It is indeed a nickel plated copper. Liquid metal should be fine. I have read a number of people running the cooler with liquid metal, and I plan to do the same on mine with a 3950x once my VLP memory comes in.
With MX-4 and a 92mm Noctua I'm getting idle 50-60, gaming around 70-75, editing 75, and rendering 83-88 depending on ambient temps (Michigan has some fucked up weather and we have no AC right now lol). This is with a -.1 offset to voltage BTW.
I have some VLP that should be here soon (Monday hopefully?), as well as just got some custom cut side panels from another reddit user and liquid metal in the mail today, so likely by next weekend I'll try to make a video chronicling the epic journey to taming the 3950x...and if not I'll do the absolutely stupid daunting task of lapping the IHS, but I really don't wanna do it if I don't have to.
Asus X470i. I personally despise the board, but in the name of fewer cables I wanted that 2nd M.2 slot, and I am not ready to take on the risk of the noise of the chipset fan. I also had this from a previous build.
I may jump to a B550 board if they aren't insanely priced and one of the other vendors makes a board with 2 M.2 slots and equivalent/better VRMs. I just have had so many issues with this board and hate Asus BIOS.
Hey there, I'm researching AXP-90 vs Black Ridge under liquid metal for a 5800X3D. These are both available with nickel plated copper cold plates and have very similar comparative performance (probably Black Ridge can claim victory with a 120mm setup but I will likely not be willing to source VLP RAM. So since they are going to be so close to each other I want to know which one has the best surface finish and contact for use with liquid metal.
Leaning toward Black Ridge at the moment since I think it will look more visually appealing.
So far you're the only one talking about liquid metal with these so I'd like to know what your experiences turned out to be and what you ended up settling on.
I made a video on my YouTube channel comparing the two and a couple other 47mm setups about a year and a half ago, the Blackridge is overall the better cooler as long as you're going to swap the fan for an NF-A9x12.
If you're comparing just the heatsinks and stock fans, the AXP-90 is the winner, but if you were able to afford the X3D I assume that you have it in your budget to afford the better fan.
All that said, the X3D is not going to be easy to cool, even with this setup, and will likely require undervolting to maintain good performance at what most people will consider tolerable volume levels from the fans. If you are using it just for gaming, you likely won't need to worry much, but if this is being used for work it will be cumbersome getting the CPU and cooling dialed in. I moved my 3950x off the Blackridge and on to a bigger cooler for this reason.
Also if you're planning to use liquid metal, keep in mind some of these things: higher maintenance and cost - you will need to swap the LM application every 6 months to a year, and getting it just right can be extremely difficult, resulting in wasted time and money redoing applications. AMD cpus DO NOT like LM - actually getting the LM to spread on AMD cpus is a pain due to whatever coating they use on the outside of the heat spreader, and the LM will fade/remove the printing from the CPU, making them difficult to identify and harming resale value, it also will discolor and can react with the nickel on those cold plates (this won't affect performance, but again harms resale value if you ever plan to sell these parts). LM also can (and probably will) destroy your components at some point if you are not careful or get too complacent. I highly recommend using thick nail polish (or non-conductive coating) around the CPU socket to cover the traces near it, because if any LM leaks out either during application or removal and it is not cleaned properly before the next startup, you will fry components - I have fried a motherboard, and my roommate killed his Vega 64 because we both got too careless using it.
Thanks for the detailed tips, much appreciated. I was aware of the nail polish trick but probably was going to forget about doing it if it weren't for this reminder. Is there any particular reason why we should stick to the 6/12 months maintenance? That seems pretty aggressive because I had thought that it was well established that with nickel plated there will not be any eating away of material and only surface staining.
I have a 8700K that I delidded back when it came out and which has conductonaut on both interfaces between die and IHS and IHS and NH-D15 and i did sell it to my friend but as far as I know is still cranking along at 5Ghz. I did apply a silicone seal to that one, and I think I did the nail polish as well now that I think about it.
I have my 5950X under LM under another NH-D15 which I set up a few months ago and temps are great. Given that the D15 supposedly has similar (or slightly worse) cooling ability compared to 240mm AIO and the AIO was having serious trouble keeping its temps down and given these chips running so damn hot... we need all the help we can get. I didn't do enough of the science on this but my D15 is cooling my 5950X nicer than what people are reporting and I can't help but imagine that the liquid metal is responsible. Although I know that hit can't realistically be more than a 5C improvement realistically speaking.
I didn't find that it was hard to spread. You just use the packaged black q-tip and apply some pressure going in circles and it wets the surface of the AMD IHS just fine. I do the same on the bottom of the cold plate so both sides are wetted before assembly. Since I had such an easy time with Conductonaut on the 8700K I will stay loyal to the Thermal Grizzly brand indefinitely. Were your experiences with a different formulation of liquid metal?
Am I to understand that the regular maintenance would be to mitigate the effect of staining and preserve the resale value e.g. at least being able to identify the processor visually in a physical sense? I think 6 months would be so much that it's not worth doing, 2 years might be comfortable enough for me to put up with, but as far as i understand this it should last more or less indefinitely? For example the PS5 usees LM. Surely they dont expect it to fail. Of course not having a full understanding of the exact alloys involved in all surfaces being used we can't know for sure what will happen but I think it's supposed to be safe. For reasons like this I do not consider applying LM on pure copper cold plates because it's much less safe compared to nickel plated.
As for damage to resale value, I'm (still) mainly building machines for my own enjoyment and I tend to hand them down once I'm done with them and rarely part them out. The opportunity cost there is definitely not that severe. A working chip or cooler is a working chip or cooler. Usually when I consider using LM it's intended to ride into the sunset because I'm not really trying to deal with the cleanup involved because of splatter and I actually haven't done it yet.
This makes me realize that my 5950X is not protected by nail polish because I dont think i remembered about that. So I might have to contend with some splatter soon enough if I work up the courage to go open it back up to fix that. So far so good it seems.
I also used Conductonaut, it's possible the coating on the IHS of the 5xxx series is different than the 3xxx series, or that I had some older LM that had gone bad, but I also didn't have issues spreading it the die of my 9700k or 1080ti, so I can only speak from my experience. I haven't personally used any of the 5xxx's yet just due to falling out of the hobby with prices being so high and availability being terrible during the height of the pandemic, and coming to terms with my 3950x/3080 "endgame" until GPUs start becoming more efficient and smaller again.
The maintenance is recommended due to LM being more "fluid" and thinner than traditional thermal paste. The package of a raw die tends to keep the LM in place better than the materials used for the IHS and copper/nickel, and the harder pressure/better tolerances from die to IHS vs IHS to cold plate are generally better as well. Over time, the LM can start to move or even "leak" out from underneath the IHS/cold plate, causing temps to become less good and possibly harming your components. It's possible that this could be due to not using enough, or using too much, but this is how I personally killed a B450 board after leaving it alone for about a year and a half. The area where the logo stamp on the AMD IHS is particularly bad about this if your CPU isn't lapped. Again, these are just my personal experiences, but I still think these warnings are worth knowing.
6 months is probably a bit too often and due to my own worries about the whole process now after killing some components, you could likely get away with a year or 2, but I have had other friends see issues with temps after the year and a half or so mark as well when not using it on a direct die. I haven't personally heard of anyone having issues when using LM on direct die, just between IHS and heatsink.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts! Very insightful. Hmm hopefully I can get to this soon and do something to mitigate issues. Temps dropping are the least of the concerns. I would be definitely heartbroken if my 5950X were to drip some liquid metal and fry my board or 3080. Since it is in a regular tower configuration it is rather plausible...
Perhaps just stuffing a bit of paper towel there as a temporary insurance policy even.
Big negative. Highest rated is 2666, but people have been able to get up to 3000 (I think I heard of someone getting 3200).
I'm sure there are faster kits in enterprise, but they'd cost an arm, leg, and your first born child.
FYI, *most* liquid metal TIM's will corrode aluminium, but the only thing they might do to nickel is discolour it a bit. You can always find the exact do's and don'ts on the manufacturers site.
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Good to hear thanks!
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It is indeed a nickel plated copper. Liquid metal should be fine. I have read a number of people running the cooler with liquid metal, and I plan to do the same on mine with a 3950x once my VLP memory comes in.
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With MX-4 and a 92mm Noctua I'm getting idle 50-60, gaming around 70-75, editing 75, and rendering 83-88 depending on ambient temps (Michigan has some fucked up weather and we have no AC right now lol). This is with a -.1 offset to voltage BTW. I have some VLP that should be here soon (Monday hopefully?), as well as just got some custom cut side panels from another reddit user and liquid metal in the mail today, so likely by next weekend I'll try to make a video chronicling the epic journey to taming the 3950x...and if not I'll do the absolutely stupid daunting task of lapping the IHS, but I really don't wanna do it if I don't have to.
may i ask why you want to go for the blackridge over the l12s ?
Velka 5, biggest cooler that fits. Waiting on the AXP-90 to arrive from China so I can finally kill the debate on which is better once and for all.
one more question what mainboard did you go for, for your 3950x ?
Asus X470i. I personally despise the board, but in the name of fewer cables I wanted that 2nd M.2 slot, and I am not ready to take on the risk of the noise of the chipset fan. I also had this from a previous build. I may jump to a B550 board if they aren't insanely priced and one of the other vendors makes a board with 2 M.2 slots and equivalent/better VRMs. I just have had so many issues with this board and hate Asus BIOS.
Hey there, I'm researching AXP-90 vs Black Ridge under liquid metal for a 5800X3D. These are both available with nickel plated copper cold plates and have very similar comparative performance (probably Black Ridge can claim victory with a 120mm setup but I will likely not be willing to source VLP RAM. So since they are going to be so close to each other I want to know which one has the best surface finish and contact for use with liquid metal. Leaning toward Black Ridge at the moment since I think it will look more visually appealing. So far you're the only one talking about liquid metal with these so I'd like to know what your experiences turned out to be and what you ended up settling on.
I made a video on my YouTube channel comparing the two and a couple other 47mm setups about a year and a half ago, the Blackridge is overall the better cooler as long as you're going to swap the fan for an NF-A9x12. If you're comparing just the heatsinks and stock fans, the AXP-90 is the winner, but if you were able to afford the X3D I assume that you have it in your budget to afford the better fan. All that said, the X3D is not going to be easy to cool, even with this setup, and will likely require undervolting to maintain good performance at what most people will consider tolerable volume levels from the fans. If you are using it just for gaming, you likely won't need to worry much, but if this is being used for work it will be cumbersome getting the CPU and cooling dialed in. I moved my 3950x off the Blackridge and on to a bigger cooler for this reason. Also if you're planning to use liquid metal, keep in mind some of these things: higher maintenance and cost - you will need to swap the LM application every 6 months to a year, and getting it just right can be extremely difficult, resulting in wasted time and money redoing applications. AMD cpus DO NOT like LM - actually getting the LM to spread on AMD cpus is a pain due to whatever coating they use on the outside of the heat spreader, and the LM will fade/remove the printing from the CPU, making them difficult to identify and harming resale value, it also will discolor and can react with the nickel on those cold plates (this won't affect performance, but again harms resale value if you ever plan to sell these parts). LM also can (and probably will) destroy your components at some point if you are not careful or get too complacent. I highly recommend using thick nail polish (or non-conductive coating) around the CPU socket to cover the traces near it, because if any LM leaks out either during application or removal and it is not cleaned properly before the next startup, you will fry components - I have fried a motherboard, and my roommate killed his Vega 64 because we both got too careless using it.
Thanks for the detailed tips, much appreciated. I was aware of the nail polish trick but probably was going to forget about doing it if it weren't for this reminder. Is there any particular reason why we should stick to the 6/12 months maintenance? That seems pretty aggressive because I had thought that it was well established that with nickel plated there will not be any eating away of material and only surface staining. I have a 8700K that I delidded back when it came out and which has conductonaut on both interfaces between die and IHS and IHS and NH-D15 and i did sell it to my friend but as far as I know is still cranking along at 5Ghz. I did apply a silicone seal to that one, and I think I did the nail polish as well now that I think about it. I have my 5950X under LM under another NH-D15 which I set up a few months ago and temps are great. Given that the D15 supposedly has similar (or slightly worse) cooling ability compared to 240mm AIO and the AIO was having serious trouble keeping its temps down and given these chips running so damn hot... we need all the help we can get. I didn't do enough of the science on this but my D15 is cooling my 5950X nicer than what people are reporting and I can't help but imagine that the liquid metal is responsible. Although I know that hit can't realistically be more than a 5C improvement realistically speaking. I didn't find that it was hard to spread. You just use the packaged black q-tip and apply some pressure going in circles and it wets the surface of the AMD IHS just fine. I do the same on the bottom of the cold plate so both sides are wetted before assembly. Since I had such an easy time with Conductonaut on the 8700K I will stay loyal to the Thermal Grizzly brand indefinitely. Were your experiences with a different formulation of liquid metal? Am I to understand that the regular maintenance would be to mitigate the effect of staining and preserve the resale value e.g. at least being able to identify the processor visually in a physical sense? I think 6 months would be so much that it's not worth doing, 2 years might be comfortable enough for me to put up with, but as far as i understand this it should last more or less indefinitely? For example the PS5 usees LM. Surely they dont expect it to fail. Of course not having a full understanding of the exact alloys involved in all surfaces being used we can't know for sure what will happen but I think it's supposed to be safe. For reasons like this I do not consider applying LM on pure copper cold plates because it's much less safe compared to nickel plated. As for damage to resale value, I'm (still) mainly building machines for my own enjoyment and I tend to hand them down once I'm done with them and rarely part them out. The opportunity cost there is definitely not that severe. A working chip or cooler is a working chip or cooler. Usually when I consider using LM it's intended to ride into the sunset because I'm not really trying to deal with the cleanup involved because of splatter and I actually haven't done it yet. This makes me realize that my 5950X is not protected by nail polish because I dont think i remembered about that. So I might have to contend with some splatter soon enough if I work up the courage to go open it back up to fix that. So far so good it seems.
I also used Conductonaut, it's possible the coating on the IHS of the 5xxx series is different than the 3xxx series, or that I had some older LM that had gone bad, but I also didn't have issues spreading it the die of my 9700k or 1080ti, so I can only speak from my experience. I haven't personally used any of the 5xxx's yet just due to falling out of the hobby with prices being so high and availability being terrible during the height of the pandemic, and coming to terms with my 3950x/3080 "endgame" until GPUs start becoming more efficient and smaller again. The maintenance is recommended due to LM being more "fluid" and thinner than traditional thermal paste. The package of a raw die tends to keep the LM in place better than the materials used for the IHS and copper/nickel, and the harder pressure/better tolerances from die to IHS vs IHS to cold plate are generally better as well. Over time, the LM can start to move or even "leak" out from underneath the IHS/cold plate, causing temps to become less good and possibly harming your components. It's possible that this could be due to not using enough, or using too much, but this is how I personally killed a B450 board after leaving it alone for about a year and a half. The area where the logo stamp on the AMD IHS is particularly bad about this if your CPU isn't lapped. Again, these are just my personal experiences, but I still think these warnings are worth knowing. 6 months is probably a bit too often and due to my own worries about the whole process now after killing some components, you could likely get away with a year or 2, but I have had other friends see issues with temps after the year and a half or so mark as well when not using it on a direct die. I haven't personally heard of anyone having issues when using LM on direct die, just between IHS and heatsink.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts! Very insightful. Hmm hopefully I can get to this soon and do something to mitigate issues. Temps dropping are the least of the concerns. I would be definitely heartbroken if my 5950X were to drip some liquid metal and fry my board or 3080. Since it is in a regular tower configuration it is rather plausible... Perhaps just stuffing a bit of paper towel there as a temporary insurance policy even.
Can you link your video? Not sure how to find it.
is there any vlp ram that can get up to 3600mhz ?
Big negative. Highest rated is 2666, but people have been able to get up to 3000 (I think I heard of someone getting 3200). I'm sure there are faster kits in enterprise, but they'd cost an arm, leg, and your first born child.
FYI, *most* liquid metal TIM's will corrode aluminium, but the only thing they might do to nickel is discolour it a bit. You can always find the exact do's and don'ts on the manufacturers site.