“Liquid metal” thermal paste, which replaces the same old chemical compound with a metallic alloy, can improve the thermal conductivity between your CPU and cooler. That’s why it’s common with overclockers and different devoted PC modders. However it comes with a wholesome dose of danger, and Intel isn’t eager to take any extra of it.
In accordance with an investigation from HKEPC (machine-translated and noticed by Tom’s {Hardware}), one consumer received a nasty shock when making use of that beneficiant prolonged guarantee for the failure-prone Intel Core i9-14900K. Regardless of being much more forgiving with guarantee service after months of extremely public points with crashing Thirteenth- and 14th-gen processors, Intel denied one consumer a alternative or restore as a result of the liquid steel cooling they used had corroded the processor’s prime plate to the purpose that its authentic printed label was gone.
This can be a recognized drawback with liquid steel paste alternate options — the alloys are mildly corrosive. More often than not that isn’t sufficient to really injury {hardware}, however wiping away the chip’s markings is a reasonably telltale signal that liquid steel has been used. Intel and its rivals particularly say that utilizing liquid steel will void the guarantee, for each its corrosive properties and the hazard of conducting electrical energy to different components of the CPU or motherboard if it’s improperly utilized. Customary thermal paste conducts warmth however not electrical energy, so it doesn’t have that drawback.
The guarantee challenge isn’t a brand new one. Except you have got a laptop computer, pre-built desktop, or different part the place the liquid steel thermal conductor was utilized within the manufacturing unit, it’s not lined beneath guarantee. (And sure, that goes for AMD, too.) The proximity to the large kerfuffle round Raptor Lake CPU failures is the one factor that makes this specific case notable.
So possibly don’t be tempted to push that high-end Intel processor previous its limits, even when a three-year guarantee is making you’re feeling slightly extra assured than typical.
