This is my second go-round with a Coollaboratory product. I first became aware of them back in September 2005 when a forum member saw an eBay sale for their Liquid Metal thermal interface material (TIM). They were a brand new company and were happy to provide a sample to me for testing and you can see that review here. It was quite innovative and performed well; but because I was sure the mixture contained gallium I couldn't recommend it because of the potential damage to aluminum components. Besides the danger to aluminum, the only other negative point I had was that application of the Liquid Metal was messy and difficult. Well, the smart guys at Coollaboratory came up with a solution for the application problem, Liquid Metal Pads.

Instead of using a syringe and trying to spread the TIM out in an even layer, the Liquid Metal Pad comes in a thin wafer-like square that melts after you power up the PC. If you thought the original Liquid Metal was innovative, the idea of a melting metal pad between your CPU and heatsink should impress the hell out of you. The two possible drawbacks that come to mind are the thickness of the pad and the possible dribble of melted TIM onto the motherboard. I guess the only way to see if either of these concerns are real or not is to slap one on a hot CPU and see what happens, right?

Package

The Coollaboratory Liquid Metal Pad is available in sets of 3 in a hanging clamshell package. There isn't anything too striking about the package that would catch your eye except this.

The icons on the back of the package may be confusing to most people if they didn't know the specifics of the product. The Green RoHS means there are no hazardous materials used in the manufacturing. The metal only and solid icons mean that the Liquid Metal Pad is not a fluid and is made out of metal. The clock at 5:00 is supposed to represent that an application of this product will last a long time. The two that require an explanation is the burn in and air cooling icon, and these two go hand in hand. Coollaboratory recommends air cooling because the Liquid Metal Pad requires a "burn in" to properly melt. The melting point is 58C (136F) so it requires heat to liquefy in order to get a good seal between the processor and heatsink. If you had a watercooling or phase change rig you would (hopefully) not be able to generate enough heat to melt the pad unless you disable the pump or compressor. So, air cooling is recommended in order to achieve burn in. That will make tracking the temperature real interesting when I boot my test rig up with a Liquid Metal Pad installed.

One other point about the packaging and literature included; I completely understand that they are a German company and that there is a language barrier. I lived in Germany for 12 years and can tell you first hand that almost all Germans have a much better grasp of the English language than we do of theirs, but all the text on the package and in the documentation looks like it was a literal translation using Babel Fish. If I were marketing to an area that spoke a different language, I would spend the C note or two to get someone to do a professional translation of the documentation first. It's a minor quibble that doesn't affect the performance of the product itself, but one that will have to be corrected if Coollaboratory wants to come across as professionals in the international market.

Inside the package are three Liquid Metal Pad's, an isopropyl alcohol packet, a scrubbing pad, and a booklet explaining the installation process. The scrubbing pad isn't for the installation, it's for removal. That pretty much tells me that you are going to end up with a partially lapped processor if you need to remove a Metal Pad. In case you were wondering, "reinigungstuch" just means cleaning cloth.

The Metal Pad is 38mm x 38mm which more than large enough for any mainstream processor, and there is a cutout line on the package to bring it down to around 30mm. You can cut it any way you want in order to get it to fit your particular die or heatspreader.

The Liquid Metal Pad is protected inside a piece of thin folding cardboard. It looks just like a piece of thin aluminum foil, but thinner. I mean this stuff is so thin that I estimate it to be less than the thickness of a human hair. I handled it quite a bit without actually touching the metal itself and it held together pretty good, I would advise against actually touching the Liquid Metal Pad so that oil on your fingers doesn't transfer to the metal.

Thermal Interface Material Primer

Now, a quick primer on the purpose of thermal interface material:

The surface of the die or heatspreader on the CPU/GPU and the bottom of the heatsink may feel smooth, but they are not. If you were to look at the best mirrored finish heatsink bottom with a strong magnifying glass, you would see all kinds of grooves, pits, and swirls. Since the transfer of energy (heat) occurs more efficiently when there is more surface to surface contact, these pits and grooves degrade the ability for heat transfer since less surface area is in contact. The purpose of TIM is to fill in those areas that are not making contact and provide a connection between surfaces for better heat dissipation. A common mistake that n00bs make is apply too much TIM thinking it is the material that transfers the heat and by doing so, they separate the metal to metal contact and end up with increased temperatures. Theoretically, the Liquid Metal Pad should provide a 100% metal to metal contact between the CPU and heatsink thus increasing the efficiency of the transfer of heat. GlitterKill recently wrote a great article that contains detailed information on how heatsinks and thermal interface material works; Check it out and you may learn something.