ROG Announces Rollout of Liquid Metal for Entire 2020 Intel Laptop Lineup

Fremont, California (April 2, 2020) - ASUS Republic of Gamers (ROG) today announced the rollout of Thermal Grizzly Conductonaut liquid-metal thermal compound for all 2020 ROG gaming laptops featuring 10th Gen Intel® Core™ processors.

Serious overclockers and enthusiasts have long harnessed the superior cooling benefits of liquid metal for high-end machines, but its application was not feasible for mass production — until now. Following a secret, year-long R&D program, ROG has patented a factory-application process yielding significantly better CPU performance, lower temperatures, and reduced noise for gamers at every price point.

Maximum cooling performance

Cooling is one of the greatest challenges facing gaming laptops, and ROG is constantly looking for ways to improve. This drive led to liquid metals, which are extremely effective at transferring thermal energy between surfaces like a processor die and heatsink. Over a year of testing liquid metal with various processors, ROG engineers observed a 10-20°C reduction in temperatures depending on the CPU. Lower temperatures help processors sustain higher clock speeds for longer and prevent fans from ramping up to louder RPMs. The additional thermal headroom can also be used to reach even faster frequencies and higher performance.

Patented mechanical precision

ROG R&D engineers targeted 10th Gen Intel Core processors to maximize gaming benefits, while electing to pair them with Thermal Grizzly’s Conductonaut compound for its concentration of optimum alloys. However, they made initial purchases casually to keep the project a secret. Not even Intel was briefed about plans during development. Meanwhile, they developed a two-stage method using custom machinery that ensures the complete coverage required for optimal performance.

Step one is essentially painting: a mechanized arm wets its silicon brush in a container of liquid metal and then glides back and forth across the CPU. It performs exactly 17 passes, which internal testing determined is the ideal number for complete coverage.

To minimize accumulation on the edges of the processor, the initial brushing pass makes contact at a different point on the surface than subsequent strokes. The die also is set inside a stainless-steel shim that prevents excess compound from spreading to the surrounding area. The shim is small enough to sit directly on the CPU package, so it can be used for different laptops from the same generation.

Too little metal reduces the efficiency of thermal transfer, but too much increases the likelihood of leakage and waste. While the first pass sets the stage, a second machine injects more compound at two points on the die. To keep it from seeping out and shorting adjacent circuitry, ROG engineers created a special barrier that fits into an incredibly slim space between the heatsink and CPU package that’s only 0.1 mm tall — nearly the height of the die itself.

ROG goes full metal

The ROG liquid-metal project is ongoing in a continued pursuit of better cooling for gaming laptops. Last year’s ROG Mothership was the first system to take advantage of this technology, and it paved the way to several refinements enabling a much wider rollout across the full family of ROG gaming laptops with 10th Gen Intel Core processors.