AlphaCool Unveils CORE Soft Thermal Pads

[btarunr]

More thermal conductivity with the new Core Soft thermal pads! The performance thermal pads from Alphacool offer a variety of advantages compared to a standard pad. They perfectly cling to surfaces, compensate for unevenness between electronic components and thus provide a significant improvement in heat transfer. This means that the enormous waste heat not only from voltage converters and VRAMs of graphics cards, but also from Playstation and Xbox game consoles, can be effectively dissipated and performance and durability significantly increased. Due to their excellent electrical insulation as well as the large number of variants in terms of thickness and dimensions, the Core thermal pads can also be used to cool a wide variety of electronic components apart from PC water cooling.



Core Soft thermal pads are available in two performance tiers, 6.2 W/mK and 9 W/mK, and five thicknesses, 0.5 mm, 1 mm, 1.5 mm, 2 mm and 3 mm.

View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[Ferrum Master]

SoftCore? Dudes... 9 W/mK is pretty bad....

 

[EddyAlphacool]

@Ferrum Master
Don't worry, for people who want better ones, we will introduce 16 and 18W/mk pads soon. The pads that sell best are 3 and 7W/mk pads. However, they are not only used for graphics cards but for many different things.

 

[Ferrum Master]

@Ferrum Master
Don't worry, for people who want better ones, we will introduce 16 and 18W/mk pads soon. The pads that sell best are 3 and 7W/mk pads. However, they are not only used for graphics cards but for many different things.

Well my point is that these would be worse than the stock ones these days.

Those who dare to open up devices to replace them are usually enthusiasts and kinda expect better result after the struggle.

Also I hope the price won't be higher than simply ordering your pre-cut needed size and performance flavor like ordering from digikey.

 

[EddyAlphacool]

@Ferrum Master
For graphics cards, 3-5W/mk pads are usually used. Better ones then become significantly more expensive. But as I said, most pads are not bought for graphics card coolers but for other things.
And what the customer does with them in the end is up to him.

 

[Ferrum Master]

@Ferrum Master
For graphics cards, 3-5W/mk pads are usually used. Better ones then become significantly more expensive. But as I said, most pads are not bought for graphics card coolers but for other things.
And what the customer does with them in the end is up to him.

Okay... spill the beans... how much these ones will cost.

I am a RMA internal for certain makers... GPU's and Laptops these days use much better pads as I see their order numbers and models. The ramped up TDP's or recent few gens of HW demanded it.

 

[GhostMotley]

@Ferrum Master
Don't worry, for people who want better ones, we will introduce 16 and 18W/mk pads soon. The pads that sell best are 3 and 7W/mk pads. However, they are not only used for graphics cards but for many different things.

What will the hardness rating be for the 16 and 18W/mK pads?

 

[EddyAlphacool]

@Ferrum Master
A question of the area of application. The manufacturers I am in contact with rarely have better pads than 3-5W/mk on graphics cards. The situation is different with notebooks, where 5-9W/mk pads are more likely to be used. But actually no better ones, that would be the exception rather than the rule and often doesn't help because the heat transfer of the cooler itself becomes the bottleneck.

@GhostMotley
The hardness level of the 16 and 18W/mk is identical to these.

 

[Chaitanya]

@Ferrum Master
A question of the area of application. The manufacturers I am in contact with rarely have better pads than 3-5W/mk on graphics cards. The situation is different with notebooks, where 5-9W/mk pads are more likely to be used. But actually no better ones, that would be the exception rather than the rule and often doesn't help because the heat transfer of the cooler itself becomes the bottleneck.

@GhostMotley
The hardness level of the 16 and 18W/mk is identical to these.

Many motherboard makers seem to be claiming 9 or 11W/mk ratings on their VRM cooling setups. Would be interesting to find if they are only for high-end boards with mid range and lower range being given short end as usual.

 

[trsttte]

@Ferrum Master
Don't worry, for people who want better ones, we will introduce 16 and 18W/mk pads soon. The pads that sell best are 3 and 7W/mk pads. However, they are not only used for graphics cards but for many different things.

Is something like the now famed PTM7950 (honeywell phase change material, changes viscosity with temperature) on the cards for the future?

 

[Ferrum Master]

@Ferrum Master
The situation is different with notebooks, where 5-9W/mk pads are more likely to be used.

Well that's the weird thing. Actually laptops(various brands) use Thermal Putty and those are around 6-9ish and nobody bats an eye about pads. If pads are used, those are on very crucial areas and those are good. VRM areas being the touch spot where you have to take into consideration that you may actually end up in downgrade, basically a popped VRM. It should be marketed carefully thus not ending up in blame that because of your product my device burned up. People are bi* most of the time.

Is something like the now famed PTM7950 (honeywell phase change material, changes viscosity with temperature) on the cards for the future?

Why bother? Just embrace liquid metal. ROG's do use it for few gens already.

 

[taiiat]

@GhostMotley
The hardness level of the 16 and 18W/mk is identical to these.

and, i ofcourse must be curious - if you're allowed to divulge such details at this time, what might that be?

 

[bonehead123]

@EddyAlphacool

Well..... regardless of rating, size etc, the REAL question is:

When are you gonna release the rainbow circus puke R.f'n.G.f'n.B.f'n. versions, hehehehehehehe

 

[EddyAlphacool]

@Ferrum Master
I have never seen thermal putty with more than 6W/mk. Which ones are they supposed to be? I only know some with 5-6W/mk. And I actually know all the manufacturers of it, because there are only a handful in the world that make it, most of them buy it there and just pass it on. It would be interesting to know, because I would be interested in variants with 9W/mk myself.
I don't know which notebooks you know, I only know two manufacturers who use Thermal Putty and one wants to get rid of it because they can't cope with it.... for whatever reason. But since there are a lot of motherboard manufacturers or brands that manufacture according to your wishes.... I don't know all of them either, and notebooks are not our main market. So I can only talk about the things I know. And those are only a few manufacturers and brands.

@bonehead123
Never.... and only because you asked for it

@taiiat
I don`t really understand your question.... hardness level is 50 (Shore 00) for the 6,2/9/16/18W/mk Pads.

 

[Ferrum Master]

@Ferrum Master
I have never seen thermal putty with more than 6W/mk.

I cannot disclose much because of NDA, I can hint that all my bottles have markings in Chinese as special orders, google gives nothing on them.

But as a pedestrian I've added a link to Digi-key before where a normal dude looks for his stuff as a legit source of genuine items.

 

[bubbleawsome]

I can say that lower thermal conductivity can even be the better solution for certain problems. I have an XPS 15 9560 and a fairly popular mod for that generation was adding thermal pads between the VRMs and the metal chassis, but if they were too good they'd actually start preheating the air coming in to cool the VRMs which really ruined the whole idea.

 

[zlobby]

@Ferrum Master
Don't worry, for people who want better ones, we will introduce 16 and 18W/mk pads soon. The pads that sell best are 3 and 7W/mk pads. However, they are not only used for graphics cards but for many different things.

Please price them competitively. I really happy with FujiPoly and unless you can outprice them I see no reason to switch vendors.

I can say that lower thermal conductivity can even be the better solution for certain problems. I have an XPS 15 9560 and a fairly popular mod for that generation was adding thermal pads between the VRMs and the metal chassis, but if they were too good they'd actually start preheating the air coming in to cool the VRMs which really ruined the whole idea.

Insert DJ Khaled meme here.

 

[bonehead123]

Never.... and only because you asked for it

Well, gee, you're no fun !

 

[EddyAlphacool]

@Ferrum Master
Thanks... interesting... will check this out.

@zlobby
Since FujiPoly has raised the prices extremely, it is the reason why we have searched and found alternatives. We offer FujiPoly pads ourselves, but our customers have refrained from using them because the prices are too high. Therefore, we offer other models that will be much more attractive in price.

 

[zlobby]

@Ferrum Master
Thanks... interesting... will check this out.

@zlobby
Since FujiPoly has raised the prices extremely, it is the reason why we have searched and found alternatives. We offer FujiPoly pads ourselves, but our customers have refrained from using them because the prices are too high. Therefore, we offer other models that will be much more attractive in price.

I'll be sure to give your stuff a try.

 

[GhostMotley]

@GhostMotley
The hardness level of the 16 and 18W/mk is identical to these.

Have Alphacool just taken the hardness rating of the 16/18W/mK pads and applied that to the lower 6.2 and 9W/mK pads as well, kinda like a worst case scenario?

Generally from most pad manufacturers, the higher you go in W/mK rating, the harder the pad is, so having a 6.2W/mK pad and an 18W/mK pad have the exact same hardness is kinda hard to believe.

 

[EddyAlphacool]

@GhostMotley
It was important to us for the new Core thermal pads that they work well with our GPU coolers. So, hey have to be soft. It took quite a long time, but yes, the pads all come with the same hardness level. We are currently only having trouble with the pads between 9 and 16W/mk on the hardness level. I hope we can still solve this so we can offer something in this power segment as well. They were actually a bit too hard and pushed the cooler up. Of course, that should not happen. The Eisschicht pads from Fujipoli are extremely hard at 14 and 17W/mk. Therefore, we are currently changing.

 

[GhostMotley]

@GhostMotley
It was important to us for the new Core thermal pads that they work well with our GPU coolers. So, hey have to be soft. It took quite a long time, but yes, the pads all come with the same hardness level. We are currently only having trouble with the pads between 9 and 16W/mk on the hardness level. I hope we can still solve this so we can offer something in this power segment as well. They were actually a bit too hard and pushed the cooler up. Of course, that should not happen. The Eisschicht pads from Fujipoli are extremely hard at 14 and 17W/mk. Therefore, we are currently changing.

Nice, I have two RTX 3090s, an AORUS XTREME and FTW3, both have Thermal Putty on them right now, but the putty is messy and on my AORUS XTREME which I had mounted vertically, the putty on the bottom GDDR6X module fell out of place after about 7 months of use.

I did try Gelid GP-EXTREME pads before, but these bent the PCB slightly if in use and would lead to higher GPU hotspot temps due to the reduced cooler contact.