IC Diamond 24 with Alienware 17 R2 ?

Hello everyone.
I'm would like to know which thermal compound is the best in the market right now as I think that it is time to repaste the CPU and GPU of my Alienware 17. Some guys at my local Alienware club recommend IC Diamond, but i heard the IC will leave stain or something like that.
I would also like to tell you all that I have never done a repasting before, so i'm scared that i will mess up due to my lacks of knowledge. Also tips would be greatly appreciated !
Or should i stick with the stock thermal paste and just clean the fans?
Thanks.

 

Don't pay any attention to most of what you read about staining, scratching and what not. I've been overclocking and testing thermal pastes for a long time and most of what you read in forums or in "professional" reviews doesn't match up with my own experience. The biggest problem with most thermal pastes is they are not very durable. Some do an excellent job for a very short time, such as NT-H1, but most of them either degrade rapidly or they swiftly lose effectiveness due to "pump out" problems.

IC Diamond is outstanding thermal paste. Unless you are careless and scrub on it like a silly goose, it's not going to harm anything. And, stains... what can I say about stains? They DO NOT matter. Some people get worked up about color changes on their heat sink, and that is about the silliest thing I can think of. It has no effect on the heat sink or how well it cools. All it amount to is a change in color of the metal surface on the heat sink. It is irrelevant, so don't burn any calories on such nonsense.

IC Diamond is, hands-down, the best "normal" thermal paste money can buy. It is simply the best other than the liquid metal options (Coollaboratory Liquid Ultra and Phobya Liquid Metal). Those liquid metal pastes put everything else to shame. If you don't like the idea of using them, IC Diamond is your best bet for thermal efficiency and durability.

I am using Phobya Liquid Metal on my 3920XM and it seems pretty much the same as Liquid Ultra. I got it for about half the price and happy with the results. Using either one, application technique (it must be "painted" on rather than applying like grain of rice or pea-sized blob) is critical to achieving good results and avoid undesirable consequences. Done right, nothing is better.

You might find this thread interesting (includes test results and application instructions from my own experience and others in this community):
[Death Match] Thermal Paste Showdown: IC Diamond vs Noctua NT-H1 vs Liquid Ultra

This thread has some good information in it as well:
Coollaboratory Liquid Ultra vs Liquid Pro vs Phobya Liquid Metal

 

really good, i made the re-paste on my alienware 15 with i7 and gtx 970m and now i have always my gpu overclocked. If you are patient, make a really thin but uniform surface and you will see a real difference in temperatures.


i need to practice, but i did my best. Is difficult to spread this compound. this thermal paste doesn't lose his thermal characteristics easily

 

Good to hear some confirmations from a veteran like you. Yeah, definitely going for IC. Thanks.

How you make a thin surface like that by using dot or line method? Because i heard a lot about not to spread if using IC.

 

neither, literally spreading IC diamond, is difficult. i recommend you to warm the thermal paste before in water a little bit (just putting the tube closed into warm water) to make it more smooth the application.

 

Just to be fair with facts and add my two cents. IC Diamond does indeed scratch the Die of these systems. I have first hand experience with several builds over the past couple of years. This maybe the case even more does on BGA laptops as they do not have a heat spreader thus the polished Die is the surface being pasted.
However with that said IC Diamond works awesome and seems to be the best paste when it comes to temps plus it will last for years with out the need for repasting etc. However even years later if you clean the Die it will be scuffed and scratched to hell unlike most other pastes.

Bottom line is its really up to the person and whether they are willing to do that.
If you do not want a scratched Die GHELID GC Extreme is a good extreme paste that is closest to a diamond particle based paste.

 

I used IC diamond exclusively past years and it enver let me down. I just put a drop or line on the middle depending the die type and let the heatsink spread it out. I do this after slightly warming the tube with warm water and directly let the heatsink spread the paste. Always the perfect application without possible airbubbles between the die and the heatsink. I like the metallic paste types but I am worried that for some reason a spec of metallic paste might hit one of the small contact points on top of the GPU die and thus killing it.

 

Exactly what i am planning to do. Simple dot and line method. Anyway thanks for the tips.

 

To fix this; painting with varnish around die. Many do this if they are afraid to use Clu. Or use some tape as Mr Fox.

 

Thats actually not a bad idea. With the tape tha tis. The varnish will fade over time due to the heat i think.

 

There are varnish for PCBs that can withstand over 200C. The processor is already destroyed if it reaches far below this temperature .

 

For what it's worth, I put these strips of electrical tape on my Dell 780M cards over a year ago (in July 2014) and I recently had them taken apart for some experiments I was working on. The electrical tape looked the same as the day I applied it. It wasn't affected in any way that I could see. It also had no traces of Liquid Ultra on it. It's "free insurance" though, and I would recommend the tape or varnish, whichever you find the most convenient. Clevo GPUs don't need the tape (or varnish) because they come from the factory with a black plastic shroud where the tape was applied. Not sure why Dell leaves that area exposed. The tiny surface-mounted components should be protected from random contact with anything, not just Liquid Ultra. I would recommend protecting them regardless of what thermal paste you choose to use.

From this album: Coollaboratory Liquid Ultra Application | MrFox Imgur



In that photo you can see the faint scuff marks from past use of IC Diamond. These are not deep gouges in the die. It does not affect anything and I consider them to be signs of normal wear and tear... inconsequential in the grand scheme of things.

 

i want to ask you ... is better in performance-durability the liquid ultra ? IC diamond or what is the better thermal paste ?

 

Easy choice for me... Liquid Ultra or Phobya Liquid Metal are hands down the most durable and superior at cooling. The only exception is if your have a sloppy-fitting heat sink. In that case they don't cool very well and IC Diamond is the better choice. My original Clevo P570WM CPU heat sink fit terribly poor and I could not use it... had to fill up the gap with IC Diamond like thermal caulk LOL. But, new heat sink fixed that and now I am using Liquid Ultra on that.

I recently swapped out the motherboard in my M18xR2 to try to get away from any Windows 10 LCD bricking cancer that may have been stuffed into a crevice and used Phyobia Liquid Metal instead of Liquid Ultra on my 3920XM. It seems essentially identical at this point.

 

Weird the GPU die is on MSI and Gigabyte laptops the same. No protection at all. I believe Razer blade laptops do not have it either. Just like desktop cards i guess. Going to protect it with some tape as well as soon when I replace the TIM again.

 

Identical or there is a tiny difference between Liquid Ultra vs Phobya Liquid Metal when you crunching numbers? The price does not matter when it comes to such things. Has no need for replacement now but maybe later if I need it... Clu is absolutely incredible. 19 months use and still the same good results..Someone should begun to wake up. That they still want to use a standard paste is very baffling when you se all temp results and life span.
Edit: What is the life span of the remaining LU in the syringe?

 

I cannot tell any difference, but I've not done any extreme overclocking lately. I can bench 3DMark 11 at 4.5GHz on my 3920XM without AC cooling using it, so that's certainly decent. I did that the other day. As far as I can tell it is the same material (Gallium) and the reviews show them with basically the same performance. But, yeah... no reason whatsoever to switch from CLU. I'd say it is as close to perfection as possible in a thermal paste. I do like the syringe better. It has a needle, almost like a tiny hypodermic, and it make dispensing very easy. Just be careful or you will shoot a stream of the stuff across the room, LOL.

 

What is the lifetime of the remaining 2/3 of Clu who remains in the syringe? It is enough to even 2 applications. Read somewhere that one got a worse result with old Clu. What is your comment on this? Maybe he did a poor job during the last application.
@Mr. Fox 19 months old Liquid ultra give still good temperatures in Wprime 1024 stress tests .

Modern BGA junk... http://hwbot.org/submission/2851961_rimbamerdeka_wprime___1024m_core_i7_4720hq_3min_31sec_695ms

 

Either was not applied correctly, or the heat sink fits poorly.

Wow, that's really excellent temps for your 4930MX on the wPrime 1024M test with your 19 month old Liquid Ultra.

 

CLu and Hwinfo makes the difference. Why choose the next best when the best can be purchased? LOL Several should learn from this .
Nice. LOL http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/the-throttlestop-guide.531329/page-374#post-10112839

 

how much °C in difference i will see with liquid ultra ? compared with IC diamond

 

Look at the screen shots I provided in the links on the first page. Lots of examples there. But, to answer straight up, about 10°C improvement. Enough improvement to mean the difference between thermal shutdown or finishing a benchmark without throttling.

 

Even better if the starting point was very badly before. It depends if the application was properly done.

 

i have good temps now, but you know :S we have to overclock hahaha we need the best performance that our machines can reach with low temps, that is what we love

 

So a newb question: hard it is to get in the 15r2 and do a repaste? I've done it on desktops plenty of times and I do have some experience taking apart laptops.

 

take long, but easy

 

Yeah, it's easy but definitely take some times. Just done mine. Thanks for all the tips, the new paste seem to work seem to works flawlessly. I got about 8 - 9 °C improvement on full load.

 

Why, on this picture from your album Mr. Fox, the pressure is only on the side of the GPU? Is there no contact on the middle of the die?