Coollaboratory Liquid Ultra: Performance Measurements
If you want to know if this solution is worth its high price, the best we can do is answer with a non-committal maybe. Enthusiasts requiring an expensive, hard-to-apply thermal compound to lower Tcase by 2 or 3 degrees Kelvin (which could mean as much as 5 degrees Tcore) might want to consider their build goals. After running our own tests, we can state with some confidence that the supposed improvements of 5 to 7 Kelvin Tcase are overoptimistic. If you see that big of a gain, it's because you weren't doing something right with the paste you were using before. In order to create a more fair measurement, I compared one of the best conventional pastes, the GC-Extreme from Gelid Solutions, against Liquid Ultra. One-eighth of an ounce of GC-Extreme may be good for five or more applications; Coollaboratory's Liquid Ultra allows three, at most. Even without the expensive add-on cleaning kit, you're still looking at the difference between less than $2 per use and more than $4. You're also looking at five seconds of application time compared to three minutes or so. And we still haven’t taken increased risk into account.
Measurement Results
While Liquid Ultra isn’t compatible with aluminum coolers, we're lucky in that the Core 2 Quad Q6600's old boxed cooler sports a copper slug.
| Closed-Loop Liquid Cooler | ||
|---|---|---|
| Row 0 - Cell 0 | 24 Hour Continuous Test | 4 x 1 Hour Interval Test |
| Coollaboratory Liquid Ultra | Start: 31.0 °C ΔTEnd: 30.0 °C ΔT | Start: 31.0 °C ΔTEnd: 30.0 °C ΔT |
| Gelid Solution GC-Extreme | Start: 32.1 °C ΔTEnd: 31.5 °C ΔT | Start: 32.1 °C ΔTEnd: 31.8 °C ΔT |
| Air Cooler with High Mounting Pressure | ||
|---|---|---|
| Row 0 - Cell 0 | 24 Hour Continuous Test | 4 x 1 Hour Interval Test |
| Coollaboratory Liquid Ultra | Start: 32.0 °C ΔTEnd: 32.0 °C ΔT | Start: 32.0 °C ΔTEnd: 33.0 °C ΔT |
| Gelid Solution GC-Extreme | Start: 35.7 °C ΔTEnd: 35.1 °C ΔT | Start: 35.7 °C ΔTEnd: 35.3 °C ΔT |
| Air Cooler with Low Mounting Pressure | ||
|---|---|---|
| Row 0 - Cell 0 | 24 Hour Continuous Test | 4 x 1 Hour Interval Test |
| Coollaboratory Liquid Ultra | Start: 33.0 °C ΔTEnd: 34.0 °C ΔT | Start: 33.0 °C ΔTEnd: 34.0 °C ΔT |
| Gelid Solution GC-Extreme | Start: 36.9 °C ΔTEnd: 36.5 °C ΔT | Start: 36.9 °C ΔTEnd: 36.7 °C ΔT |
It is amazing how well conventional thermal paste fares compared to liquid metal. A more familiar paste sports a lower difference between burned in versus not burned in, but at a mere 1°C ΔT, the Liquid Ultra certainly proves itself in the same league. Whether we run the interval test or the 24-hour stress test, only Gelid's paste manages to get slightly better as time passes.
Asked whether the 1.5 °C ΔT, which the Liquid Ultra holds over Gelid's GC-Extreme with a closed-loop cooler, or the 2.7 °C ΔT, which it does in the boxed cooler test, are worth extra effort and cost, my personal answer is no. But of course, some enthusiasts swear by the liquid metal. Most folks don't need the stuff; it's really for the overclockers functioning at the very top of their game.