PTM or “Phase Transition Material” has been a recurring topic in the PC industry since at least 2022. Some manufacturers now use it as standard in their products (for example in certain Lenovo laptop models and in servers).

The reason to seek an alternative to traditional thermal paste* becomes particularly apparent in devices with high to very high power density (e.g. modern GPUs): the so-called “pump-out effect” occurs. Due to the cyclic heating and cooling of the silicon, the IHS and the heatsink, the simultaneous expansion and contraction of the material over time forces the thermal paste out, resulting in progressively poorer contact between the two components over time and a decrease in cooling performance.

This is why many recommend replacing the thermal interface material at least once a year if a device runs frequently and at its limits, as cooling performance noticeably and measurably declines. Thermal interface material therefore has the lowest thermal resistance immediately after it has been freshly applied or shortly thereafter. After that, cooling performance gradually deteriorates slightly with each cycle.

The other advantages and disadvantages of common TIMs, including PTM, can also be easily compared in a table:

Just give it a try!

Just like with liquid metal back then, I’ve wanted to try out this PTM from Honeywell ever since I first read about it. The advantages are obvious:

• No pump-out
• Theoretically no future maintenance required
• Slightly better heat transfer than thermal paste
• No risk of short circuits or the high effort necessary for liquid metal (or surface corrosion over time)

There are also some drawbacks, though; for example, you need to run through a few full temperature cycles to reach full performance. That should be the least of your worries, though. It’s also not exactly convenient to use.

I recently purchased two units of the 40 x 40 mm version at a good price from a reputable seller on AliExpress*. This size fits the heatspreaders of all older and newer Intel and AMD desktop processors (but not the large server or workstation CPUs!).

The whole thing came as a set with everything you need:

Intended Use, or: The Victim

Ideally, the PTM would be used with direct-die cooling, meaning the silicon die is in direct contact with the cooler rather than through an additional “Integrated Heat Spreader” (IHS).

Since desktop and server processors typically always come with an IHS, I’ll have to test the PTM in this suboptimal scenario for better or worse:
The processor in the “Küche-PC” – a max overclocked, air-cooled Intel Core i7-7700K – will be the first test subject. First, because I could do without this system if necessary and second because access to the hardware is very easy right now. By running it at the limits of voltage and cooling I should be able to see and measure significant differences, despite the IHS.

First off, it should be noted that this CPU was delidded some time ago, treated with Thermal Grizzly Conductonaut* and resealed with Elring Dirko HT* to replace the very poor-quality thermal paste used by Intel at the factory between the die and the heat spreader. I wrote a series of posts back then about the entire “Küche-PC” project, which also describes the delidding process in detail. So this post is about the second interface between the heat spreader and the cooling solution.

Currently, the hardware is temporarily installed in a used Corsair Graphite Series 230T case without any internal fans:

To remove the Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120 SE* I had to take out the motherboard – there just wasn’t enough room. As it turns out, that was a wise decision.

Removing the cooler and cleaning it

Now that accessing all the components had become much easier after removing the board, I took out the cooler and carefully cleaned all the parts first dry with paper towels and then with isopropyl alcohol* (instead of the wipes that came with the kit):

Let’s go…

First, I unpacked the entire PTM kit and used a pair of sharp scissors to trim the 40 x 40 mm pad so it would fit the IHS of the i7-7700K a bit better, then I attached one of the included removal aids to one side:

Next, I attached a second peeling aid to the opposite side of the pad, peeled off one layer of film, carefully aimed, and “positioned” the pad on the heat spreader – if you can call it that, since it was essentially just dropped in place and has to stick there permanently because the adhesive bond is very strong right away and the risk of damaging the pad is very high. Then I peeled off the second, upper protective film, where you can see from the slightly damaged corner of the pad that this was anything but easy (second photo, bottom left).

At this point, it would have been advisable to cool the pad beforehand, as is often recommended, but I deliberately wanted to try it without doing so. It worked, but it wasn’t fun. Next time, I’ll cool the PTM for 10 – 15 minutes beforehand. The “holes” were visible air pockets, which I pricked with a needle so I could squeeze the air out:

After that, I carefully reinstalled the cooler, attached the fans, plugged them in and put everything back into the case.

First impression

I actually wanted to start recording with HWiNFO right from the first 45°C phase transition: However, the cooling performance was a few degrees Celsius worse than before, which resulted in several blue screens as soon as the system was under full load. The hottest core reached between 90°C and 100°C; previously, I had never seen 90°C or higher under the same conditions.

So, over the course of two days, I ran 5 cycles consisting of the following steps on the side to get a proper “burn-in” – after all, it’s well known that the PTM7950’s full cooling performance can only be achieved through burn-in:

• 10 minutes of idle time
• 30 minutes of Cinebench R23 Multicore
• 10 minutes of idle time
• 10 minutes of Prime95 without AVX (overclock is not AVX-stable)
• Turn off the PC and let it cool down for at least one hour

In the end, I ran Prime95 without AVX for several hours, and there were no further issues, crashes, or similar problems. This shows how the cooling performance has improved, but also how close this overclock is to its limits, both thermally and in terms of voltage (5.2 GHz under load on 3 – 4 cores, 5.3 GHz under load on 1 – 2 cores at just under 1.40 volts Vcore with air cooling!).

The differences in detail

Before upgrading to the PTM, I used HWiNFO to record several 10-minute runs of Prime95 without AVX, each with a 20-second pre- and post-run to clearly see the ramp-up and ramp-down phases. I repeated this after the upgrade and the burn-in phase. In the end, I selected the most representative and average result from each set of three recorded measurements, and here I am comparing the various relevant values of an MX-4 run (blue) and a PTM7950 run (red). The system was warmed up for at least half an hour beforehand to achieve values that were as close to realistic as possible (Cinebench R23 Multicore, 30 minutes).

The thermal paste* had already been in use for several months at that point but had undergone significantly fewer than 100 cycles. If anything, there shouldn’t be much difference from freshly applied paste, especially since the system is normally operated far from heavy loads. As can be seen in the photos, there was also no significant “pump-out” visible yet (which occurs more frequently and intensely with direct-die cooling anyway).

I created the following comparisons from the graphs generated by HWiNFO logs using “Log Visualizer”:

Temperature comparison of the first core

The three values in the table, from left to right, are: Minimum, Maximum, and Average. The values stated are in degrees Celsius.

Temperature comparison of the second core

The three values in the table, from left to right, are: Minimum, Maximum, and Average. The values stated are in degrees Celsius.

Temperature comparison of the third core

The three values in the table, from left to right, are: Minimum, Maximum, and Average. The values stated are in degrees Celsius.

Temperature comparison of the fouth core

The three values in the table, from left to right, are: Minimum, Maximum, and Average. The values stated are in degrees Celsius.

Temperatures of all cores combined

The three values in the table, from left to right, are: Minimum, Maximum, and Average. The values stated are in degrees Celsius.

Temperature of the entire CPU

The three values in the table, from left to right, are: Minimum, Maximum, and Average. The values stated are in degrees Celsius.

Interim conclusion

Temperatures have improved across the board – slightly but measurably – and are outside the measurement tolerance range. What stands out is the nearly identical temperature distribution across the individual cores, regardless of which thermal interface material (TIM) is used between the IHS and the cooler: The liquid metal* is likely not distributed perfectly even on the die beneath the heatspreader, whether using paste or PTM. Even if it were, exactly identical values are likely never achievable for a variety of reasons, starting with the fluctuating silicon quality even within the die itself.

Next, we’ll move on to comparisons of power consumption and fan speeds.

Total CPU power consumption

The three values in the table, from left to right, are: Minimum, Maximum, and Average. The values stated are in watts.

Fan speeds (2 x 120 mm from Thermalright, PWM)

The three values in the table, from left to right, are: Minimum, Maximum, and Average. The values stated are in revolutions per minute.

Conclusion

Since I’m not testing under laboratory conditions, the measurements won’t be 100% accurate because I can’t control factors like air pressure and room temperature. Nevertheless, I can draw a clear conclusion:

Even when used on a heatspreader, the PTM7950 is at least as good as high-quality thermal paste. In the measurements it was generally slightly better. Of course, there are also significantly more expensive thermal pastes and ones that are at least slightly better on paper than Arctic’s MX-4*. But regardless of which one, my primary goal was to prevent pump-out and, as a result, avoid maintenance on the cooling system (other than regular dusting).

Of course, I can’t say anything about the PTM’s medium- or long-term performance at this point. Also, the product I bought on AliExpress has the correct specs and a genuine-looking Honeywell logo but the pad inside could still be one of the many knockoffs out there now. It’s very hard to verify that with tools at home.

Personally, I’m satisfied with the result; if the cooling performance doesn’t decline, the change to this pad has done exactly what it was supposed to. If the opportunity arises, I’ll eventually apply the PTM to a very high-performance GPU die, where the results should be significantly better, especially in the long term.

Der Beitrag Honeywell PTM7950 – A pad instead of paste or liquid metal? erschien zuerst auf flohs blog.

Due to personal preference and a bit of coincidence, I ended up with a first-generation AMD Threadripper, complete with motherboard and cooler. I would describe the purchase price as “unignorable low”; I bought it second-hand via “Kleinanzeigen”.

A old Threadripper wasn’t my first choice, but it was up there. The power consumption, especially when idle, is said to be quite high, which is probably due to the multi-die design of these CPUs. On the positive side, there are plenty of PCI Express 3.0 lanes. The bundle consisted of the following components:

Processor

⧉ AMD

⧉ TPU

⧉ TPU

CPU Cooling

With an emphasis on appearance, the bundle included a powerful Wraith Ripper processor cooler from CoolerMaster. Only compatible with the TR4 socket, it was released specifically for the launch of the second generation Threadripper. I would have bought something flatter (and without RGB) from Noctua, BeQuiet, or Thermalright, but that’s just how it turned out.

⧉ CoolerMaster

⧉ CoolerMaster

⧉ CoolerMaster

Mainboard

I’m a little unhappy with this one – it’s turned out to be an RGB-overloaded Christmas tree, an AORUS Gaming 7 from Gigabyte. Not really the right choice for use in a rack case. From a technical point of view, it will work fine, but I’m turning the RGB off completely.

However, the VRMs are quite weak, so the 1950X (or its successor, the 2950X) is the best you can hope for. With the new UEFI version, second-generation Threadrippers, some of which have a significantly higher TDP (32 cores and 64 threads with the 2990WX -> 250 watts TDP), should also work in theory. Overclocking is not recommended with this board, with any Threadripper variant for TR4. The power supply and its cooling are too weak.

If I had had the choice, I would have gone with MSI or ASUS, as I usually do. Nevertheless, the Gigabyte board is still well suited for its intended purpose.

⧉ Gigabyte

⧉ Gigabyte

⧉ Gigabyte

Let’s move on to the other components, starting with the Memory.

Der Beitrag <h5>TR-Server #2: </h5><h3><b>The Base</b></h3> erschien zuerst auf flohs blog.

After installing Windows XP with minimal drivers on a 40 GB PATA hard drive from Seagate to perform some hardware tests, I noticed the following:

• The CPU fans on both PCs have clear bearing damage and need to be replaced
• The thermal paste needs to be replaced* as the fan speed is always quite high
• The fan on one of the power supplies is also noisy
• The more powerful ATI Radeon 9800 XXL in the P4 system is partially defective: the VRAM is damaged, the image is occasionally distorted and displayed with color distortion, and under load, it leads to an irreversible black screen
• Everything gets very warm; legend has it that the Pentium fours were real heaters. That’s about right.

Spare parts are needed

I simply removed the noisy fan in the power supply, cleaned it, greased the bearing, and reinstalled it. I only recommend this to electronics engineers, as opening power supplies is dangerous. Now the fan is even quieter than the other, more inconspicuous one.

I replaced the thermal paste with my favorite MX-4 from Arctic* – the original paste on the processors had hardened so much that, despite letting the system warm up, the CPU was stuck to the cooler on both PCs. Very dangerous—straightening bent pins is no fun. I had to hammer the Celeron D off the cooler from the side with a flathead screwdriver (!). I was lucky in my misfortune, not a single pin was bent. The paste was also renewed on the chipset.

As a replacement for the partially defective Radeon 9800 XXL, I found a working Radeon 9600 Pro from Sapphire, AGP 8x, in my collection. It fits very well. The driver is exactly the same.

The CPU fans are 80 mm – a rather unusual size. I found generic ones that match the power LED on the power switch, which glows blue. A small visual upgrade, you might say. They’re not the quietest of their kind, but they’re much better than the originals were.

Hard drives were no problem at all. If there’s one thing I have a lot of, it’s data storage devices of all kinds, designs, and models.

The Hardware

And now?

Since the basic system should remain as close to series production as possible, I got the most out of the intended operating systems. As already mentioned, Windows 98 SE should run as a minimum, but I went to the limits of what is possible, which in this case is AGP 8x, for which there was simply no support at some point.

Der Beitrag <h5>Medion PC-MT6 #4: </h5><h3><b>Maintenance and upgrades</b></h3> erschien zuerst auf flohs blog.

After acquiring one of these desktop processors from Intel a long time ago, I came across the bundle consisting of a motherboard and CPU again while rearranging other hardware. I personally have never overclocked on this platform, but according to everything you read in overclocking circles at the time (2007/2008), there should be quite a bit of potential. Poor heat transfer in the heat spreader is not an issue, as processors from this era were soldered.

With these first quad-core processors, Intel took the same approach as it had some time before with the first dual-core processor: two dies together on one carrier. From a technical point of view, the result is therefore more of a 2 + 2 core processor, also in terms of other functionalities (shared bandwidth, shared cache, double power consumption, etc.).

Which processors are we talking about?

The code name Kentsfield tells seasoned overclockers everything they need to know: the first mainstream quad-core CPUs were called Intel Core 2 Quad Q6xxx. The most legendary model, the Q6600 (test from back then), was first available in the “B3” stepping with 105 watts TDP and shortly thereafter in the improved “G0” stepping, then with 95 watts TDP. The newer G0 revision is generally slightly better, especially when overclocking, where the lower power consumption is very noticeable and significantly increases the headroom.

My Q6600 is the G0 stepping, which is ideal for an “old-school FSB overclocking session.” — the multiplier is locked (only the much more expensive Extreme variants available at the time had an unlocked multiplier). The biggest advantage was getting at least equal performance from the cheapest quad-core processors compared to their expensive counterparts.

These are all the Kentsfield models from back then, excluding Xeon:

All of these processors fit into the LGA 775 socket, have 8 (4 + 4) MB L2 cache, and are quad-core. They are all manufactured by Intel with a 65 nm structure size. For serious overclocking to the limits of this generation, an Extreme model with a free multiplier would of course be essential. In my case, however, it’s more about nostalgia – apart from that, the Q6600 G0 in particular is a legend. PCGH users also thought so in 2010.

⧉ Intel

⧉ Intel

⧉ Intel

Hm, Mainboard?

At the time, I got the CPU together with two 2 GB sticks of 667 standard RAM installed on a Gigabyte GA-965P-DS4 in revision 1.0. A usable to good board for overclocking. I replaced the RAM with four XMS2 DDR2-800 modules, each with 2 GB from Corsair – so in total, I still have 8 GB of RAM that is theoretically usable today.

I continued to use the Freezer 7 Pro from Arctic that was already on the board as a cooler, together with new MX-4 thermal paste* – whether this will be sufficient remains to be seen.

⧉ Gigabyte

Initial situation

In good old DIY fashion, I put the motherboard on the benchtable, inserted all four RAM sticks, and connected the cables. For such projects, I like to use a “problem-free” GPU model, in this case an older GeForce 210 from ASUS with 1 GB VRAM – no additional power connection, no fan. PCI Express 2.0 with 16 lanes.

As the system drive, I used an inexpensive Intenso SATA SSD with 256 GB capacity* connected to the first SATA-II port, with Windows 10 22H2 Professional 64-bit installed. The BIOS was already up to date (F12 from June 25, 2009).

This is what it looked like:

Then let’s get started!

First of all, I ran Cinebench R23 for single and multi-core performance, using the default settings. Incidentally, the required VID for my model is a moderate 1.288 volts. The results were 330 / 1251 points:

As was previously common with Gigabyte motherboards, you have to press “CTRL + F1” in the main BIOS menu to display all options. At first, I wondered why I couldn’t enter RAM timings anywhere – but after pressing the key combination, all the options suddenly appeared in the overclocking submenu. You have to know this kind of thing first.

Once I had cleared the first hurdle, I set everything relevant from “Auto” to fixed values, primarily the RAM timings to those stored in the modules (5 – 5 – 5 – 18 at 1.8 volts) and the PCIe speed to “100 MHz”. I wanted to achieve a RAM divider of 1:1, so I always made sure that the final value was at or below the 800 MHz of the RAM modules.

The actual overclocking began here: First, I had to find out what this specific processor was capable of at its original Vcore voltage. According to the BIOS, this was 1.28750 volts, which matched the read VID of 1.288 volts exactly. 266 MHz is the original FSB clock, which has to run in any case.

Front Side Bus…

I slightly increased the clock speed, saved it, restarted, and then briefly checked stability with Cinebench R23. Starting with 300 MHz FSB – as expected, this ran smoothly and already resulted in a clock speed of 2.70 GHz (300 x 9). Next, 333 MHz also ran without any problems (333 x 9). This already resulted in 3.00 GHz instead of the original 2.40 GHz.

At a clock speed of 350 MHz, I had my first blue screen in CB23. No problem, just slightly increase the Vcore in the BIOS – in this case to 1.30 volts to have some leeway. Then everything ran smoothly again, reaching 3.24 GHz!

After further smaller clock jumps, instabilities, and Vcore increases, I had to increase the FSB and MCH voltage by a minimal 0.10 volts for the first time at 372 MHz FSB. Then it ran stably again. I pushed the whole thing much further, up to about 1.55 volts—that’s way too much, especially with air cooling!

I wanted to find out at what point the clock speed no longer scales well with the Vcore. With this very old hardware, I ultimately settled for 380 MHz FSB, as anything above that required really significant voltage increases for marginal gains (from 380 MHz to 386 MHz instead of 0.10 volts, now 0.25 volts on FSB and MCH, plus 1.525 volts Vcore!). Of course, the temperatures also rose disproportionately – I wouldn’t have wanted to go above 1.50 volts permanently anyway. The Arctic Freezer 7 Pro does a good job; thermally and voltage-wise, this is an acceptable range.

The result

With 380 MHz FSB and 1.45 Vcore set in the BIOS, this results in 3.42 GHz at 760 MHz RAM clock speed (1:1 division, 380 x 9). That’s 1.02 GHz more than the original, even with a rather small air cooler. It’s clear why this CPU is so well known among overclockers around the world – my sample is actually only average in terms of silicon quality, as can be seen from the average VID. Under full load, HWiNFO reads only 1.392 volts as Vcore, so the Vdroop is clearly visible.

The processor does get very warm with these settings. After about 45 minutes of Prime95 Smallest FFTs, the hottest core was at 79 °C and the package at 84 °C. These are clearly too warm as permanent values, but in Cinebench R23, nothing ever exceeded 72 °C. Prime95 is a rather unrealistic load in normal operation anyway.

CB23 Comparison

Here, I have once again compared the changes between the original and the newly overclocked Q6600 G0:

This was a very nostalgic overclocking project. All that remains to be said is: you notice the difference in performance immediately. Both in terms of computing speed under Windows 10 and the significantly increased waste heat. Over 40% performance gain with a locked multiplier at only 15% more voltage!

Der Beitrag The first desktop quad-core processors: OC legends erschien zuerst auf flohs blog.

This otherwise really good but now outdated workstation notebook from Lenovo had major thermal problems right from the start. My model has the most powerful non-Extreme mobile processor available, an i7-4910MQ. This quickly becomes very hot with Lenovo’s cooling solution. An Nvidia Quadro K2100M is installed as a 3D accelerator, which is not exactly the most energy-efficient mobile graphics chip either.

Based on my experience with liquid metal in other previous projects, I thought, why shouldn’t this also help with this Thinkpad? No sooner said than done. I had taken the notebook apart many times before, and you really have to remove a lot of screws before you get to the cooler. Then, as usual, I made the preparations, applied thermal paste around the die for insulation because a notebook is mobile, and applied liquid metal*.

Better?

In short: no. The difference is a whole degree Celsius. The cooler is simply undersized. And I’m only talking about full CPU load (even without AVX!), which very quickly causes thermal throttling. If the GPU is also under load at the same time, the ThinkPad can no longer be used effectively. Even old games are unplayable because the system repeatedly throttles heavily and the notebook simply shuts down after a short time due to overload.

I am writing this post so that no one else takes this device apart and puts it back together again multiple times for no reason. New thermal paste* only helps if the existing paste has been in use for several years. But even then, you shouldn’t expect miracles. It’s a shame, because in terms of features, this is a really good 15″ notebook.

Der Beitrag Lenovo ThinkPad W540 – Liquid Metal erschien zuerst auf flohs blog.

Like many others, I have found that the fan curves of various ThinkPads are not ideally chosen. In less powerful models (such as our T440s with a 15-watt CPU and no dedicated GPU), this is tolerable, but even these models run at higher speeds than necessary more often than not.

On devices with decent power consumption and output, such as our W540 with a 47-watt CPU and 55-watt GPU, this behavior is less tolerable—the fan runs at low speed for a long time until it can’t go any slower, then revs up repeatedly to quickly cool down the heat generated, only to slow down again a few seconds later. This cycle repeats itself endlessly.

With modern Windows versions such as 10 or 11, the fan often revs up because background processes such as Defender generate short load peaks, which in turn cause heat and thus fan speed peaks. With Windows 7, this behavior is far less pronounced.

TPFanControl

Many ThinkPad users are tech-savvy, and the devices are known for being robust, repairable, expandable, and powerful. You could also call them the “MacBook Pro for practical users”.

As a result, software was developed to control fan behavior very precisely via the energy management EC registers in the devices. The first version was developed by shimodax until 2009, and the second version was then developed by troubadix until 2015. Later, a third iteration by Shuzhengz was added.

The first and second versions of the program are no longer being developed, but the existing versions still run on the supported models. On my W540 running Windows 11 Professional 25H2, the second version from troubadix has been running without any problems and to my satisfaction so far.

Links and instructions

The first version is available at SourceForge:

Thinkpad Fan Controller (tpfancontrol)
by shimodax, troubadix
Click here for the repository

The second variant, which I and many others have successfully used as an alternative in ThinkWiki:

TPFanControl
by troubadix
Click here to visit the website
Good, detailed instructions can be found in ThinkWiki

And finally, the newcomer on GitHub:

TPFanCtrl2
by Shuzhengz
Click here for the repository

Der Beitrag Perfect fan control on Lenovo ThinkPads erschien zuerst auf flohs blog.

First, you need to decide what the PC will be used for. In my case, it’s a retro PC that will rarely be used and will mainly serve as a safe storage place for the components (especially the graphics cards).

The top priority is therefore cost efficiency, followed by noise level and cooling performance.

Case fans

That was obvious – I’m using fans from BeQuiet. I installed the following configuration:

• Front: 2 x 140 mm BeQuiet PureWings 2 PWM*
• Rear: 1 x 140 mm BeQuiet PureWings 2 PWM*
• Top: 1 x 140 mm BeQuiet PureWings 2 PWM*
• Bottom: 1 x 140 mm BeQuiet PureWings 2 PWM*

For me, these fans offer a good compromise between noise level, cooling performance, appearance, and price. Unfortunately, the successor models are now significantly more expensive. Noctua was not an option for cost reasons, but Arctic would have been an alternative. I didn’t want RGB fans; black is fine.

Processor cooler

Given all the circumstances, I didn’t want AiO or water cooling for this PC either, for reasons such as durability. I also opted for BeQuiet, specifically a BeQuiet Dark Rock Pro 4 air cooler*.

The main reasons were noise level, appearance, and compatibility with the LGA 2011 socket. The successor no longer offers these, for example. Things like the height of the RAM and general compatibility with the motherboard also have to be considered. This isn’t the best cooler for maximum performance; there are several others from Noctua or Thermalright that would be more powerful.

However, when I compared coolers, this model was the best overall package for me, and here too, you have to take the price into account.

⧉ BeQuiet

⧉ BeQuiet

⧉ BeQuiet

⧉ BeQuiet

⧉ BeQuiet

⧉ BeQuiet

Der Beitrag <h5>Retro-XP-PC #10: </h5><h3><b>Cooling</b></h3> erschien zuerst auf flohs blog.

After many years, Nvidia graphics cards from the Pascal era are still serving us well in our “main PCs.” This is partly because their performance has not been so poor that replacement would have been unavoidable, and partly because Nvidia graphics cards have since become extremely expensive, large, and power-hungry.

My (Floh PC) has an “ASUS ROG Strix GeForce GTX 1080 Ti 11 GB OC” installed.
Tamy (Tamy PC) runs the smaller sister model “ASUS ROG Strix GeForce GTX 1080 8 GB Advanced” .

The exact model numbers from ASUS are “ROG-STRIX-GTX1080TI-O11G-GAMING” and “ROG-STRIX-GTX1080-A8G-GAMING” – tests of the cards can be found here for the 1080 Ti OC and here for the 1080 Advanced.

⧉ ASUS

⧉ ASUS

Both cards only activate the fans at around 55°C (0 dB mode) and from there on, the speed is increased in parallel with the rising temperature, which is generally a very good feature – it protects the fans and your hearing, and also means that less dust gets into the cooler.
In addition, both cards run with MSI Afterburner, but “only” with the power and temperature limits increased to the maximum so that they can be boosted more “freely.”

I had been wanting to try to improve the cooling for a long time, especially for the 1080 Ti.
Not because it gets too hot, but because the fan noise bothered me more and more, even at medium load. I would say that efficient cooling is always a good thing.

The thermal paste has been changed several times over the years, using Arctic MX-4*.
In general, new thermal paste is always a good idea, especially if it has never been replaced.
It did its job well, but I was interested to see whether liquid metal* would significantly improve the cooling efficiency.

Requirements:

Since I had familiarized myself with the topic of liquid metal (delidding an i7-7700K), I knew what to look out for – for example, the contact surface between the die and the cooler should ideally not be pure copper, but nickel-plated – to prevent the liquid metal from “sinking in” over time.

This absorption is not an unavoidable problem; you simply have to repeat the application process at increasingly longer intervals until the cooling performance remains constant. The indium in the liquid metal simply reacts with the copper, and at some point the surface has reacted so thoroughly that nothing more is absorbed.

After a little research, it became clear that the cooler of the 1080 Ti is nickel-plated and thus provides optimal conditions for liquid metal. In the 1080, the heat pipes appear to make direct contact with the die and also appear to be nickel-plated, but in the contact area they are “smoothly ground,” which partially reveals the copper again—not ideal.

⧉ Hardwareluxx

⧉ Kitguru

Liquid metal is quite expensive compared to thermal paste, so I was initially skeptical about whether it would be worth it. As with the delidding project before, I opted for the market leader, as I still had some left over:

⧉ Thermal Grizzly

Now it’s being dismantled…

You can easily find instructions on how to disassemble these card models on the Internet.
Here is a good video tutorial that can be used for both models:

The connectors for the fans are very fragile, so be very careful.

Once everything has been dismantled, it is of course advisable to thoroughly dust the components.
The cooler, the GPU die, and the surrounding area must be thoroughly cleaned with isopropanol*.

Now it’s time to prepare:

First, you need to make sure that no short circuits can occur later, as liquid metal is electrically conductive. This is easiest and most attractive to do with the 1080 Ti, as the die sits on a circuit board carrier reinforced with a metal frame. The 1080 lacks this metal reinforcement:

I covered the metal bracket on the 1080 Ti and the circuit board on the 1080 directly with insulating tape* to make it easier to apply the following coat of paint for insulation. The red areas were covered with tape:

Afterwards, you can paint the exposed area very well with (nail) polish*, but you must be careful around the die, so please be careful (marked in yellow). No paint should get on the die, and if it does, it must be thoroughly removed. You can also insulate the area with Kapton tape*, which has the advantage of being removable. I found painting to be safer and therefore did that, as it does not have to be reversible.

Once all SMD components in the area now marked in blue have been neatly painted over or masked off, the insulating tape can be carefully removed while the paint is still wet:

Now the paint should be left to dry for a few hours, if it has been painted.
Here is an example of how it might look when working with Kapton tape:

⧉ Phiarc

Finally, the liquid metal:

Now comes the actual task of applying the liquid metal. First, place a small “ball” from the syringe in the center of the die:

⧉ Phiarc

This is best done by carefully rubbing it in a circular motion on the die using one of the cotton swabs provided until it looks like this:

⧉ Phiarc

With time, you will get a feel for when enough has been rubbed in and when the amount is sufficient.
Then reassemble the graphics card backwards and plug it back into the computer.

Observations and conclusion:

The use of liquid metal has really paid off, especially with the 1080 Ti, but also with both cards.
The fans activate a little later because the heat is dissipated more efficiently even passively.

The biggest change is that you can hardly hear the fan until the GPU is at about 75% capacity, and even at full load, HWiNFO shows a temperature that is 5 °C lower than with the MX-4 thermal paste, which was not exactly old or bad.

If you want to divide the fan curve into 10 levels plus “off,” the card previously ran at fan level 8 at 75% load, but now runs at level 4-5 thanks to liquid metal. The temperatures at full load have improved slightly, but above all, the temperatures in the partial load range below 80% have improved significantly.

I no longer hear the 1080 Ti at all in moderately demanding games (e.g. Guild Wars 2 at highest settings, 2560 x 1080), as the load never exceeds 80-85% (this game is heavily CPU-limited) and even then only rarely. Most of the time, the load is in the 40-60% range.

I would immediately recommend this treatment to anyone who owns one of these cards or a similar one. The cards have been running with liquid metal for more than two years now and the cooling performance has not noticeably deteriorated.

Der Beitrag ASUS ROG Strix GTX 1080 und 1080 Ti – Liquid metal erschien zuerst auf flohs blog.

No question about it—without the right conditions, you won’t get good overclocking results.
It’s time to take a look at what can stand in the way of maximum overclocking:

• The power supply of the motherboard for the processor (VCore VRMs)
• The cooling of these VRMs
• The quality of the processor (“silicon fitness”)
• Clearly, the cooling of the processor

What can the VRMs of the selected ASUS Z270-E motherboard do?

There are some really good but also very complex lists showing which motherboards are equipped with what, usually by socket type. The ROG Strix Z270E Gaming from ASUS is equipped as follows:

⧉ PCTeK REVIEWS

⧉ PCTeK REVIEWS

⧉ PCTeK REVIEWS

Digital 10-phase power supply:
As can be clearly seen in the pictures, the channels of the ASP1400BT PWM controller have been divided into a 4 x 2 = 8-phase (VCC = VCore) + 2-phase (VCCGT, VCCSA, VCCIO, SoC) configuration.

Each of the first four channels controls a network:
One ON Semiconductors NTMFS4C09B MOSFET on the “high side” (12 volts) and one NTMFS4C06B MOSFET on the “low side” (VCC), behind which there is one coil with a maximum load capacity of 60 A. The whole thing is then repeated twice, resulting in a total of two high-side MOSFETs, two low-side MOSFETs, and two coils.

This is followed by two channels that are “simply” equipped (“+ 2”), i.e., one high-side and one low-side MOSFET and one coil each. The functionality of the whole thing is explained quite well here.

I assume the calculated value of 30 A per phase mentioned in the explanation as a safe maximum value.
The (low-side) MOSFETs could deliver more, significantly more with extremely good cooling (> 400 A, completely unrealistic!).

Assuming a VCore (VCC) of 1.52 volts, which according to Intel is the absolute limit of these CPUs that one should not come too close to (keyword: degradation), this would result in a maximum possible power output of 365 watts – but only with good cooling of the VRMs.

Assuming a more realistic VCore voltage of 1.35 volts, this would result in 324 watts (with cooling still adequate). Since the i7-7700K is specified with a TDP of 91 watts (which does not necessarily mean that this represents the actual power requirement – the definition of “TDP” is vague), this should be easily sufficient even if the power consumption doubles due to overclocking.

Since the VRMs were designed as “4 x 2” for the VCore, their control is not as precise or low-latency as if the whole thing had been designed as “8 x 1” (each PWM channel always controls two pairs of MOSFETs here; with 8 x 1, each channel would control only one MOSFET pair, which would enable more precise and faster control).

Motherboards designed specifically for overclocking are potentially slightly better at this. To stay with ASUS ROG, an example would be the ROG Maximus VIII Extreme, with 8 phases. These have even more powerful VRM components, for example for use with nitrogen in extreme overclocking, finer settings in the BIOS/UEFI, and are also significantly better optimized for the (much more complex) overclocking of RAM.

Interim conclusion:
The power supply to the processor is guaranteed even in extreme conditions. I cannot imagine that this 91-watt TDP processor with normal cooling and even when heavily overclocked would ever require more than 150–200 watts, which is far from the limit of this VRM design. Of course, the service life of all components involved is reduced when operating them at their limits, but I consider a projected 50% “headroom” to be quite good. The VRMs should actually be able to be cooled almost passively under all circumstances. In addition, the passive heat sinks are generously dimensioned and should be able to easily cope with the power dissipation.

Obviously, you don’t always need a board with “OC” written all over it to have good conditions.
Thank you, ASUS, for the VRM design of the ROG Strix Z270E Gaming.

Processor quality:

That’s a difficult question—you can only find out by testing, i.e., by overclocking at a fixed voltage (VCore). There was a renowned US company that turned this testing process and the results into a business model: Silicon Lottery.

Unfortunately, this company has not been in existence for some time, but the link leads to a very interesting former subpage that has fortunately been preserved on archive.org, namely the “Binning” statistics for certain processor series, including the i5-7600K and i7-7700K:

⧉ Silicon Lottery

For long-term everyday use, I consider the voltages to be borderline.
I’m not really interested in the values under AVX2 load either – when does full utilization with only AVX commands actually occur in standard Windows operation?

So from now on, I’m hoping for a sustained 5.00 GHz on all four cores, without AVX – but with hyperthreading.
According to these statistics, 78% of all i7-7700K processors tested at the time achieved this, so it’s not completely unrealistic to set this as a goal.

Processor cooling – There are several options…

Various systems could be considered, each with advantages and disadvantages:

First option: Extreme, Liquid nitrogen (LN2)

Advantages:

• Extremely good cooling
• The greatest potential, “record-breaking”

Disadvantages:

• Absolutely unsuitable for operation lasting longer than benchmarks
• Very expensive
• Only with special equipment
• Completely unrealistic in this case
  

Second option: Custom-Watercooling

Advantages:

• Very good cooling
• Visually very appealing when well constructed
• Very quiet depending on design

Disadvantages:

• Expensive
• Durability
• Requires a lot of space
• High maintenance costs
• Many potential faults (leaks, defective pump, corrosion, etc.)

Third option: All-in-one liquid cooling

Advantages:

• Acceptable to good cooling depending on design
• Affordable
• Visually appealing when chosen appropriately
• Relatively quiet

Disadvantages:

• Space requirements
• Durability
• Many potential faults (leaks, defective pump, corrosion, etc.)

Fourth option: Classic air cooling

Advantages:

• Acceptable to good cooling depending on design
• Inexpensive to implement with good results
• Space-efficient
• Very good repairability and durability

Disadvantages:

• Potentially the loudest option
• Performance may suffer (“headroom”)

What did I decide on?

Considering the intended use and, of course, durability and maintenance requirements, I opted for classic air cooling.

Not much can go wrong with this system—even if it does, a defective fan can be replaced quickly and inexpensively, and the system will notify you if the speed value is no longer being received, allowing you to identify when there is a defect.
There are some really good options available that are now even affordable.

After doing some research, I decided on the Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120 SE* for the following reasons:

• Almost unbeatable price/performance ratio (€34!)
• Looks good, even if that’s not relevant in this case.
• Compact design, yet with space where it matters (RAM height).
• Compatible with socket 1511.
• The fan size is standard at 120 mm – so it can be easily replaced in case of a defect or upgraded with fans that promote more airflow to further increase cooling capabilities.

Here are a few pictures of this cooler:

⧉ Thermalright

⧉ Thermalright

⧉ Thermalright

⧉ Thermalright

⧉ Thermalright

⧉ Thermalright

Now that all cooling issues have been clarified, we can move on to putting together the other planned components.

Der Beitrag <h5>i7-7700K OC #5: </h5><h3><b>Cooling</b></h3> erschien zuerst auf flohs blog.