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Now I'm a believer! - Liquid Metal

So for the time being, I've shelved my custom water cooling loop while I go air-cooled for a while.

 

Since I was going from lots of radiator space for my CPU to just a Noctua NH-D15S, I wanted to give my CPU the best fighting chance it had to keep cool under my fairly aggressive overclock.

It's an i7-6700K clocking at 4.6Ghz with voltage hovering around 1.375v.

 

With the liquid metal, I never saw the CPU hit 60C even under load!

I never got load temps like that even when I was pumping that heat through three separate radiators.

I knew the cheap Intel TIM was the thermal bottleneck, but damn, I never really grasped just how much of a difference going with liquid metal would make.

 

Eventually I'll come back to the liquid cooling space, maybe just for my GPU next time around.

Right now though, I'm very happy with my CPU temps and will happily run this setup until the CPU or motherboard finally give up the silicon ghost.

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Same cooler, 7700K, 4.8ghz and I will see it in the mid-low 70s.  It's a BIG difference and I agree, worth doing on Sky/Kaby/Coffee.

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25 minutes ago, M.Yurizaki said:

The real question I'm wondering is the long term viability.

Mine is about a year old with no Maintenance.  I'll post if I ever see a change in temp that can only be explained by the LM going bad somehow.

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3 minutes ago, TheGlenlivet said:

Mine is about a year old with no Maintenance.  I'll post if I ever see a change in temp that can only be explained by the LM going bad somehow.

Someone would have to have a control as well, otherwise it doesn't really prove anything.

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1 hour ago, M.Yurizaki said:

The real question I'm wondering is the long term viability.

To me, that question is irrelevant since doing maintenance of a liquid metal application is a lot simplier and easier than doing maintenance on a custom water cooling loop.

Even if the stuff needs to be replaced every other year, that's still a huge win.

 

Heck, it might be even more irrelevant since by the time the stuff starts drying out and going bad, I could be ready upgrade the CPU anyways.

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4 hours ago, PrimeSonic said:

To me, that question is irrelevant since doing maintenance of a liquid metal application is a lot simplier and easier than doing maintenance on a custom water cooling loop.

Even if the stuff needs to be replaced every other year, that's still a huge win.

 

Heck, it might be even more irrelevant since by the time the stuff starts drying out and going bad, I could be ready upgrade the CPU anyways.

I suppose it was a knee-jerk reaction to the whole "Intel's cheap paste" assertion. I forget how short-term TIM applications are with enthusiasts.

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