Question Does liquid metal vs paste really matter with liquid cooling?

[fcar1999ta]

I have an AIO for my RTX 4090 coming next week, and I am curious if the GPU temps would be significantly cooler with liquid metal instead of paste. I am thinking that the use of the AIO will negate the benefits of liquid metal over paste. Plus, I will have to take the GPU and cooler to a professional to have the liquid metal applied.

 

[geofelt]

The designers of the 4090 implement the cooling required for your particular model.
You risk damage and loss of warranty fiddling with it or installing aftermarket coolers.

I would not bother.

 

[CountMike]

I have an AIO for my RTX 4090 coming next week, and I am curious if the GPU temps would be significantly cooler with liquid metal instead of paste. I am thinking that the use of the AIO will negate the benefits of liquid metal over paste. Plus, I will have to take the GPU and cooler to a professional to have the liquid metal applied.

It doesn't really matter which kind of cooling. paste or liquid metal have same effect. Liquid metal is less recommended when there's contact metal on metal because with time it can cause electro-chemical reaction lowering performance or even damaging surfaces. With direct die contact that's mostly avoided but application is very tricky with small resulting gains.

 

[SkyNetRising]

I have an AIO for my RTX 4090 coming next week, and I am curious if the GPU temps would be significantly cooler with liquid metal instead of paste.

Watch some youtube videos with gpu repairs after improper use of liquid metal.
They basically have to resolder all ram modules and gpu chip.

TLDR - don't do it.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m14emekmTzs

 

[fcar1999ta]

Ok. No liquid metal for me. I will stick with Kryonaut.

Thanks for the inputs!

 

[JeffreyP55]

Ok. No liquid metal for me. I will stick with Kryonaut.

Thanks for the inputs!

People tend to overthink the use of the proper thermal paste application. In many cases replacing the paste only to get higher temp because of botched installation. Paste is paste. There is no magic temp reducer. Best bet is proper installation and keep the stock setup unless there is an upgrade to replace the paste. With the exception of conductive thermal paste. Stay away from it.

 

[Eximo]

Liquid metal is used on CPUs because there is still a heatspreader in the way, and getting that thermal transfer up is useful for such a small chip and the IHS will protect the cooler from receiving any damage from amalgamation with the gallium and such. Heatspreaders tend to already have a layer of gold on the contact surface for the soldering process to work better, so there is some protection there. (Stock soldered TIM is generally Indium based)

GPUs tend to be much larger, and already have direct die cooling with great thermal transfer, so liquid metal has less of an impact. Not to mention the aforementioned danger.

 

[SkyNetRising]

Heatspreaders tend to already have a layer of gold on the contact surface for the soldering process to work better, so there is some protection there. (Stock soldered TIM is generally Indium based)

Not gold. LOL

Heatspredders are nickel plated copper.

 

[Eximo]

Not gold. LOL

Heatspredders are nickel plated copper.

Yes, the overall heatspreader is nickel plated copper.

Where the indium solder bonds with the heatspreader is typically gold plated.