty. if you don't like it, scrape it off and stick a blob of arctic silver or similar
* bear in mind AMDs warranty only applies if you use approved thermal solutions
This may help solve the problem that thermal compound applied badly is worse (in terms of temperature) than none at all.
In a thermal compound we are seeking somethng that:
(1) will conduct heat to the heatsink better than air
(2) will remain inert under extended high temperature exposure
(3) is non toxic (nice seeing as we have to deal with the stuff)
It is difficult for a material to conduct heat better than air if (large or many) air bubbles are present between the two surfaces, trapped by the compound itself.
So we all know how silicone performs, it meets 2 and 3 but there are some issues with 1, mainly because of the air bubble issue.
Carbon black, polyehtylene glycol and ethyl cellulose are both non-hazardous and ethyl cellulose is only mildly hazardous (Material Safety Data Sheets www.merck.co.th, criterion 3 met)
Particulate size is small (should lick the air bubble problem).
Spreadability should be a-ok (ethyl cellulose is a molding compound.
No polymerisation or other chemical reaction should occur (stable mixture, criterion 2 met).
Carbon is a brilliant conductor in this form ( criterion 1 met)
I think it'll work
"If this paste makes it to the market sometime soon, we'll all surely be thinking about putting it in our boxes."
I was expecting a flurry of +3, Funnies over that line.
"Derp de derp."
The cooling technology has been around for decades. Take a look at old Cray supercomputers or IBM ECL mainframes. The problem is that it has to be designed into the system from the beginning, not tacked on to an existing design.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
I bought an Artic Cooling temperature controlled HSF that achieves the same performance running at 2000 rpm. I also bought a Forton PSU with 120mm fan. I now have trouble telling whether my computer is switched on.
If computer noise annoys you, take a look as this site.
About 10 years ago I was working on a product that used 200 Amp IGBT's for a traction drive. I spent about a month researching the thermal circuits used to cool these devices.
The conclusion: The best thermal contact is metal to metal. The best way of acheiving this is by "lapping" the contact area's together with a fine abrasive. Once your have done this the application of a minute amount of thermal grease improves conductivity by less than 0.5%. We also discovered that applying more than a fine film or grease significantly decreased the conductivity (10% or more).
Lay off the grease!
these guys will "solder" your heatsink to your substrate. To be released in 2004.
I found this in this article:
A better thermal interface, 70.0W/mK
When you brush with thermal paste you can overclock your mind by 11.5%
Are you Ralph Wiggum?
enquiring minds need to know...
Acid House saves Souls
I wonder why noone use this method:
Put a small amount of silicon paste on a plate and add enough gasoline, the kind you use as a solvent at home, to make it thin enough. Then apply it with a cotton tip or a brush to cover the whole area thinly and press together quickly before the solvent evaporates.
This way you can be sure that it just fills out the cracks, whihout actually separate the CPU and the heat sink.
If you had ever actual eaten thermal paste you would know its not that bad. And yes i HAVE eaten it and no it WASN'T on purpose but i have...
unzip; strip; touch; finger; mount; fsck; more; yes; unmount; sleep
i was just thinking if heat's the problem, shouldn't we fix the problem at the source?
[here goes]
after socket 7 died and intel brought out the chip in a slot:
|
===
i cursed a year long and didn't buy any computer
for two years.
but AMD did the right thing and stuck to the "normal" socket:
_
===
but maybe now (2003) it is again time to look at the CPU in a slot, because of heat transfer problems. if the CPU where in a slot (again) one could cool it from both sides or even "thru" or around the CPU?:
->|->
=====
inspired by AGP8xpro!
maybe ASUS will integrate a small ALUpipe thru the motherboard and for the MODers out their, they can pump water or gas(NEON!!!) or just plain air thru it?
-- Hulver's site
Moderators - please note that my post was the first to mention how warranties might become void using this thermal paste.
Look at the post times... why is my post 'redundant' when other/later "1 liners" about warranties are moderated '+5 informative'?
I have excellent karma - in this case you moderators are the trolls.
...manufacturing, but can anyone tell me why they can't just make the things (CPU) bigger? If they increased the size of the actual little, nearly microscopic components that must be inside, maybe it wouldn't be such an issue. Like I said, I don't know squat about how they are made, but when I look at them I think, 'of course their hot as hell, it's all packed into this little silver square for christ's sake!
we'll all surely be thinking about putting it in our boxes
I don't have a box, you insensitive clod!
I predict that this thermal paste will be useful for putting down one's pants. In order to conduct heat away from any hot grits present.
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
... as termal conductivity is really not that important in termal grease. It has to be applied in a very thin layer anyway. One of the reasons is to avoid "pumpout" when it gets heated up. And as long as it does not reach copper in termal conductivity (something solder is not even close to, so this is a red herring), termal reasons also speak strongly against using thick layers. Far more important is long-term stability, non-conductivity and chemical non-agressiveness.
This nonsense reminds me of part of the HiFi industry, where they offer gold plated cables (actually worse because there is an additional metal layer change, giving some uV of additional noise) at hugely inflated prices.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
It doesn't run your daddy's OS, but the Power Macintosh G5 has 9 variable speed fans, multiple cooling zones, and rethinks the entire cooling/noise thing. On top of that, it has a spectacular GUI on top of a Mach kernel -- BSD Unix for the rest of us.
ZZZ is running an article about an interesting new thermal paste which surpasses even solder in thermal conductance by 33 percent.
You mean I can unsolder the heatsink off my AMD now?
Well... I really don't have to do much for that, it'll just pull off on its own after a couple minutes of use.
Oh, so that's how those elemental damage swords work, that deal both fire and cold damage...
I hereby place the above post in the public domain.
Read the article closely. You'll see that one of the main points is that even if you did spread it nicely the size of the particles in the silicon paste prevents the surfaces from mating properly. The carbon particles on the other hand are soft enough to distort and allow surface imperfections to mate.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
I lapped the heatsink mirror smooth then I lapped the CPU until bare metal circuitry was exposed and put them together but now it won't boot up. Please advise.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
From the references page as of 09:38 Eastern:
/.
FORUM TEMPORARILY DISABLED DUE TO
This has been a test. If this had been an actual Sig, you would have been amused.
It would be a breakthrough for heat dissipating sexual lubricants.
"Honey, don't use so much, the Slashdot guys said to use a thin layer."
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
The other point the article made was that particle size and hardness prevents the surfaces from mating properly. Since the carbon particles are so small and can be deformed they won't preclude this from happening.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
(Said in best Charlton Heston voice)
Damn you entropy! DAMN YOU TO HELL!!!
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
You know, I don't WANT another cooling method... I don't want processor makers to be able to squeeze another few MHz out of their processors for one simple reason... They run too damn hot already!
I say this for two important reasons:
#1. More heat happens to mean that much more power is being wasted. Here in CA, electricity is expensive, and my electric bill doubled when I hooked-up my new system. Now I'm paying more for the electricity to keep my computer running 24/7 (yes, it needs to be running) than I am for my 1.5M/768kbps DSL... That's just so very wrong.
#2. I live in a big damn desert... That means temperatures are regularly very close to 130F degrees... It seems like 9 months out of the year temperatures are above 100F, and keeping a system cool when temperatures are that high is not easy. I've been forced to install a swamp cooler near my computers, and although that does a good job of cooling, it is louder than the most annoying computer fan you've ever heard, so it's not a plesant solution. Don't talk to me about water cooling/heat pipes becasue they only conduct the heat out of the computer, leaving it to heat up the building. Don't talk about sucking the heat outdoors, because it's so hot outdoors that the computers would be overheating in no time.
Personally, I would love to be using a fast PPC machine, but the price is just prohibitive... I'd have to be using my current Athlon XP 2000 for years before the electric bill would ammount to the inital price of an equivalently fast PPC system, and that wouldn't be taking into account that the PPC system would still be using up 1/4-1/2 the same ammount of electricity.
Frankly, I would like to see Laptop computer processors in desktop systems. That would be a decent compromise, that would keep things cool, without having something that is incredibly slow (eg. Via C3).
(Oh yeah, and: #3. Global warming crap, blah blah blah.)
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
The famouse Artic Silver But I guess thermal paste has it's uses (too.)
So you seemly have lots of sun shine, how about solar to help out w/ that increased load?
I got an AMD barton OC'd to 2.2 int. clock and that wonderful heatsink with the big, brushless fan is damn-near silent.
I think that people don't realize that their power supply may be the noisiest component in their PC! When you start trying to supply 400W from a small enclosure then tend to rachet up the cooling and they can be quite loud compared to a good case fan.
Fuck Beta. Fuck Dice
It comes as the expense of higher power consumption. Just because we have a better way of dealing with the excess heat doesn't solve the basic problem. It's like saying "I found a way to put an even BIGGER engine in my SUV!" Is that a good thing?
If we ever needed a revolution in CPU manufacturing and design, now is it. It might be optical, it might be something else, but bring it on.
Please do not tell me, that serious research is carried on using MS-WORD?
I mean, the document did not even display correctly on my Open Office.
Thermal pastes are thermally conductive, not electrically so. In fact, you want them to be a damned good electrical insulator. If you'd read the article (I did several days ago- [H]ardOCP had coverage of this one earlier this week...) you'd have found out that carbon black, the substance in question, outpaces pretty much everything else (including diamond and nanotube based compounds in development) because it fills the gaps between the heatsink and the chip's heat spreader, etc. with thermally conductive materials better than anything else.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Here is a heatsink material that is 2000W/m*K (4.8 times that of silver, 5.1 times of copper). It's a heatpipe-like material, but in sheet form. It would be ideal for laptops, or as the web page says, sushi.
HIV Crosses Species Barrier... into Muppets
can you geeks brush your teeth with it?
Personally, I'm waiting for Cool Chips. http://www.coolchips.gi/technology/index.shtml
They apparently devised a method of tunneling electrons across a gap to dissipate heat while preventing the conduction of heat back into the CPU. If it works as well as they say it does, this could be very cool stuff. No pun intended. Can't be that much of a scam since they already have an agreement with Rolls-Royce.
So the soot that builds up on my athlon after a few weeks is a good thing now?
I'm waiting for the next generation of thermal paste that's spermacidal and fights tooth decay.
Ergonomica Auctorita Illico!
Think about it, you can get 100s of little CPUs per wafer rather than 10s of large ones.
If you were a company, which would you choose?
I like applesauce! (particularly with some true cinnamon - not that cassia stuff!)
This is a plain and simple reason. Even though you can get better results from some third party thermal solutions, it voids your warranty to implement them so they don't have to replace a processor that ate it if YOU screwed up.
If you follow AMD's recommendations for fans in your box, their included solution is typically sufficient.
"You spoony bard!" -Tellah
you said:
Find a good 486 heatsink/fan combo, mix a drop of silver compound with a very small drop of epoxy, then mount the sucker on your DSL router's CPU.
I wonder if you've actually ever tried doing that. I did a few months ago, and the moment I mixed the epoxy and Arctic Silver, the whole thing solidified instantly. Maybe it depends on what kind of epoxy you use? I was using Dubble Bubble...
It's a sad truth that Moore's Law doesn't say anything about heat.
The trend of every generation of processors requiring bigger and fancier coolers than the previous generation is not just laziness or incompetence on the part of the designers, as so many slashdotters seem to dismiss it. The fact of the matter is that while we increase the number of transistors and their switching frequency, the amount of heat produced increases faster than it would be reduced by using smaller transistors.
The death of the constant speed increases in the PC industry may very well be caused by heat before any other factors. Expect to see more and more fancy cooling solutions in the future. In fact, I would predict that water cooling is almost set to go mainstream. That will help for a little while, but the problem remains: If you want to live on the high end, then things are going to be hot.
Physics is good
Intel's next generation of desktop chips supposedly put out 100+ watts of heat. This thermal paste would certainly help to cool that. Since Intel puts thermal speaders on all of thier chips, the extra pressure needed to make the carbon black paste efficient wouldn't crush the core.
eclecti.cc
Actually the thermal paste does not solve much
of the current problem with the chip generated
heat transfer process. Actually the limiting
factor is the thin slice of silicon itself,
unable to handle the amount of thermal stress
due to increased power densities. The chip is
hermitically sealed using ceramic/other electrically non conducting glass/material.So
there is a thermal gradient because of this.
After this the heat travels to the surface of
the metal cap(which is a very good conductor),
that is then spreadout on to the heat sink with
the thermal paste providing the interface. Actually not having a perfect area of contact
does not matter between the chip enclosure and
the heatsink, because there is hardly any thermal
gradient between the consequent points on the
chip metalcap. Apart from this the heat being
transferred to the heatsink, it also need to be
effectively carried away(since the heat transfer
is a function of temperature difference and the
thermal conductivity). If the existing design
is overrated(eg. liquid cooling), it could help
in reducing the temperature a bit. But the limiting factor is not the paste/heat sink, it
is just the silicon itself(that being the reason
of happing sos-(silicon on sapphire) and other
exotic technologies.
"Second, the data tables indicate a strong pressure bias - increases in pressure lead to great increases in thermal conductance:"
I can see it now, overclockers looking for ways to increase the pressure applied to the heatsink/die interface. Here's a future post from an overclocking forum:
"Hi peeps, I'm trying to put more pressure on my heat sink and need some advice. I've fabricated some titanium supports for the chip socket and motherboard with holes threaded on all four sides for even pressure, and welded supports onto the heat sink. But I'm not sure what setting to use on my torque wrench when I put the bolts on. Here are some pics of my setup (url1, url2, url3). Any thoughts?"
-Thomas
The big win with using a better thermal paste is that you can use a quieter fan to cool your CPU, since you don't have to supply as much air to specific spots. (Heat buildup in modern CPUs is quite local and varies with what you actually do). Better thermal conductivity will not do much for total heat dissipation.
However, reducing fan noise by 3 dB is worth a lot to me.
I strongly reccomend that anyone thinking of using this material request an MSDS first.
We were evaluating some material like this and it turned out to be composed of 30% Class 1 carcinogen. Would you store PCBs in your home?
Move. Computers shouldn't be used in the desert.
Why is it that whenever something new is created, people immediately assume it will make their computers faster and then a thousand people go to debunk it, saying it will only make a marginal speed increase.
... assuming that it does work as well as it claims, consider first the possibility that its most important use might not be in your overclocked, overheated computer. There are a multitude of applications out there where heat transfer is needed and materials of high thermal conductivity are useful. Yes, it might be that this could apply to the semiconductor industry, then again, it might not. But too many people are thinking one-dimensionally.
This technology needs to be tested by other people in order to see if it is legit, as is typical in the scientific community.
But
that's going to *shred* my render times! thank you! a THREE percent improvement?
...to actually USE the wax thermal compound with the heat sink. If you're going to be using a "super" thermal grease (such as Arctic Silver and it's ilk), you DON'T want to use that pad at all- it interferes with the proper operation of the thermal grease because the wax-like compound of the thermal pad embeds itself into the cracks, etc. on the heatsink and contact pad of the CPU and acts more like a thermal insulator compared to the grease. Basically speaking, if there's a pad on your heat sink, you're going to want to scrape off that pad and lap the sink before using it with the thermal grease. That's why most of the high-end sink manufacturers quit putting the wax pads on the sinks- people weren't using it and it wasn't nearly as good as the top of the line white grease, let alone something like Arctic Silver.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
It just transfers the heat to the heat sink. You'll still need a massive heatsink and massive fan to pull the heat away from the heatsink into the air. And then you have to deal with all that heat lingering inside your case so you'll need a way to get it out of there along with the heat from the powersupply, chipset, ram, video and sound cards.
Better pastes is good, but shouldn't they also be trying to increase performance while also decreasing power requirements?
The big question is how does this stuff taste?
This signature is a waste of 42 characters
Intel so completely gave up on the concept of being able to cool their highly-clocked - over-clocked if you ask me - chips that they designed in a feature to slow down/turn off sections of the chip in order to lower temperatures...
It seems on one hand you think Intel chips run too hot, and on the other hand you dislike a feature that helps them to keep cool. Isn't that a bit... odd?
In fact, the PIV will automatically underclock itself if to keep its temperature in spec, so if you're content with slower performance, no fan - in fact, no heatsink - is required. (Although it's not just a little slower, it's a LOT slower.) How's that for running cool? There was a fun video of this feature in action at Tom's Hardware some time ago.
We don't really need to do that. It would be better if we had multiple chips all working like a mega-processor. The individual processors wouldn't be stressed so much, and the thermal load would be easier to remove because it's spread out over a wider area. It would also scale a bit easier for both power, and economic conditions. BTW Going photonic wouldn't get rid of heat being generated, because heat can be caused by both electrons and photons slamming against atoms. Having a material that offers less resistance would help (gallium arsenide, gold). Using less electrons to accomplish the work (lowering the voltage, and current), while staying above the thermal noise floor (this is why supercooling helps) to ensure reliability (being able to tell your "1"'s from your "0"'s helps).
So, the mad overclocker buys a tube of Dow #111 and a bottle of Darko. Spends a little time with a popsicle stick and a film canister and viola! Carbon black heat sink compound.
If you're already hacking your hardware for faster clock speeds, what's to keep you from rolling your own heatsink compound?
I mean aside from the fact that your wife will kill you when she sees black fingerprints all over every surface in the house.
Are overclockers "audiophiles", buying anodized billet aircraft aluminum volume knobs? Or are you folks hobbyists, shopping mainly in Nuts & Volts?
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, it doesn't go away." - Philip K. Dick
what are the fastest fan-less CPUs on the market ? Anything above 1Gz that can go with only a heatsink and no fans like old 486s ?
Non-Linux Penguins ?
Its great on a BLT keeps the hot side hot and the cold side cold.
I read the oringinal article by Leong & Chung and made some paste based on their optimal recomendations. I replaced the Arctic Silver on my Athlon XP 2000 with this and saw my CPU idle temperature drop from 45C to 32C!!. The ambient room temp was identical in both cases. Fortunately I work in a lab - but maybe I should go into business.
Oh yeah, more sun than 99% of people can phsycially stand. (You know you live in a desert when your local news has a body-count of people that died from the heat).
I've thought about Solar, and may very well choose to go that route, but it's really only helps with a part of the problem, and it's still only hiding the problem for a while...
The more power you draw, the bigger of a solar system you need... The more often you will have to replace your solar equipment (batteries, inverter, etc). And it still doesn't solve the problem... I'm still spending quite a bit on power just for the computer, just in one big lump sum, rather than monthly.
Besides, that wouldn't help with the heat problem at all.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
As for thickness, I would not recommend thinning the die any further than the manufacturer already does- most CPUs (see any Athlon) are in a flip chip package- the front side of the die is bonded to the package. This bonding builds up a bunch of mechanical stress in the part, thinning it after bonding without professional tools is a sure way to crack the die.
Unfortunately for the world, hot areas make up a huge portion of the world. Maybe not desert temperatures, but just about everywhere gets near 100F for a few weeks of the year. Should everyone stop using computers?
Computers just need to be better designed.
Besides, my notebook works perfectly even in 120F heat. Unfortunately, it isn't feasable to use a notebook with a TV-tuner card, 200GB hard drive, TV-out, and remote control. It would be a waste of money since it doesn't need to be light or compact, and doesn't need an LCD, touch-pad, battery, etc. And $1,000+ is just too much money for a base system.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
Someone always points out that it'd be better to do "X" vice "Y". Sure, I could spend $20 and get the next faster CPU so I don't have to overclock. The thing is, I don't have to overclock at all. I just like to.
I spent a few days lapping my heatsinks. It was fun. After a few hours of trying to get a perfect surface, it became a Zen-like experience. Repetitive motion and extreme focus brought on a uphoria that really left me feeling better than a mere "few degrees" would show. Same with rounded cables and lighted fans. I do it cuz working inside my PC is fun.
As to manufacturers making cooler CPUs, I think thay try for that in the laptop market, but gamers and Gentoo users are interested in raw speed at any cost. Heat is one of those costs. Noise is another.
I'd rather you do it wrong, than for me to have to do it at all.
Well like you said. You live in a desert, so you should be familiar with all the things that go into surviving in the desert. Thick adobe walled houses. Evaporative coolers. Storing "cool" during the nightime (most people aren't aware how cool nightime gets). As for solar, it doesn't have to be solar cells, but something as simple as a solar pond, like what's used in Israel[1]. You're a geek, I'm certain you could think of quite a few ways to handle that computer.
[1] Throw in a stirling engine generator, or this
Anyone looked at a slurry of pyrotechnic aluminum in ethyl chloride? Very small metal particles, the liquid could boil off as you settle the surfaces together.
By J. Wipo Troll, Esq., $Revision: 1.16 $
[This article attempts to document a vile, ungodly practice that runs rampant through the homosexual geek and hacker community, a practice known as Taco-snotting, or simply snotting. Taco-snotting is something that few geeks dare talk about in free or open conversation, but it is nonetheless a widely-practiced and dangerous form of homosexuality. If you or anyone you know has ever engaged in Taco-snotting, please get professional help before it is too late. ed.]
Why do I keep receiving emails from an individual calling himself CmdrTaco?
You have been receiving unsolicited mailings from a certain Robert CmdrTaco Malda, owner of the popular technology website slashdot.org. Actually, its not a very popular site in the common sense of the word; the site is rife with pimply, antisocial geeks and hackers, zit-faced nerds, communists, dirty GNU hippies, and other societal rejects and outcasts. Its also home to one of the worlds largest suspected pdophile rings, the infamous Slashdot crew.
Whenever Mr. Malda gets bored (and who wouldnt, running a site like Slashdot all day), he roams through the user database, penis in hand, looking for people who might enjoy engaging in homosexual activities with him. How he determines this is anyones guess; but if you have a homosexual-sounding nickname, or a nick with a letter of the English alphabet in it, youre a potential candidate.
This time, he found you. Lucky you.
Mr. Malda seems to be speaking in some sort of code. Do you know what it means?
CmdrTacos code language is relatively easy to decipher. This pervert prefers to speak in thinly-veiled sexual innuendo (yes, thats right: he wants you) to evade the watchful eye of Slashdots parent corporation, VA Software. Mr. Maldas Commander is, of course, his penis: a small, withered little thing that lives in his pants and only comes out in the presence of other male geeks or at the beck and call of Maldas own lubed-up right hand. His Taco bells are the shriveled testicles that droop beneath his Commander, and his Taco sauce is his thin, runny semen. It should be more than obvious to you now what he means if he asked you to ring his Taco bells or taste his gourmet Taco sauce.
I would also guess CmdrTaco asked you to engage in a practice known as Taco-snotting and, if he was in a particularly depraved mood at the time, a circle-snot.
Good Lord. And, yes, he did. What is Taco-snotting?
Taco-snotting is the term used by Robert Malda to refer to the depraved act of fellating another man (homo- or heterosexual; CmdrTaco is rumoured to prefer raping unwilling victims), then blowing the semen out his nose and back onto the face and body of his victim. Naturally, a long, bubbly stream of milky-white semen is left on CmdrTacos face, dribbling out of his nose and down his cheek: hence the term, Taco-snotting.
And if thats not bad enough
A circle-snot is a Taco-snotting circle-jerk, another practice common among the Slashdot crew. CmdrTaco, CowboiKneel, and Homos get together and snot each other with their gooey, sticky cum spooging their jizz-snot all over each others faces and pasty, white bodies, until theyre covered head to toe with their own and each others man juice. This vile, ungodly ritual can go on for hours. For the homosexual penetration that follows this lengthy foreplay, Roblowme is usually there to provide plenty of anal lubricant; he owns a limousine service and has ample supplies of motor oil and axle grease ready to go.
To complete this perverted orgy, fellow faggots Michael, Timothy, and Jamie will usually join in, dressed in tight leather mock-S.S. uniforms, jack boots, and leather gloves. The homosexual shenanigans that follow are nearly beyond description. The whole group begins to snot each others spunk and whip each others pudgy asses with riding crops and chains until their pale, white geek bodies are exhausted and soaked in stinking sw