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Indigo Xtreme - Review

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Right now, at least, it seems to be only produced for the intel sockets.
 
I emailed the company to inquire about a version of Indigo Xtreme for AMD and they replied it was slated to come out in September.
 
What happens to this stuff if once you get it burned in and say your CPU hits 85C or so when it's vertical ???
As long as the base of your cooler stays below 65-70C, nothing will happen (good luck getting it that high when using any sort of active flow--air or water).

The reason you need to do the heat-up process in the beginning isn't to make the CPU 100C, but to make the base of the cooler (well, everything surrounding the ETI) hot enough to melt the metal present. :)

(p.s., this is Vapor from XS/skinneelabs)
 
Well it all depends on what kind of overclocker you are. If that extra couple C gives you a bit more benching clocks, then it might be worth it. Some don't use the PC to play games like me, some drag race. I can see this stuff show up for overclocking comps easy.

Me? Naa my temps are just fine, well within my needs. Nice to see something completely new developed, it's good for all of us in the long run.
 
It's not like this is the first metal TIM.
There's another outfit that sells both an always-liquid type that doesn't need a burnin at all, and a just-barely-solid version that melts at 60*c (hence requiring a burnin) and is solid below that.

The only difference with this stuff is that i guess it's wrapped in plastic.

EDIT:
Here we go, this is the stuff:
http://xbitlabs.com/articles/coolers/display/thermal-interface-roundup_7.html#sect1

All low melting point metals are an alloy of gallium, indium, tin, and bismuth (or at least three of 'em). I have yet to see a lot melting point alloy that isn't made out of them.
By varying the alloy you can make it melt anywhere from about 0*c to 200*c.
 
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As long as the base of your cooler stays below 65-70C, nothing will happen (good luck getting it that high when using any sort of active flow--air or water).

The reason you need to do the heat-up process in the beginning isn't to make the CPU 100C, but to make the base of the cooler (well, everything surrounding the ETI) hot enough to melt the metal present. :)

(p.s., this is Vapor from XS/skinneelabs)

:welcome:

Happens a lot actually hehe, at least on the CPU side where the stuff would be.

I was planning on messing with some fans this weekend, I have some extremely fine diamond polishing paste I might actually stick on the CPU cooler just for grins and giggles just to see what it does :)

It's not a TIM that its in for a binder, but is a white type of compound, I'll have to look it up.

It's a high finish mold polishing compound I had about, I'll have to look up the properties on it.

Actually they sell diamond products that I can vouce for being very good, I still was looking into that DIY diamond TIM thread, some of this stuff they have might be interesting, they sell raw diamond too I believe.

http://www.engisca.com/index.php

*edit*

Hmm, I knew this was pretty serious stuff I'll really have to try it out, 1/2 Micron diamond size, high concentration @ 475, monocrystalline, I just don't like the fact it's water soluable, but that might not matter. Probably wouldnt work well as it's not made for heat transferal, rather polishing, but might try it out anyways :)

Maybe even see if it would mix in with a little MX-2.
 
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I think one of the important things to take away from the review is that Indigo Xtreme (and Coollaboratory's Liquid Pro, though I can't test it unless I get another Swiftech GTZ) are right at the threshold of TIM performance. Of course, all the liquid/phase-change metal TIMs have their downsides right now.

MetalPad I've heard has some issues sometimes if there's not enough heat or if the surfaces have enough disparities.

LiquidPro, aside from eating aluminum, also gets 'sucked up' by copper and first bonds two copper surfaces together and then, after enough use, gets absorbed enough by the copper that there's no longer any TIM present between the two surfaces.

Indigo Xtreme requires a reflow process that some are uncomfortable doing....Intel guarantees their CPUs will run at 100C for 3+ years without issue (failure point is way higher than 100C, and you'd be surprised how many Dells/Apples/HPs/etc run in the 90s for years on end), the only downside to actively running it at 100C is that it throttles, resulting in significantly reduced performance. And of course you only have to run it at 100C for a few minutes, tops.

As for how much TIM performance matters for an individual, it's up to them and their config. A low heatload with a large contact surface (such as a large IHS) relies much less on TIM performance than a high heatload with a small contact surface (say a bare die).

As for Diamond TIMs, I don't think they're quite ready for dominance yet...in theory, a diamond TIM will eventually be the best, but it's a lot easier to make a carbon based TIM that's easier to work with, less expensive, and performs identically or better (Shin-Etsu X23-7783D is a good example of that) considering the early development with diamond TIMs. And the liquid/phase-change metal TIMs are almost a magnitude of performance better as it stands...so diamond has a long way to catch up.
 
Masska my friend did the promised round-up. It's in Romanian, maybe Google Translate will help a little.
I'll try only to summarize test condition and to emphasize that my friend was impressed by your product (and believe me after he did a mega-round-up of TIM's he's very hard to impress).

Test system:
* CPU – Intel Core i7 920 D0 @ 4405 Mhz, 1.376 Vcore load
* MB – Asus Rampage II Extreme
* RAM – Crucial Ballistix DDR3 1600, 3×1GB
* HDD – Samsung DH321KJ
* PSU – Corsair HX1000W
* VGA – Ati Radeon 3870
* COOLER – Prolimatech Megahalems + Scythe Ultra Kaze 3000 rpm

Open stand with ambient temperature 23°C (any ambient temperature variation greater than 0.2°C result in repeating the test).
Same pressure/orientation/fan speed for Megahalems.

Every TIM was tested twice and the final result is the best of those two.

Software:
* RealTemp 3.30 beta RC11
* Prime 95 25.9
* CPU-Z 1.51

Temperature was measured after 10 minutes prime95 Small FFTs load with HT on. Before that CPU was in idle for 5 minutes.
In graph temperature is average between cores.

indigo_2.PNG

Thanks again for your willingness to send your product on the other side of the world to some unknown guys but you really have a damn good product. :thup:

BTW burn-in period for Indigo Extreme is not for the faint hearts. :D

burn_2.jpg
 
Thank you Burebista

The Indigo Extreme did very well, beating all the "traditional paste" including MX-3 and Gelid GC-Extreme, and i point in the review about many advantages over Liquid Pro, such as easy of use, safety of use, almost the same performance and very easy cleaning, in total oposition with liquid pro that is a nightmare when is come to cleaning. In the review i show the Megahalems base that have prints of Liquid pro even after lapping.

I did my best to keep equal conditions for all interface materials.

Kind regards
Ramiro
 
Masska my friend did the promised round-up. It's in Romanian, maybe Google Translate will help a little.
I'll try only to summarize test condition and to emphasize that my friend was impressed by your product (and believe me after he did a mega-round-up of TIM's he's very hard to impress).

Test system:
* CPU – Intel Core i7 920 D0 @ 4405 Mhz, 1.376 Vcore load
* MB – Asus Rampage II Extreme
* RAM – Crucial Ballistix DDR3 1600, 3×1GB
* HDD – Samsung DH321KJ
* PSU – Corsair HX1000W
* VGA – Ati Radeon 3870
* COOLER – Prolimatech Megahalems + Scythe Ultra Kaze 3000 rpm

Open stand with ambient temperature 23°C (any ambient temperature variation greater than 0.2°C result in repeating the test).
Same pressure/orientation/fan speed for Megahalems.

Every TIM was tested twice and the final result is the best of those two.

Software:
* RealTemp 3.30 beta RC11
* Prime 95 25.9
* CPU-Z 1.51

Temperature was measured after 10 minutes prime95 Small FFTs load with HT on. Before that CPU was in idle for 5 minutes.
In graph temperature is average between cores.



Thanks again for your willingness to send your product on the other side of the world to some unknown guys but you really have a damn good product. :thup:

BTW burn-in period for Indigo Extreme is not for the faint hearts. :D

my apologies for not checking in for a while.
Things have been really busy over here and this has not allowed me any spare time.
Thank you so much "poparamiro and burebista" for taking the time to review IX. It was a pleasure working with you and I hope we can include you in any future releases.
Thanks again guys and all the best to you.:thup:
 
IX rocks, thanks for this innovative new product!
Now just tweak it a tiny bit more so that it performs as well as liquid pro, but without the hassle.
 
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