IC Graphite Thermal Pad Available for Test and Review

For full size desktop chips and a heatsink I strongly recommend keep using paste. In those scenarios there is pretty much no downside and good paste will last for years.

 

I think my manufacturer warranty is up at the end of the year, I'd be interested in trying these out in my gt83's cpu and gpu's.

Thanks @bloodhawk for linking me this thread.

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MSI doesn't void your warranty if you repaste.

 

Cause we all probably just got done watching the LTT video and heard his line "and the people who have been testing these things said....." XD

 

Did some digging and found something more interesting to try Bloodhawk. Check out the link and the youtube video. This here might be the holy grail:

First the video from Panasonic:



https://www.digikey.com/en/product-...ies-soft-pgs?WT.Z_sm_link=Youtube_DKDaily2017

Same concept except this is a honest to god thermal interface material that has the same graphite resin but it is compressible by 40% and not a flat sheet

(Using Alienware 13r3 as example)
I could buy this @ .2mm and use it for the CPU die and GPU die after I cut it up into pieces. Wish I could use it on the FETS but it too is conductive.
https://www.digikey.com/product-det...c-components/EYG-S0909ZLX2/P122034-ND/6575964
-or this-
https://www.arrow.com/en/products/eyg-s0912zlgd/panasonic
...and then followup with traditional pads for the remainder and this is almost spot on at 28w/k as the original material listed here, it is designed also as a permenant TIM and is likely a better material to try with. I intend on ordering once I get word from Dell.

 

I'd also love to try one of these, but sadly I can't PM you because I don't have 5 posts

Edit:
Reached 5 "Quality" posts, but didn't realized I know have to wait until 11pm for them to approve me :/

If there are any still available I will still PM you when I can.
Thanks.

 

What effect would ensuring the two 'joining' surfaces are as smooth as possible would have in the 'performance' of the graphite pads?

The main purpose of a TIM in paste form is to fill an imperfections found between the two surfaces :

However, does this pad have any compression to it? Can it adequately fill the gaps?

A) I'm curious if lapping to remove the imperfections would create more surface area for the pad to 'touch' both sides of the equation, and thus improve heat conductivity than what is being reported here. Also, curious if, B) instead of lapping, a very small, thin spread of paste on both heat source and heat sink would be another way of filling in those imperfections to the pad.

Or is it all coming down to mounting pressure?

 

Heat transfer is given by Q = k * A * (T/b), where Q is the rate of heat transfer in Watts, k the thermal conductivity (a constant, it depends on the material), A the surface area over which heat is being transferred (surface area of the die essentially), T is the temperature difference between the CPU die and the face of the heat sink and b is the thickness of the TIM.

Lapping the heat sinks will do two things: (1) decrease the average thickness of the TIM and (2) reduce the number of air gaps in the TIM. Both of these factors will increase the rate of heat transfer. I don't think that the pad will be able to fill those gaps as well as thermal paste, despite it being compressible. However, the higher thermal conductivity of the pad may offset this to some degree, perhaps even to the point where it performs similarly to TG Kryonaut.

Increasing mounting pressure has exactly the same effect as lapping the heat sink. Since the vast majority of well-engineered heat sinks are smooth and flat, increasing the mounting pressure will have a greater impact on rate of heat transfer than lapping the heat sink assuming the heat sink is smooth and flat.

 

Talking theoretical is well and good, but it is the empirical testing that piques my interest.

I am somewhat wary of the phrasing of well-engineered. Now, I cannot comment on the quality of MSI heat sinks, but I do know the Clevo heat sinks leave a lot to be desired (i.e. they are not necessarily smooth or flat).

So the question still stands to those here reporting their actual results with the graphite pads regarding the smoothness/flatness of the equipment, and perhaps making a mod or two to the application of the pad to see if that helps.

 

I believe @Falkentyne can answer that question.

 

As far as I know msi heatsinks have had good QC so far.

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@jclausius @RampantGorilla Yes I sure can.
MSIsinks are convex as all living hell. The GPUsinks are fine.....but the CPU............yuck.

MSI uses Lairdtech for thermal material to cover up the unevenness in their CPU heatsinks...) (Thank you @Papusan )

 

I have trialled stacking a couple of strips of the graphite pads on the heatsink "bridge" on my P870DM3.

It appears to have dropped maximum CPU temp by around 10C compared with the 0.5mm thermal pad that was there (which dropped by a couple C over the stock 1mm pad)

Actual results are more like 12C-13C but its been chilly here since I did my 'before' runs so I have to account for a lower ambient.

Before: 90C ish.
After: 78C is maximum I've seen.
Delidded 6700K @ 4.6 1.23V static with approx 87W package power.
Caveat: I cannot currently overclock the snot out of it to generate maximum heat as the Metabox BIOS has RSR on by default and no BIOS option to disable. Prema will be dealing with this shortly as the CPU seems stable at 4.7 stock voltage for as long as I've been able to test it (sometimes it does a whole Realbench encode before rsr kicks it back to 4.1 other times its near instant)

 

give it some time, im sure it will be released sometime soon. its basically JUST been announced and beta tested

@jclausius introducing TIM would insert another thermal layer to overcome. so getting rid of potential air pockets would have a trade-off in potentially lowering the pad's heat transfer rate.

@bennyg have u tried copper shims with a high performance thermal paste on both sides instead of thermal pads for the cpu/gpu heatsink connection? should lower the cpu temps even more via improved heat conductance with the gpu heatsinks

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Cool. I didn't know Panasonic finally got these out. I may go ahead and just buy the pads, considering some of them are thinner, which likely increases the C heat transfer (AB plane transfer is higher, but C is the one that effects the heat transmission). Considering the thickness here, I'd like to try the sub-1mm variants (maybe even get the plain graphite sheet without adhesives ("S" variant) to further reduce the chance, then mirror the CPU and heatsink and put a 0.025mm variant on it (see https://www.arrow.com/en/products/eyg-s091203/panasonic). That is a 9cmx11.5cm square. Would need to break my pressure film back out to verify great contact after mirroring the surface (and to ensure even mirroring). If something thicker matches close to that of thermal paste, a nice, very thin piece between should have a little less thermal resistance. I'll need to review the differences between what you are using and what I am considering grabbing to figure what type from Panasonic would work best (and what work I'll have to do to make it work very well).

 

What does RSR do if it's on?
Magic Smoke?

 

These are conductive so I assume they are *NOT* safe to be used in place of thermal pads on VRM's and mosfets?

 

Love your post, but you forgot one thing, there is a limit to mounting pressure per socket in the socket spec. If you over do the tightening, you could crush the socket or cause warping of the pcb of the CPU or MB. Then you also have to worry, if delidded and not resealed or without a spacer, you could crush the die. I like to use the combo of methods, meaning lapping, good paste (liquid metal), proper pressure, etc.

Now, I've seen it match certain types of thermal paste. This has a 37W/mK rating, those pastes have under 10 (usually 4-8, depending on the paste). But that is where your explanation of the higher heat transfer rating overcoming the difference in not filling the gaps.

 

Nope, they are not safe for that use.

I wouldn't. I know there are some variants that have layers on either side, and the thicker the graphite pad, the lower the electrical conductance, and if you do not hit the contact points (meaning the soldered joints or an open gate on the choke), you could theoretically do it, but I do not know if this has a dry out or flake factor. My recommendation is no (but I will not stop people from destroying their own hardware). But I'm not to a point at the moment to risk $300-500 MB and possibly fry my chip in the process.

 

@jaybee83 - my thinking was the really, really thin layer of paste would be able to be squeezed into these spaces better than the pad. The idea is the pad would touch both surfaces as much as possible, and the paste would help transfer to other surface area where the pad does not make contact.

 

hmm one could try to "massage" the paste into the hestsink, clean off the excess and then use the pad or just go for lapping

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Building on @jaybee83, you could use certain thermal pastes as a "Polish" after lapping. I do wonder if the surfaces have any free carbon bonds and whether that could cause a bonding in certain cases with certain TIMs. But that isn't much of a concern. I don't know which TIM would work best as a Polish, though. (For example, a rouge has small, suspended abrasives meant to finish the sanding/polishing process to reduce any large peaks in the surface. Here, you have some of that, while the TIM also fills in the microscopic crevices, further flattening the surface or transmitting heat through the crevice to the contact surface). Just some thoughts... If you need, I can also use the toothpaste on a CD/DVD analogy for scratches, but it is all the same principle, to a degree.

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Residency State Regulation
Kind if like a throttle that kicks in if "overvolting" is detected, just forces an oh so pedestrian x41 multi until a prolonged state of idle has passed.

Thing is, I'm getting it at stock adaptive voltage settings from only upping the multi to x47...

 

Did you not read my post?

While the pad may be compressible and this may help fill the tiny gaps to some extent, it will not be as a good a as filling the air gaps as TG Kryonaut. This is simply because Kryonaut is a fluid, albeit a very viscous fluid. When a force (in this case from the heat sink) is applied to the Kryonaut paste, it will flow in all directions very easily, unlike the pad, which will behave like a sponge. You can think of it like filling a open egg carton:

Imagine placing a very large sponge over the bottom half of the carton and pressing down on the sponge with another egg carton. The bottom egg carton is the die and the top egg carton is the heat sink. Each crevice where an egg would normally go represents an air gap. Now imagine the same situation, but with a very thick layer of paste between the two cartons. In which scenario will the air gaps be smaller? It will be in the scenario where the paste is in between the the two cartons because it can flow much more easily into the air gaps than the sponge.

Now that we have established the fact that using a graphite pad in place of a traditional paste will result in larger air gaps, we can examine the effect this will have on heat transfer. Air is a poor thermal conductor (k = 0.025 W/mK) and will slow down the rate of heat transfer. Essentially, as the air gaps get larger and more numerous, the rate at which heat is transferred across the TIM decreases.

On the other hand, the higher thermal conductivity of the pad will help offset this to some degree.

 

If you want to fill the small gaps, you need this pad:
Also by panasonic but compressible by 40%.
Their "PGS" tech:
This has double the W/MK of the IC stuff (the IC stuff is 13 W/MK).

https://www.digikey.com/product-det...c-components/EYG-S0909ZLX2/P122034-ND/6575964

 

So guys what is a end result. We have some comparison chat


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anyone up for a direct comparison of this pad vs. the IC one?

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I'm going to order this pad soon.
I need to order an extra one for a friend also. But I never ordered anything from them before and it's expensive as all hell I mean...I bought 30 grams of Liquid metal for $22 and this is MORE expensive !!!

 

@jaybee83
Is this the Innovation pad they are using?
Is it 0.5mm or 1.5mm?

https://www.digikey.com/product-det...c-components/EYG-T3535A05A/P121364-ND/6217292

https://www.digikey.com/product-det...c-components/EYG-T3535A15A/P121366-ND/6217294

These are 13 W/MK.

The other pad is 28 W/MK.
It also seems to come in a 90mm * 90mm sheet? and is 0.2mm thick?

*edit* just ordered one. Now I need to see if I can order one to a different shipping address for my friend.
RIP my fixed income pocketbook for the month (I'm on SSI).

 

Already ordered a sheet abeit a strip for like $7 I found on there but the same material

 

EYG-S is for the soft PGS material and is the likely candidate. The others are a true thermal pad and are more for ramsinks.

For the record this is what I ordered:
https://www.digikey.com/product-det...c-components/EYG-S0309ZLAK/P122009-ND/6575939

For reference .05mm is the thickness of a single printer sheet of paper and so .2mm in my mind is plenty for a CPU TIM. The -S designate is for "Soft" meaning the higher compressibility type PGS. I intend to cut these into the proper sized square and from what I can tell it is quite soft so there's no reason to order such a large sheet.

https://media.digikey.com/pdf/Data ...tronic Components/EYG-S_Series_Prod_Intro.pdf

 

Re-read my damn post! I stated clearly you were correct EXCEPT FOR THE PRESSURE/COMPRESSION statement. Are you purposely obtuse? You mentioned, in the first explanation, using mounting pressure to overcome inefficiencies. You did not disclose in that discussion the limits, dangers, etc., of adding mounting pressure. I said your analysis of filling gaps was correct and comes in for other than that. You are missing the point of my comment and correction to what you said, which is regarding the mechanical happenings of using pressure to overcome other inefficiencies. Re-read, then respond.

Edit: for your convenience, your statement I was addressing "Increasing mounting pressure has exactly the same effect as lapping the heat sink. Since the vast majority of well-engineered heat sinks are smooth and flat, increasing the mounting pressure will have a greater impact on rate of heat transfer than lapping the heat sink assuming the heat sink is smooth and flat."

Edit 2: Also, your statement on "flat" is laughable compared to this:

Edit 3: https://www.intel.com/content/dam/w.../guides/4th-gen-core-lga1150-socket-guide.pdf
Go to page 25. It might enlighten you to the reference I was mentioning on limits.

 

Apologies, I misread your earlier post. You're correct about the bending of the PCB when heat sink pressure is too high. You're unlikely to encounter this problem on many laptops since the heat sink assembly tends to apply too little pressure to the die to come anywhere near bending the PCB. I believe some laptop service manuals even specify the maximum torque to which a screw should be tightened.

 

No problem. I get reading it quick and missing something.

In regards to laptops, absolutely correct. They use low to medium mounting pressure, try to use the spring mounts to compensate for tolerances (such as varying heights in the socket height, the CPU height with the IHS, etc.). But, it is something to be considered, as if left open, I could see a person over torque a desktop after seeing this here and do some real damage, especially if they left the delidded die without any spacer if there is a gap between the IHS and PCB with the IHS having full contact with the die, then wondering what happened. Also, on desktop application, that is where PCB bending comes in most often (unless mfr. defect but the board was still usable and QC/QA didn't catch it, which is irrelevant to the convo at hand). And I have seen torque reqs for some laptops, but it has been awhile since I looked for them, if being honest. But I did have to figure out on the Clevo what torque to use when doing a custom change from the spring screws to regular screws on that mirrored heatsink I posted, so I reviewed tolerances and force limits, then did my best to figure out approximate loads and torque to downward force.

 

God damn it Lana.. that is how you get Ants!

 

New episode tomorrow night!!!

 

Sploosh.

edit: just watched it... un-sploosh. Definitely un-sploosh.

 

Results:
Can't use this product with weak heatsink pressures. r9 290X: DRIED UP LM: 79C. Kryonaut : 79C. CM Gel Mako Nano: 81C. IC Graphite: 87C. If it weren't 60 degrees F in my room right now, my r9 290X would be crashing in PUBG.

Panasonic PGS pad will arrive tomorrow. That's 28 W/MK and 40% compressible compared to this IC pad's panasonic rating of 13 W/MK. I'll test that when it comes.

 

So that's 4 members now with poor results. I wonder how the panasonic pads will compare

 

These are Panasonic pads, BTW. Just a different line of them. Panasonics PGS+ have to be better since the w/mk is higher. can't be worse.

 

Let me ask: do the people here understand Pyrolytic Graphite, where the concept for use came from, and the factors for thermal conduction of PGS? This includes the heat conducting properties relative to the planes in play for the use of this as a thermal pad or thermal interface material of some form?

Edit: So, I'll talk about it a bit. It starts with graphene (which, funny enough, I was evidently creating in grade school by scribbling graphite onto a surface, then using scotch tape to lift a single layer off of that surface; who knew a decade or so later, the noble prize was given for doing the same thing). One of the things they discovered about the single layer graphene, aside from its awesome electrical conductance properties, was the ability to transmit heat across the plane. PG is more than a single layer, hence not graphene, but has been discovered to have similar heat properties when in thin enough layers, while having heat conductance similar to that of diamond, another compact carbon product. With graphite, you have to examine heat transference on the different planes X, Y, and Z (or A, B, and C). Now, the X and Y (or A and B) planes have extremely high heat transfers with them being up to 1600+ W/mK. That is great for reducing the problems of hot spots because it spreads out the heat so quickly. But, what we care about for heat transfer in our products is the Z or C plane. This is the plane that transfers heat from the IHS to the thermal material, then on to the heat sink. Now, the Z plane is much lower than A and B, as seen in the ratings from IC and Panasonic. This continues to decrease as the thickness of the graphite sheet is increased. Now, I'm going to skip talking about the thermal resistance of this plane, but it is good if people understand that comes into play.

Now, depending on variant, you could have a laminate, epoxy, or adhesive added to one or both sides of the graphite sheet. Each of these layers introduce its own thermal resistance and conductance to the equation, thereby effecting the efficacy of this as a thermal material for our purposes.

Some have studied using the X&Y planes by doing multiple stacks of graphite sheets, then using a specialized cutting tool to slice those stack into sheets. Unfortunately, this can cause dry out, cracking, and flaking if not laminated in some form, which then cuts down on the transfer properties drastically.

So, with this all said, it is important to examine this when looking at the specific products offered. This is before discussing handling, durability, etc.

 

I want to know your findings with the other panasonic pads, let me know. I was/am interested in this as a solution for long term, it gets old repasting with the best paste over and over haha.

 

Will do.

 

Just use mayonnaise it's the best paste and is safe for human consumption






In other news though, I received another X1C6 heatsink to test with. I'm not so sure if the results would change but I'll try again with the new heatsink.

 

I looked over some of the datasheets, and besides the 0.2 mm soft sheets, Panasonic has some products designed specifically for the Z direction https://ro.mouser.com/datasheet/2/315/AYA0000C12-1003309-1287617.pdf that come in 0.5 to 2mm thickness.

The datasheet for the 0.2 mm soft sheet is here https://ro.mouser.com/datasheet/2/315/AYA0000C50-1129407.pdf . Can't see the ratings on the Z direction for this one.

Not sure how these compare with each other. Is a 0.2 mm sheet too thin for a notebook heat sink? Someone posted a few pages back that stacking the IC sheets resulted in better thermals... does one need thicker sheets for laptops and thinner ones for desktop CPUs?

 

That user stacked them to replace a thermal pad, not as thermal paste replacement.

 

This is the post I mentioned:

Not sure I understand what thermal pad or heatsink "bridge" are. Can anyone help with a picture?
Interesting topic, curious what results you'll get with the soft sheets.

 

He said he was using a thermal pad. A 0.5mm thermal pad.
so he stacked 0.2mm graphite pads to replace the 0.5mm thermal pad.

I don't know what 'bridge' is either.

 

The heatsink + pipes “bridge” from Gpu Vapor chamber HS to Cpu heatsink grills. Connected together with a pads on top of Cpu heatsink grills.

 

So you guys actually think stacking the pads will work on low pressure heatsinks?