How does thermal silicone work?

I remember when I took apart the heat sink to clean the processor fan, I found that there was a lot of sticky white liquid on the processor. This event left a deep impression on the author. At that time, I didn't know that those were thermal conductive silica gel. I remember how silly I was to wipe all the silicone that flowed out.

After reading this article, you will have a better understanding of the thermal conductive silica gel on the processor, how they work, and why you need to add this kind of sticky stuff between the processor and the heat sink. In addition, we will also teach you a unique secret script, telling you how to correctly apply thermal silicone to achieve the highest heat dissipation efficiency.

For computers, it is a very exaggerated and complex electronic system. He gives off a lot of heat. If there is no thermal conductive silicone, even when you are playing a large 3D game, your quad core processor will not last for an hour and will crash. Is thermal silicone really so magical?

For processors like Corei7, Intel claims in advertisements that their performance is so powerful, but their power consumption is so low. In fact, the TDP of a Corei7 processor can be as high as 130W. They will radiate huge heat in a very small area. We need to use the CPU radiator to quickly take away the heat it emits. As a result, thermal conductive silica gel has become the link of heat exchange and conduction between the processor top cover and the radiator.

Maybe you blindly think that the surface of both the processor and the heat sink is smooth enough. However, if you observe them under a microscope, you will find that their surfaces are not as flat as you can see. Various grooves and surface undulations will seriously affect the efficiency of heat transfer.

Small grooves and protrusions make their surfaces not perfectly stick together, so there will be air between these gaps. Air is a poor heat conducting material. As the processor works and heats up, the air in these slits will expand, so the gap between the processor and the heat sink will further expand.