Thanks @Usernames and @Second_Coming, I did some more testing and my i7-1165G7 only boosts up to ~38W before thermal throttling which was slightly better than stock (edit: IIRC, also now I’m starting to record temps at an ambient temp of 73F), though it’s possible that the replacement mainboard I received (that I’ve been using for several months) may have been prone to the thermal paste pump-out issue. My Arctic Silver 5 tube is years old, though comparing with other pastes, I’m pretty sure thermal performance from AS5 in this die/heatsink setup is far from the best.
I initially was going to purchase a tube from Framework and repaste with that (0.5g of Shin-Etsu X-23-8117) for $5 + $9 shipping + tax. But 0.5g for ~$15 isn’t too great of a value, so I went looking for alternatives. I settled on either Thermal Grizzly Hydronaut (not Kryonaut) or GELID GC-Extreme after reading that those are thicker pastes that are supposedly better for direct die usage (e.g. on laptops) and less prone to pump-out over time. Kingpin Cooling KPx and MX-5 as other notable mentions.
However, I came across this Reddit comment on liquid metal alternatives that sent me down a rabbit-hole on the Honeywell PTM7950 Phase Change Pads. Apparently Lenovo uses PTM7958 (“optimized from PTM7950”) in their Legion 5 Pro laptop
and they have an explanation video here.
So I scoured the interwebs for reviews, and it seems like this is a pretty recent thing. What I found were a bunch of testimonials stating that it provides amazing thermal performance. Application is also simple as it’s just a 0.25mm pad. Long-lasting and apparently used by “automotive customers” as well.
Here’s some data.
TLDR: close to liquid metal performance, without the downsides.
Notable quote from this thread comparing liquid metal to the PTM7950 in a Razer Blade 14:
At the 48W TDP, the results were nearly identical (maybe a 1-2c difference, depending on the core), which is extremely impressive for a non-conductive material.
At the 74W TDP, liquid-metal had a 5-7C lead on the PTM7950 at a slightly lower RPM, but I could not audibly hear any difference. Which, again, is still a very good result for a non-conductive paste (usually this lead is closer to 15-17C when comparing liquid metal with an aftermarket TIM).
Some other notable threads.
Honeywell also makes it in a paste version, though that requires curing time in the application process, and this user reported that
“after being a guinea pig with the paste version i would recommend of getting the pad version instead.”
So, I ended up buying some of the thermal phase change pads – I checked Amazon, eBay, etc. Unfortunately, they seem to only be available through ebuy7 and AliExpress (shipped from China). So I bought from both sites. They hopefully will arrive in ~2 weeks. When they arrive, I’m going to slap these apparently magical pads in and see how they perform in my Framework laptop.
I’m excited and have high expectations for these! If they’re mediocre, I’ll reply here. If they’re incredible, I’ll start a new thread and link to it with instructions. Stay tuned!
