Indigo Extreme Review & Guide

During my CPU Block Roundup I spent a lot of time testing blocks both with MX2 and with Indigo Xtreme.  While MX2 is very good for testing how blocks fair with “normal TIM” I also tested with Indigo Xtreme specifically because it is very abnormal.

What is Indigo Xtreme?

Indigo Xtreme is a “Phase Change Alloy”.  Essentially it’s a metal alloy with a low melting point.  The idea is that when you heat it up it will flow between the cpu and the cooler creating an incredibly good thermal connection.  The alloy starts off attached to a plastic sheet like so:

And after it’s gone through the “reflow” procedure it will spread across the cpu in an even layer like this:

Why is this important?

The alloy used in Indigo Xtreme has a much better thermal coefficient than a typical paste.  You’re not using a liquid any more but a solid metal that will form excellent contact with the block and CPU. The thermal coefficient becomes so low that the effects of mount and block bow become much smaller.

How much of an effect can mount and block bow have?

During my testing I compared blocks in an apples to apples comparison when using MX2 and Indigo Xtreme.  For MX2 I repeated each run 5 times due to normal mount variation.  I then plotted the difference between the two for each waterblock:

As you can see the difference is between 1-6.5 degrees celsius depending on the block.  Some blocks were a good match for my 3930K and some weren’t.  This is a very wide spread – in fact 14 of the waterblocks gave results that were 3.5 degrees celsius apart, which is a very significant effect!

If you want to improve your temperatures on your cpu the answer may not be to upgrade your waterblock but instead you need to look at your whole system and your choice of thermal interface material may be a bottleneck.