Non ci sono articoli nel carrello.

Non ci sono articoli nel carrello.

Celebrating five years of liquid metal in ROG laptops

Jan 17, 2023 Written by:Lane Prescott

Image of liquid metal being applied to a CPU die with precision machinery.

Every laptop generates heat, thanks to powerful components packed in a portable chassis. Good heatsinks and fans go a long way in dissipating that heat so you can frag your enemies all day long. But there's another, unsung hero in the chain of cooling: TIM.

No, we're not talking about Tim the Enchanter. TIM stands for thermal interface material, the most common of which is thermal paste. In the electronics industry, thermal paste consists of  non-conductive but thermally efficient compounds that efficiently passes a processor’s waste heat to the heatsink. This basic thermal solution has proven to be effective and reliable for decades, but modern laptops have run into a problem. They need to be as thin and light as possible, while also featuring components more powerful than ever. Since you can't install a larger heatsink in a smaller laptop, our engineers had to find other ways to push the boundaries of our cooling solution.

A new conductor in town

Image of the ROG Mothership on a desk, with more computers in the background.

The team at ROG turned to liquid metal. A much more thermally efficient TIM, liquid metal conducts 17 times more heat than traditional thermal pastes. When compared to ROG laptops cooled with traditional paste, our team saw incredible temperature reductions of around 10°C on average. Liquid metal does have one significant drawback - it is electrically conductive. When not handled correctly, it can easily touch a sensitive component and lead to a short, causing damage to the laptop. In 2017, our engineering team began to research whether liquid metal was feasible in a laptop. After much trial and error, ROG introduced its first devices with liquid metal two years later: the ROG G703 and ROG Mothership. This first test of liquid metal required application by hand, but the thermal results proved that we were onto something special. We didn't want to stop there.

In 2020, we were able to automate and refine the application process, which brought down the manufacturing time and cost enough to make liquid metal feasible on all mainstream laptops, not just our flagship models. Custom machines, developed and patented by ROG, painstakingly brush a thin coat of liquid metal onto the CPU die, then add two more tiny drops to ensure no gaps between the chip and heatsink. We also added a tiny barrier sponge just 0.1mm tall around the CPU socket, safeguarding against any accidental seepage. These production innovations allowed ROG to add liquid metal to every laptop equipped with an 10th Gen Intel Core processor. Thanks to the extra thermal efficiency of liquid metal, we were able to reduce fan noise and temperatures while improving our laptops’ performance at the same time.  

Better cooling for all

Promotional render of the Strix G15 Advantage Edition, with a cyberpunk background.

Our next major milestone with liquid metal came in 2021, when we were able to apply it to both Intel and AMD processors, as well as the GPU of the Strix G Advantage Edition. AMD processors and GPUs are much harder to safely apply liquid metal to than Intel processors, due to the numerous surface mounted SMD caps on the processor package. These SMD caps need to be shielded from the electrical conductivity inherent in liquid metal, which is a challenge. 2021 marked the first year that every ROG laptop was cooled with liquid metal. That year also marked the launch of the Flow X13, making it the first convertible laptop with liquid metal available for sale worldwide.

Taking cooling to the extreme

Person holding Zephyrus G14 behind their back, with OMNI visible on the AniMe Matrix screen.

2022 saw a return of liquid metal on all ROG laptops, and the GPU of the Zephyrus G14. In addition, we introduced the new ROG Flow Z13, the first tablet with liquid metal onboard. Even more significantly, we continued to deepen our ongoing partnership with Thermal Grizzly by incorporating their ultra-high performance Conductonaut Extreme liquid metal on our laptops for the first time. This TIM lowers temperatures a further 5°C even when compared to Thermal Grizzly’s standard liquid metal formulation. You can find Conductonaut Extreme in the ROG Zephyrus Duo 16 as well as the Strix SCAR family, enabling incredible cooling performance for our most powerful laptops.

The future is metal

The team at ROG is dedicated to pushing the performance of our laptops even further, and liquid metal is key to that vision. Liquid metal allows the Z13 to continue the journey ROG Mothership started, and challenge the status quo on what kind of high performance components you can find in a modern portable form factor. Below is a table showing all of our laptops from the last four years, and which models utilized liquid metals for cutting edge performance. Keep an eye out for even more models featuring this incredible thermal interface material coming soon. 

Model Name Model Number Release Date CPU GPU
ROG Mothership GZ700 April 2019 Liquid metal     Paste
ROG Griffin G703 April 2019 Liquid metal Paste
ROG Zephyrus G15 GA502 January 2019 Paste Paste
ROG Zephyrus M GU502 January 2019 Paste Paste
ROG Zephyrus S GX502 January 2019 Paste Paste
ROG Strix SCAR III G531 January 2019 Paste Paste
ROG Strix SCAR III G731 January 2019 Paste Paste
ROG Strix Hero III G531 January 2019 Paste Paste
ROG Strix Hero III G731 January 2019 Paste Paste
ROG Strix G G531 January 2019 Paste Paste
ROG Strix G G731 January 2019 Paste Paste
         
ROG Zephyrus G14 GA401 January 2020 Paste Paste
ROG Zephyrus G15 GA502 January 2020 Liquid metal Paste
ROG Zephyrus M15 GU502 January 2020 Liquid metal Paste
ROG Zephyrus S15 GX502 January 2020 Liquid metal Paste
ROG Zephyrus S17 GX701 January 2020 Liquid metal Paste
Zephyrus Duo 15 GX550 January 2020 Liquid metal Paste
ROG Strix SCAR 15 G532 January 2020 Liquid metal Paste
ROG Strix SCAR 17 G732 January 2020 Liquid metal Paste
ROG Strix G15 G512 January 2020 Liquid metal Paste
ROG Strix G17 G712 January 2020 Liquid metal Paste
         
ROG Flow X13 GV301 January 2021 Liquid metal Paste
ROG Zephyrus G14 (2021) GA401 January 2021 Liquid metal Paste
ROG Zephyrus G15 (2021) GA503 January 2021 Liquid metal Paste
ROG Zephyrus M16 GA603 April 2021 Liquid metal Paste
ROG Zephyrus Duo 15 SE GX551 January 2021 Liquid metal Paste
ROG Zephyrus S17 GX703 April 2021 Liquid metal Paste
ROG Strix SCAR 15 (2021) G532 January 2021 Liquid metal Paste
ROG Strix SCAR 17 (2021) G732 January 2021 Liquid metal Paste
ROG Strix G15 (2021) G512 January 2021 Liquid metal Paste
ROG Strix G17 (2021) G712 January 2021 Liquid metal Paste
ROG Strix G Advantage G512 April 2021 Liquid metal Liquid metal
ROG XG Mobile (RTX 3080) GC31S January 2021 N/A Paste
ROG XG Mobile (RTX 3070) GC31R January 2021 N/A Paste
         
ROG Flow Z13 (2022) GV301 January 2022 Liquid metal Paste
ROG Flow X13 (2022) GZ301 January 2022 Liquid metal Paste
ROG Zephyrus G14 (2022) GA402 January 2022 Liquid metal Liquid metal
ROG Zephyrus G15 (2022) GA503 January 2022 Liquid metal Paste
ROG Zephyrus M16 (2022) GA603 January 2022 Liquid metal Paste
ROG Zephyrus Duo 16 GX650 January 2022

Conductonaut Extreme
liquid metal

Paste
ROG Strix SCAR 15 (2022) G533 January 2022

Conductonaut Extreme
liquid metal

Paste
ROG Strix SCAR 17 (2022) G733 January 2022 Conductonaut Extreme
liquid metal
Paste
ROG Strix G15 (2022) G513 January 2022 Liquid metal Paste
ROG Strix G17 (2022) G713 January 2022 Liquid metal Paste
ROG XG Mobile (RX 6850M XT) GC32L January 2022 N/A Liquid metal
ROG Strix SCAR 17 SE (2022) G733 May 2022 Conductonaut Extreme
liquid metal
Conductonaut Extreme
liquid metal
ROG Flow X16 (2022) GV601 May 2022 Liquid metal Paste
         
ROG Zephyrus Duo 16 (2023) GX650 January 2023 Conductonaut Extreme
liquid metal
Paste
ROG Zephyrus M16 (2023) GU604 January 2023 Liquid metal Paste
ROG Zephyrus G14 (2023) GA402 January 2023 Liquid metal Paste
ROG Flow Z13 (2023) GZ301 January 2023 Liquid metal Paste
ROG Flow X13 (2023) GV302 January 2023 Liquid metal Paste
ROG Flow X16 (2023) GV601 January 2023 Liquid metal Paste
ROG XG Mobile (2023) GC33 January 2023 Paste Paste
ROG Strix SCAR 16 (2023) G634 January 2023 Conductonaut Extreme
liquid metal
Conductonaut Extreme
liquid metal
ROG Strix SCAR 18 (2023) G834 January 2023 Conductonaut Extreme
liquid metal
Conductonaut Extreme
​liquid metal

ROG Strix G16 (2023)

G614 January 2023 Conductonaut Extreme
liquid metal
Conductonaut Extreme
liquid metal*
ROG Strix G18 (2023) G814 January 2023 Conductonaut Extreme
liquid metal
Conductonaut Extreme
liquid metal*
ROG Strix G17 (2023) G713 January 2023 Conductonaut Extreme
liquid metal
Paste
ROG Strix SCAR 17 (2023) G733 January 2023 Conductonaut Extreme
liquid metal
Conductonaut Extreme
liquid metal

*Liquid metal version may vary by configuration.