Thermal Grizzly - Carbonaut

So I watched this video on YouTube earlier, from the channel Gamers Nexus. This stuff really got my attention. This stuff was just shown off on that video so nobody had tested it yet.



62.5 w/mk is the advertised rating and is .2mm thick.
This is compared to IC Graphites 35 w/mk and is .1mm thick.

So it will fit better than graphite pads, but as its twice as thick, it's half as effective but still on par with graphite in raw thermal dispersion so long as good contact is made. It will conform to where it's placed, so if you can get very good mounting pressure it will perform better.

I tried some graphite pads in the past. I tried one initially on the cpu, temps skyrocketed to 95*c on boot. I removed the heatsink and the pad was making good contact (could see the CPU die indenting the sheet), tried two together and it improved slightly. I think this stuff will perform better.

It's due to come out in 3 weeks according to the video. I have some spare liquid metal... I think I'll buy some of this and see how it works.

 

At first, I thought Carbonaut was a spelling mistake......or a play on words such as what happens when conductonaut leaks out onto the motherboard.

 

Yeah this stuff looks very promising. I can't wait to buy it when it releases. I believe the video said that the prices are looking to be around 8 dollars per piece.

I'm going to be comparing it to the Conductonaut I have in my system right now. I don't know how well it will work overall but I do know the liquid metal on my CPU/GPU dies loves to not stay spread out as I thinly spread it. Whole spots would just not want to stick.

This stuff has more potential due to being able to fill in better.

 

I think IC diamond, Cool laboratory and few others does have a similar product line-up.

 

IC Diamond has: https://www.innovationcooling.com/product/ic-graphite-thermal-pad-40mmx40mm/
Cool Laboratory has: https://www.coollaboratory.com/product/coollaboratory-liquid-metalpad-notebook/

Cool Laboratory's option I have not tried myself, but as it is liquid metal, it can still succumb to the same failures that Conductonaut can potentially have, droplets getting on the motherboard during application, or if no foam dam, while using normally.

The issue with IC Diamond's option is that the Graphite Pad is so thin, if your heatsink for a laptop doesn't supply enough pressure you get some very abnormal temperatures. Putting those in my 17R4, my GPU (1080 GTX) got up to 80*C at hottest under load, the CPU (7820HK) was hitting 100*C on idle. That was even bringing the CPU down to 3.5ghz with a -300mv undervolt.
On a side note with Conductonaut running on my machine atm, Prime95 @ 4GHz and 100mv undervolt, im seeing 79*C 75*C 78*C 77*C as my peaks. But my averages are 78*C 73*C 78*C 75*C. This short test I did was at the same speeds/voltages as my test with the Graphite Pads. Basically the heatsink wasn't able to make good contact with the Graphite Pads. This one I did get some good testing with and all the thermal pads aside the CPU ones on top, were changed.

The potential with these pads looks to be more promising, like comparing Dells stock thermal pads on the heatsink vs Fujipoly or Arctic. The better ones conform better to their position better and eventually squeeze more to achieve a tighter fit. For the people who use LM or the Graphite Pads and don't get that great of a connection due to heatsink issues, this may, and I say it lightly, it may be the solution to a ton of peoples heat issues. Its twice as thick as the graphite pad, twice the thermal transference, but because its twice as thick its technically just as good as the graphite pads. The key here is as it squeezes down it becomes more efficient. Depending on how tight it can squeeze down, it could be even more efficient than its rating is for, but that is hopeful.


On a side note I am definitely going to go drag out my K5-Pro and redo the thermal pads on my CPU with that stuff... You guys think I should or are the differentials not drastic enough, or are my temps in line with using liquid metal at that speed? And with Core 1 as coolest and Cores 0/2 hottest with Core 3 in between, would that mean the CPU thermal pads are a tad thick?

 

This SHOULD soak LM Conductonaut in like a sponge. Or at least pastes like Collaboratory liquid extreme.

 

Ok so since we can be pretty sure Grizzly did not make these carbon fabric pads in house, anyone know where the original source of them are?
if they're Panasonic again, we can save a pretty penny buying them from the main source.

 

Pretty much they will be Panasonic or 3M. If they end up being worse than competitors you can bet they are using Dell MO for ruining their brand name among enthusiasts and mainstream users alike.

 

Eh, it's worth a shot. I'm going to be opening up my unit soon anyways to get a deep cleaning done. Plus to do my machine will be less than $20, which if it fails my machine, I've got an MSI that's my brother in laws and it will be better than his stock crud.

 

Well it should be thin, the problem is that alienware heatsinks current are low pressure. this hurts the margins in which the heatsink will perform well. In some units I could solve this with using copper ships on the CPU side with slightly thicker thermal pads for the CPU vrm's. This gives a bit more pressure. It's just those arms aren't the best idea. I rather had the spring loaded screw heatplates of the previous generations. THe logner the arm, the lest pressure it can give now, this can only be solve by making the contact point higher so the arms are under more tension.

 

It's not even listed on their official website yet. I wanna buy this to try it out

 

They were saying initial sales will begin 3 weeks from the time of the video roughly. I am just hoping they get it to Amazon quickly.

 

Hmm.. I wonder if this (disregard) would perform better than the Conductonaut in the Alienware m15/m17... It does look interesting...

 

If you saw the Youtube video in post #1, You clearly hear they said the performance will be equal low/middle end thermal paste. FYI. This isn't a paste!

 

Agree, I am not sure why you would want to use a lower thermal solution? Only if your laptop is just a pita to repaste then I could see someone who is not a gamer and ok with having a long life so so solution.

 

Understood, I do apologize, was not able to check the video due to internet limitations. I got interested in these cause some posts did mention that it has very high potential due to it being able to provide better contacts overall, and well last longer (Most interesting part to me, longevity) Just got curious, and would love to see tests on how these perform though. (I do not know what to call it. Upon finally being able to load the video, it looks like some sort of napkin.)

 

Re-watched the video in full. It was mentioned that it was middle of the range in terms of equivalent pastes, but they did state it had superior heat dissipation properties assuming you can get enough pressure applied. They are promoting a new product so they want it to sound as good as they can make it, but saying something sorta bad about it... I don't know.

They did state the thermal ratings of the sheets:
Graphite Sheet = 30w/mk
Carbonaut sheet = 62.5 w/mk

Its double the thickness of Graphite so its performance is identical to Graphite assuming it does not get to compress at all, and the closer to 1mm or even thinner you can squeeze it, the better its performance gets. Pretty much if you can compress it to 1mm or under, your thermal rating is roughly 62.5 or more. If you cannot compress it then your thermal rating is 30-62.5 which is still greater than most if not all regular pastes. Liquid Metal takes over then. On a side note, Graphite Sheets cannot compress, so for uneven heat spreaders really suffer.

Take home from this: If you have a good heat spreader and good even die contact, LM is ideal. If you have a majority of the alienware heat spreaders / plates that are uneven and all sorts of messed up in different ways, then this stuff has the potential to take home the crown.

And even then, for future endeavors, I want to buy this to try it. It looks interesting and if the potential is there, it will let me fix up a few other computers that have heat issues like my old G73JH with a 920XM in it.

 

Thermal Grizzly Carbonaut Extreme-Test (en)
der8auer
Published on Apr 19, 2019