DIY CPU Thermal Grease, Using Diamond Dust

tygerstripes writes "The dysfunctor has spotted an impressive project over on InventGeek.com; an innovative chap has developed his own thermal compound for improved CPU cooling, using diamond dust — the best available material for thermal conduction — as the key ingredient. In spite of the quick-&-dirty DIY nature of the project, the gains in cooling performance are remarkable, especially considering the material cost was only $33. Given the price many enthusiasts will pay for a top-end cooler, it's easy to imagine this product coming to market quite soon."

Re:Diamond dust is cheap?

[Shakrai]

but ain't diamonds the kind of carbon that's supposedly expensive?

Only the kind that are dug out of the ground and sold for the market that's artificially manipulated to keep prices high.

Re:Diamond dust is cheap?

[afidel]

Diamonds are not that rare, DeBeers just has a near monopoly on them. Industrial users won't pay the major markup that suckers will so they sell the non-gem quality ones at a reasonable price.

Re:Diamond dust is cheap?

[lgw]

It really should. That's an achievement worth something! They also need to add a "falling for a goatse troll" achievement - but /. went downhill when they started showing domains after every link.

Re:Diamond dust is cheap?

[lgw]

Only because there's no demand for such a product. If there were a market for billions of them, production could be automated at a cheap per-stone cost.

Compared to AS5

[Krazy Kanuck]

Diamond Powder Compound Cost:
100 CTS 60k mesh industrial Diamond Powder: $50
(0.2g : Carat)
36g of Silicon Grease: $20

Final Volume: 56g @ $65 or $1.25/g
Arctic Silver 5: 12g @ $18 or $1.50/g

Re:Diamond dust is cheap?

[canajin56]

Key word is "if"

Re:Diamond dust is cheap?

[jandrese]

Diamonds aren't even rare, the only reason they're expensive is because they're produced by cartels that that are more than willing pull underhanded tricks to crush the competition. Granted, really large gem quality diamonds aren't enormously abundant, but the prices on them are definitely inflated.

Re:bottom line

[billcopc]

The nearly 20'C difference is too much to be true. In particular, there is no mention of the ambient room temperature, and since the tests were performed on different days, it is a pretty important discrepancy.

Had the tests all been performed in quick succession, the results would be far more representative. For all we know, the Arctic Silver measurement may have been taken in the summer, inside a closed and poorly chassis while dinner was cooking, while the diamond measurement might have been taken in the middle of winter with the window open.

Pulling numbers out of my ass, I would realistically expect no more than a 4-5'C improvement with diamond paste over the regular stuff.

Re:Diamond dust is cheap?

[Volante3192]

(producers of the natural ones are Not Happy with this...)

Sellers. Something makes me doubt DeBeers has ever produced a natural diamond.

Re:Finally

[sjames]

If you use your wife's jewelry for that, she will be your ex-wife soon enough.