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Add metal in thermal paste?

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meoxley
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2020/10/24 20:55:30 (permalink)
Have any of you considered (or tried) adding a little aluminum nitride powder or other conductive material to the ceramic non conductive pastes?

If uniformly mixed and carefully applied to ensure no excess, there would be a far greater heat transfer efficiency.

I understand metals like indium and soldered solutions are a whole different aspect, but I've been toying with the mix I mentioned as a middle ground solution. Even if the entire surface wasnt covered I'd imagine thermal transfer would be exponentially higher than with non conductive ceramic paste.

You all seem to be fairly experienced, far more than me. But I'm using a chiller and would like to see if I could break 5.5ghz on a i7-8086k or i9-9900ks...reliably.
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    kougar
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    Re: Add metal in thermal paste? 2020/10/25 19:30:00 (permalink)
    I'm assuming you're asking because you already have a ceramic paste? The problem I see is you're likely to dry out the compound when adding a metal powder, and my guess is it will end up hurting performance more than helping once you add an appreciable amount of it. Of course if you try it be sure to post how it goes, there might be a sweet spot if you get the ratio right. 
     
    The non-ceramic TIMs already use very precise metal ratios, der8auer discussed some of the details about this in some Thermal Grizzly Q&A video. They saw worse thermal dissipation fairly quickly, and after a certain point one might as well just go liquid metal. 


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    Hoggle
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    Re: Add metal in thermal paste? 2020/10/25 20:37:16 (permalink)
    Probably wouldn’t help really since thermal transfer from the paste to the aluminum to the heat sink would slow the transfer of heat.

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    ty_ger07
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    Re: Add metal in thermal paste? 2020/10/25 22:09:52 (permalink)
    Most thermal pastes already have aluminum powder in them. Rather than mixing your own, why not use one which is already tested, manufactured, and available for sale? It's unlikely that you would be able to do better yourself. Especially for the price, you won't be able to do better on your own.

    About paste manufacturing, testing, recipes, etcetera:


    See 4:30. Your thermal paste already has aluminum in it.
    post edited by ty_ger07 - 2020/10/25 22:16:26

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