ASUS implements liquid metal in laptops with Intel Comet Lake-H processors
On Thursday Intel presented the Comet Lake-H processors intended for gaming laptops. Intel's new processors point to significant temperature issues and high power consumption. ASUS seems confirm this information, since on the Intel processors they have installed liquid metal. The main reason is that these processors are based on 14nm lithography, which means a high temperature.
To control the temperature of these processors, ASUS has used liquid metal as a heat conductive compound. This compound is much more efficient at transferring heat from the DIE to the heatsink. Thus, it is possible to reduce the temperature, since it increases the efficiency in the transfer of heat. Additionally, using this compound allows to adjust a little the size of the notebooks.
[amazon box="B084ZHJPNX"]ASUS uses liquid metal in notebooks with Intel Comet Lake-H
Implementing liquid metal is a pretty smart solution to improve heat dissipation. The problem is that implementing it on processors can be quite complicated and would normally be done manually. For its implementation, a proprietary mechanized system has been created to put the thermal compound in an automated way.
The solution they use is Thermal Grizzly Conductonaut which has a thermal conductivity of 73W / mK. This compound costs 12 euros for 1 gram, which is considerably more than any commercial thermal paste. Note that liquid metal has the great problem that it is a conductor of electricity. Its incorrect installation can end up spoiling our components.
The process is based on a flexible spatula that makes a total of 17 passes to provide an optimal liquid metal layer. Subsequently, a second machine offers a thermal compound on two points of the DIE. Through surface tension, the second layer of material will spread across the silicon when the heatsink is installed.
We do not know specifically what is the improvement in temperature when implementing liquid metal. They have only indicated that it is the optimal cooling for this system and offer low noise. We will see if ASUS also implements this system on Ryzen 4000 processors.
It seems to me that the machine leaves too much material and the liquid metal is an excellent thermal conductor, but it is very corrosive (actually it amalgamates at the atomic level) and even copper is affected after a year or less losing effectiveness, so it would be a success short / medium term.
They would have tried Kryonaut, which is also made from thermal grizzly, which is very effective and stable over time.