Thermal Grizzly is changing the nickel-plating process for some of its products. Certain products, such as the IHS in AM5, use a new nickel-plating process, which changes their appearance. But the brand is not announcing any change in performance, or at least in measurement tolerances.
Thermal Grizzly: new nickel-plating process!
Roughly speaking, we learn that the brand is applying a new nickel-plating process to these AM5 IHSs. This slightly alters their appearance, which is now closer to that of first-generation IHSs. However, there is no change in performance, which is within the second-generation tolerance range. In any case, we have learned that the first generation should no longer be in circulation.
As for the waterblocks, the Mycro Direct-Die Pro also benefits from an updated process, and is now electroplated bright-nickel. For some time to come, it’s not impossible that you’ll come across blocks with matte nickel and others benefiting from this new process.
Finally, we’ve learned something rather interesting: by testing and optimizing the nickel plating process, Thermal Grizzly has come up with some interesting results. In fact, by optimizing the nickel plating process, the brand has succeeded in reducing the resistance of the latter, resulting in a significant improvement in performance. The brand claims that this method results in gains of up to 5°C in actual use. However, this is not the process used on current products, but we could potentially find it on future products and why not on a new generation of high-performance IHS. On the other hand, this new method makes the product duller and less shiny, while making machining marks more visible. But this has to be put into perspective, on an IHS that will be mounted under a CPU cooler or an AIO pump… The problem is not really a problem.
