Thermal Paste in the future?

kansas_dude

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Apr 2, 2013
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With all the cooling technology advances, do you THINK CPUs will need thermal paste in the future (like 10, 20, 30 or more years from now)?
 
Solution
Probably for consumer machines. It's a manufacturing issue. Thermal paste is only intended to fill microscopic variations between the heat accumulator on the heat sink and the heat spreader on the CPU. It might be possible to machine those surfaces to a point where the thermal paste doesn't help much but it would be expensive to do so. And keep in mind these are separate manufacturers so all of the manufacturers would have to agree to do so. It's much cheaper for them to supply you with the thermal paste than modify their manufacturing process.

Some CPU manufacturers (IBM and Intel, I think) are exploring microchannel cooling where coolant is pumped through the processor to carry the heat away but so far that's only for very high end...
Probably for consumer machines. It's a manufacturing issue. Thermal paste is only intended to fill microscopic variations between the heat accumulator on the heat sink and the heat spreader on the CPU. It might be possible to machine those surfaces to a point where the thermal paste doesn't help much but it would be expensive to do so. And keep in mind these are separate manufacturers so all of the manufacturers would have to agree to do so. It's much cheaper for them to supply you with the thermal paste than modify their manufacturing process.

Some CPU manufacturers (IBM and Intel, I think) are exploring microchannel cooling where coolant is pumped through the processor to carry the heat away but so far that's only for very high end machines and supercomputers. And that is also expensive. Even if it did trickle down to the consumer market it would again be expensive and, I suspect, the lower end consumer equipment would still need the thermal paste and current cooling solutions.

On the other hand, my crystal ball is broken today.
 
Solution

USAFRet

Titan
Moderator


Extrapolate 20 years into te past.
Yes, there was 'thermal paste' between the CPU face and whatever minimal heat sink was on it.

Moving forward to today...there is still 'thermal paste' between the "cpu" and whatever device is there to assist with heat dissipation.
Whether in a hotrod PC, or a little tablet.


But the VAST majority of people never, ever consider, or even know about whatever goop might be in there.
When was the last time you changed the thermal paste in your phone?
I'm guessing never. But it is there.
 

And very expensive for now. And it requires a liquid cooling system which won't be very feasible for laptops and the like. I don't see it being used in consumer products.