Thermal Compound On Core i7 2600k Heatsink

[GCC]

Doing my first processor installation ever, trying to to fudge anything up. I purchased some Arctic Silver 5 but realized there is already some kind of thermal compound attached to the stock heatsink of the core i7 CPU. I'm not going to be doing any overclocking until I upgrade the heatsink. Is the stock compound comparable to the AS5 or should I remove it and apply some fresh paste? Will I need to apply anything to the CPU if I just use the stock heatsink and paste?

 

[Zap]

Hello GCC, and welcome to AnandTech Forums.

The stock compound is not comparable to AS5, but is completely suitable for your purposes. How do you think the rest of the world (you know, the NON-overclockers) do things? Don't bother using AS5 until you get the aftermarket cooler and start overclocking.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

If you want the best and care to give up the Taco-Bell $5-special for a stellar thermal compound, get this:

http://www.innovationcooling.com/overview.htm

for these good reasons:

http://innovationcooling.com/ICDDatasheet.htm

[verified by me -- here -- in 2007 with bar-charts and circles and arrows on the backs of each one . . . ]

and which you can purchase here:

http://www.sidewindercomputers.com/icdi7cathco1.html

or here:

http://www.heatsinkfactory.com/ic-diamond-7-carat-thermal-compound-15-gram-p-16605.html

The test results from one of IC's founders -- Joe Citarella -- were matched by mine for a comparison with Arctic Silver 5 and several other TIMs which some people here of varying experience and interest still seem to think are "tops." [But they're not "tops."] Look for an article at those web-pages or at www.overclockers.com written by Joe and posted there around 2007 January.

As a "Noob," there's no reason for you to putz around with less-than-optimal sh-Stuff, since your new computer -- proudly built and overclocked -- could carry you 3, 5 or more years if you want.

If you want a good cooler, you'll pay $20 or $30 extra for "the best," but the "best" are significantly more effective. I'd try and steer your toward the Prolimatech Megahalem. There are some others. I'll check back to see if someone's misleading you or "misinformed."

 

[Patrick Wolf]

As a "Noob," there's no reason for you to putz around with less-than-optimal sh-Stuff, since your new computer -- proudly built and overclocked -- could carry you 3, 5 or more years if you want.

So then he should probably get what's actually the best?
http://www.indigo-xtreme.com/

 

[BonzaiDuck]

So then he should probably get what's actually the best?
http://www.indigo-xtreme.com/

Umm. My bad. I assume this is similar to the "liquid metal" stuff that was released just around the time of the diamond paste.

The caution associated with [whatever it was called then] was its electrical conductivity as opposed to thermal.

More than possible -- it's even likely it does what it says.

Thanks.

EDIT: I think this points up stuff you'd even find on a "political forum." Put it under the topic "misuse of statistics."

I can only vouch for the Arctic Silver 5 and IC Diamond in their promotional piece in the graphic bar-chart comparison. Now -- I'll have to see if I can resurrect my own bar-charts from my web-site -- posted there four years ago for this forum. I know I found them today, accessing that site for the first time in a year or so . . .

We'll see about that.

In my own testing, I didn't just provide a single average temperature for several hours running of the two TIMs, but a frequency distribution of observations taken at 5-second intervals and recorded to a TXT file -- loaded into Excel for the statistical analysis. The AS5 I used had already been burned in. The diamond paste doesn't need a burn in, but for the numerous runs I made -- it had plenty of time. AS5 deteriorates over time; the diamond paste doesn't.

What's my point with this? If you find one falsely reported fact, the entire presentation of evidence is suspect.

For thermal power exceeding 105W, Innovation Cooling's own results showed a 2 to 3C difference over AS5. Since that comes from IC, I had to verify it.

My own (new) rig -- a Conroe and subsequently a Kentsfield system -- was showing load thermal wattages under PRIME95 at that or higher levels. The voltages applied were similar to that of the I7-920 @ 4.xxx Ghz shown on the Indigo site. Their wattages would be higher, but then the spreads between any two compounds would be higher as well, given the relationship between thermal resistance, temperature and wattage.

My stats -- as I said -- were frequency distributions, showing X-bar averages and standard deviations -- some of them three and four hour tests with small-FFTs and the large-FFT high-heat test.

I came up with the same temperature improvement that Innovation Cooling posted. And "our" comparison of Arctic Silver 5 with IC Diamond is completely at odds with the Indigo Extreme "empirical results" posted in their promotion.

What would one then make of this? They themselves show a 2C degree improvement over IC Diamond, but their comparison of AS5 versus IC Diamond is completely, absolutely, unequivocally false!! Falsch!!

Now -- suppose there is either a comparable or superior performance of the Indigo against the Diamond? You can't verify it from their graph, even for being unable to verify it from my own "say-so," even though I can certainly verify it from my own say-so since I can't lie to myself -- I can only lie to you forum posters here.

The other thing I've seen on some year-old remarks about the Indigo:

* It requires a severe burning in to get the metal to change phase
and "do its thing. One guy was putting an infrared heat-lamp on
his NH-D14 cooler just to make that happen.

* It seems to "disappear" after a while. Some of these compounds seem
to "eat" other metals.

* Another compound, Cool-Laboratory's Liquid-Pro, takes less heat
to transform itself to initiate "effective" cooling or heat transfer.
Cool-Laboratory's own promotion shows it to be better than
the Indigo by one or two degrees C.

At that point, who can you believe? I can't believe the Indigo promotion, since they seem to have fudged the results, fabricated the graphical comparison of "empirical data" on the AS5 and IC Diamond comparison.

Nope. I'll have to run my own -- my very own test -- of the Indigo versus the Diamond. I'm not so sure I want to, because there's a "clean-up" problem once you have the Indigo stuff amalgamating with either the Nickel plating or bare copper on the IHS and heatsink (depending on whether you lap away the nickel as some of us Hot-Dawgs are won't to do.)

If I finally decide to do that, I'll be back here -- with my graphs, my circles and arrows on the backs of each one. Then -- you will have to choose whether to believe me, or choose otherwise. But I don't have a material interest in either Innovation Cooling or the firm that produces the Indigo.

Ultimately, either an independent reviewer with a testing lab can comparison-test, or the user. In my case, I was able to control room-ambients, and got mountains of data. Whether you choose to believe it -- as I said before -- and I say again . . .

But the difference between AS5 and ICDiamond was as much as 3C -- not a fraction of a degree Celsius. And the one-hour test, my three and four-hour tests -- it wouldn't make a difference with a 12-hour test.

Also this gets back to the comparison of heatpipe coolers. Anandtech had run a scientific comparison of dozens. You see implicit payola, fudged results, poor comparisons of carefully selected products to assure the outcome for a "pre-selected" product with some reviewers. Ultimately, the heatpipe cooler makers would dispel the hype by simply measuring and posting the test results in thermal resistance or the inverse conductivity. But they don't. Even the best ones do not do it. because in many cases, it would not serve their sales. There would only be a handful of models with the lowest resistance or highest conductivity, and even THEY know that in the next go-around, to publish that stuff might be the undoing of a new product since they don't know what the competition will bring to the battle.

 

[TakeNoPrisoners]

Or you just use the stock paste. Works as intended at stock clocks.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Or you just use the stock paste. Works as intended at stock clocks.

Sure. But there's an old saying in the '70s and '80s era of Deming-driven Japanese Quality Control and "Quality Circles" [the employee organizations who pursued those QC imperatives causing the American auto industry and people like Iacocca into near-panic.] The saying is "go after every last grain of rice."

Now, I look at these two newer TIM solutions knowing what I know about the older or more conventional ones -- including the one you mentioned. Both Coollaboratory ["pads," "Pro," and "Ultra"] and Indigo Extreme probably deploy Gallium and related metals. The MAY actually be a "Grain of rice" better than the Diamond.

I also find out that the removal of the Indigo is less troublesome as compared to the CoolLab-y's "Pro," and the "ultra" is less troublesome than the "pro" but probably more so than the Indigo. Further, I weigh the problem of reaching the necessary temperature for Indigo's "phase-change" burn-in, and I hear of problems people had with the very coolers (several grains of rice-worth) to which we wish to add this extra grain of rice for overall cumulative impact -- the most effective coolers do not easily assist in reaching that temperature. going back to the "Coollab-y's Ultra," it apparently does. So does Coollab-y's "pads."

Further, there are more "comparison reviews" (and one produced by Coollaboratory) showing Coollaboratory's products outperforming Indigo by a degree C.

And I think of all the trouble pertaining to this final, last grain of rice, when lapping my processor, choosing the cooler and lapping it as well, and using IC Diamond over the more conventional alternatives may have bought me a lot more than just the combined effect of the lapping and TIM [which could by themselves be worth as much as 10 to 13C or several grains of rice].

Do I really NEED to go from diamond [carbon] to Gallium?

This all depends on tuning my over-clock at reasonable clock frequencies while finding the lower voltages over the auto setting. This is preliminary. If I can do this prelim tuning to find the lowest stable voltages at -- say -- 4.43 Ghz, then I can more easily find the same lowest stable voltages at 4.53 or 4.6 Ghz. All this time, I'll be watching the core and package temperatures. But at this time with 4.43 Ghz, I can see that my package-value (which I believe is TCASE) and my cores do not exceed 65C at full IBT or PRIME95 loading.

Is one or two degrees Celsius really worth fiddling with pads which aren't so good for heatsinks that swivel? With at least one metal-liquid formulation that eventually creates a slight bond with the IHS? Or liquid concoctions with an electrically conductive property?

So YOUR POINT IS WELL-TAKEN. CHOOSE YOUR PASTE OR TIM CAREFULLY THE FIRST TIME [unless you're running experiments as I did.] Then -- nothing lost in time and effort over the use of the "stock" TIM/grease formulation -- only gain. But when making these choices, you have to weigh costs and benefits.

And if you already chose an option that brings you close to the optimal -- an option that is actually "re-useable," non-conductive (except for heat), not to difficult to spread even if more so than some other TIMs, -- well -- you might not want to change for a thermal benefit of at most 2C, when you have to question even the assertion of a 2C gain since the manufacturer lied in his statistics pertaining to the competition.

And of course -- there's the time and effort that goes into writing this stuff, except for the fact that my fingers are faster than my mouth in communicating what my brain is spewing . . . . I should have been born with a keyboard and a "Handi-Voice." But I have been blessed for not being crippled or disabled like Stephen Hawking.

And on it goes -- blah blah blah . . . . :biggrin:

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

I like MX-4. Diamond etches while AS5 needs cure time. I only have MX-3 on hand so I deploy that for everything.

For my i7 whose serial has been etched away by IC Diamond 7, I've given up so I continue to use Diamond on it.

 

[PreferLinux]

Be in for a shock: http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/Intel-Stock-Thermal-Compound-Review/1273 It's the best of the ones tested, which included AS5.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Be in for a shock: http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/Intel-Stock-Thermal-Compound-Review/1273 It's the best of the ones tested, which included AS5.

Hmm . .. like certain magazine and web-reviews . . . . certain competitors . . . are missing . . .

As for DLeRium . . . . I already took care of that! hardly an atom of nickel plate left on my IHS . . . . I didn't need a diamond-abrasive polishing compound . . . . I used "wet-or-dri" . . .

 

[ICD7]

I like MX-4. Diamond etches while AS5 needs cure time. I only have MX-3 on hand so I deploy that for everything.

For my i7 whose serial has been etched away by IC Diamond 7, I've given up so I continue to use Diamond on it.

Hey, welcome!! Great offer, I never used ICD so far... I've got one little question about it. Some people say it can scratch the die, is this a common issue? I'd like to hear what you'd say about this.

I'm interested, but first of all I need to get my GPU fixed

FAQ on the scratch issue

Some background on the subject - 100 years of standard Industry practice on abrasives is well documented and well understood by those in the business. Most thermal compounds are liquid sandpaper or lapping compounds by definition.

Light gray compounds are usually/mostly made up of aluminum oxide. (Check MSDS for AS5,Ceramique, ShinEtsu, Dow etc. hard metal oxides are more common than you would think in thermal compounds)

Aluminum oxide is what they make sandpaper out of.....MOHS Hardness scale 9

Diamond on the MOHS hardness scale: 10

Copper MOHS: 3

To be abrasive you just have to be harder than the material to be cut.

Most thermal compounds have particle sizes in the range of 600 - 800 same as your 600 - 800 sandpaper

http://www.unc.edu/~rowlett/units/scales/grit.html

If you are ambitious, you can calculate cutting speeds and material removal between diamond -- the hardest, (cubic boron nitride is actually harder than diamond) and the second hardest -- aluminum oxide.

For the insignificant distance traveled, equivalent pressures, You will not see any difference between the two under normal use.

Abrasives have to move to work.



For all compounds- if you are a hardware reviewer who re-installs his sink 50 times a week or constantly rotates the sink under pressure they are going to see wear regardless of the compound used then should switch to something less abrasive if they have an issue with it like a zinc oxide compound.

Empirically I have run 20+ of these giveaway's with over 800 user tests at this point and has not been an issue. In 3 years I have had no emails, phone calls or any contact whatsoever or complaints on the subject to Innovation Cooling

I would like to note that IC Diamond is classified/called a Flour in the business, below is an image of a IHS intentionally lapped with ICD - This can be accomplished with just about any thermal compound.


Another way to picture it - Most thermal compounds are approximately 600- 800 grit, so take some typical aluminum oxide 600 grit sand paper and Mount it between sink and IHS

Generally 80% of all retail sinks have 50+ PSI contact pressure, if you have high spots with an irregular contour the high spots can have a PSI of 100 lbs (see picture)

now rotate the sink back and forth a few times under pressure it's going to leave a polished mark, so a general caution for any thermal compound but not ICD in particular.

Also note we are doing a video comparing an assortment of compounds and their polishing capability along with microscopic images of the results with enough detail to qualify as a professional analysis and alleviate any concerns people may have.

 

[Patrick Wolf]

I like MX-4. Diamond etches while AS5 needs cure time. I only have MX-3 on hand so I deploy that for everything.

For my i7 whose serial has been etched away by IC Diamond 7, I've given up so I continue to use Diamond on it.

Same. MX-4. Little curing time, easy to apply, and comes in 4g tubes for under $10. Same with MX-2 which is even cheaper.

 

[GCC]

Still a newbie here but should I expect more stable / lower temperatures after the AS5 has had time to cure?

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Still a newbie here but should I expect more stable / lower temperatures after the AS5 has had time to cure?

You seem to have stirred up an ongoing discussion of the thermal paste issue or "TIM."

Yes. It takes some time for AS5 to cure, but I think you can expect it to be burned in completely within a week, a few days -- whatever. However, noting that this was a most popular TIM among Hot-Dawg OC'ers and enthusiast for a long time or that I started with AS3 and moved up to AS5, it is fairly well established that over a much longer period, the effectiveness of AS5 declines or deteriorates.

Those who support the diamond pastes -- something relatively new to the enthusiast community -- argue (and I agree) that it never deteriorates, and can actually be -"re-used" or simply "freshened" with either a dab of new stuff or a little bit of the cheap grease you get with your heatpipe cooler. The oil base tends to dry over time, but this is actually a deliberate intention of the compound's proponents. The diamond particles are synthetic, industrially-produced particles [I think the "real thing" is a bit more costly] which are of a thickness measured in microns.

Even more interesting, though, is that we haven't kept up on what Intel has "been up to" with their minimalist aluminum "retail-box" coolers. Since the coolers are only meant to provide a basic level of heat-removal, Intel has apparently invested just a bit extra in improving the TIM they use. And so far, nobody here seems to have an indication of exactly what it's made of. It has an appearance of either IC Diamond or AS5, but looks don't say a lot . . .

 

[MadScientist]

Has anyone used IC Diamond 7 on an HDT (heat-pipe direct touch) cooler like the CM Hyper 212 Plus? How did you apply it? There are channels between the mounting base and the heat-pipes that should first be filled in with TIM. This would be a little difficult with IC Diamond 7 due to its high viscosity. There are no instructions on Innovative Cooling's website on how to apply IC Diamond 7 to these coolers.

I have found the line method on benchmarkreviews site to be the most effective for other TIMs.

http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=150&Itemid=62&limit=1&limitstart=5

 

[Nemesis 1]

Use ceramics and mix with your own diamond dust. It works really well . Get real diamond dust . Its about the same price.

http://www.kaydp.com/powder.php I use my own mixture , I just letting you know ceramics works really well. The micron size is your choice and I won't say what I use.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Use ceramics and mix with your own diamond dust. It works really well . Get real diamond dust . Its about the same price.

http://www.kaydp.com/powder.php I use my own mixture , I just letting you know ceramics works really well. The micron size is your choice and I won't say what I use.

Responding equally to MadScientist: The ceramics idea and diamond powder is a good idea, but you want to load the stuff to the hilt, which will take a lot of mixing. If the ceramic is a two-part exoxy-type compound, then you could add the diamond dust to both, then quickly mix it together and spread it.

As for MadScientist's worries, with that sort of viscosity, it's a bit like cement. A spackle-knife would do quite well. Even better with a ceramic.

Wait a minute. Ceramic? Epoxy? Not if it sets permanently! Instead, you might apply it to the direct-touch cooler as a filler, and then lap it. After lapping, install the cooler and diamond paste on the IHS as you normally would.

But -- sure. You can make your own. I've got 5 grams of micronized diamond powder, which I bought at a premium before ICD was released. And, sure, I made my own paste with a grease from another cooler by mixing and loading the powder with the commercial stuff. There was even an article someone put on the web about using a little flat two-piece plastic case -- something you might use for ear-plugs or contact lenses -- drilling a small hole at the top, bending a paper-clip into a sort of paddle you could crank after filling the case with the powder and TIM and re-seating the top of it. "How to mix your own diamond TIM" -- something like that. . . .

Just a tip: the synthetic diamond powder is cheaper than the stuff from the diamond mines. But it's the same thing. I think I paid darn near $70+ dollars for the five grams.

One more thing: avoid breathing that sh-stuff. It CAN become airborne. You really don't want it in your lungs . . . .

 

[MadScientist]

it is fairly well established that over a much longer period, the effectiveness of AS5 declines or deteriorates.

Those who support the diamond pastes -- something relatively new to the enthusiast community -- argue (and I agree) that it never deteriorates, and can actually be -"re-used" or simply "freshened" with either a dab of new stuff or a little bit of the cheap grease you get with your heatpipe cooler. The oil base tends to dry over time, but this is actually a deliberate intention of the compound's proponents.

Never deteriorates. That would be great. What exactly does that mean? From IC Diamond 7's MSDS it contains a polyol ester oil base (trade secret) and the solvent 1-Methoxy-2-Propyl Acetate.

AS5's MSDS states it also contains an ester oil blend, another trade secret, but in the same chemical family as IC Diamond 7's oil base. Most of us know what happens to AS5 over time. It becomes hard clay-like solids.

The solvent in IC Diamond 7 will evaporate within a few minutes, and the polyol ester oil, just like AS5, over time will dissipate. Will this result in hard or soft solids consisting of diamond and carbon black dust? Will these solids still be as effective as the day you applied it?

IC Diamond 7 MSDS
http://www.frozencpu.com/images/products/pdf/thr-41_msds.pdf

AS5 MSDS
http://www.arcticsilver.com/PDF/thermcom/AS5_MSDS_3.pdf

 

[MadScientist]

Wait a minute. Ceramic? Epoxy? Not if it sets permanently! Instead, you might apply it to the direct-touch cooler as a filler, and then lap it. After lapping, install the cooler and diamond paste on the IHS as you normally would.

You have to be extra careful lapping an HDT cooler. The heat pipes are thin.

Applying IC Diamond 7 to the IHS as per Innovative Cooling's instructions may not work well, since one blob may not cover all the heat pipes.

There's also a new TIM out from EVGA called Frostbite. They claim it contains over 30% silver and has a thermal conductivity of 6.5w/m-k. I've not seen any reviews on it yet. It's a bit pricey, $10. + shipping for a 2 gram syringe.
http://www.evga.com/articles/00638/

 

[BonzaiDuck]

You have to be extra careful lapping an HDT cooler. The heat pipes are thin.

Applying IC Diamond 7 to the IHS as per Innovative Cooling's instructions may not work well, since one blob may not cover all the heat pipes.

There's also a new TIM out from EVGA called Frostbite. They claim it contains over 30% silver and has a thermal conductivity of 6.5w/m-k. I've not seen any reviews on it yet. It's a bit pricey, $10. + shipping for a 2 gram syringe.
http://www.evga.com/articles/00638/

Supposedly from the specs, the Indigo Xtreme TIM has a higher thermal conductivity than the ICD.

On ICD"s instructions, you don't have to follow them to the letter. I use either a razor-blade or a credit-card to [tediously] get a thin layer on both surfaces. ICD notes that this method may "waste" some of the TIM, which is likely true. But at least I assure thorough coverage. The clamping and pressure of the cooler seems to assure that I don't suffer the suboptimal cooling phenomenon reported for excess TIM. But I also lap both processor and cooler base, which makes them flatter than they were out of the box.

In my case, right now, this month or next month, I would like to capture another 4 to 5C in load temperature reduction. At the same time, I have a problem with the temperature needed to get Indigo to "re-flow." If the Coollaboratory product has a lower "re-flow" temperature, I may try that one, since there's always some probability in the gamble of "truth-in-advertising," and CL produces its own comparison with Indigo showing a slight edge for performance.

 

[MadScientist]

On ICD"s instructions, you don't have to follow them to the letter. I use either a razor-blade or a credit-card to [tediously] get a thin layer on both surfaces. ICD notes that this method may "waste" some of the TIM, which is likely true. But at least I assure thorough coverage. The clamping and pressure of the cooler seems to assure that I don't suffer the suboptimal cooling phenomenon reported for excess TIM. But I also lap both processor and cooler base, which makes them flatter than they were out of the box.

Whatever works for you, but they recommend not to use the "full spread" (figure 8) method because this can create air pockets. http://www.innovationcooling.com/applicationinstructions.htm

 

[Zap]

I think you guys have scared him off sufficiently.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

SNIP

Ok, even if there are particulates in IC Diamond, my experiences with the scratches or what I believe to be etching is really requires movement.

http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=29822157&postcount=37

Is what I ran into after maybe 2 applications. This was within the FIRST WEEK of my i7. I returned it and RMAed it at Microcenter

Now I didn't think much of it later and ignored it, but after 1 year of use I disassembled my Noctua D14 to find this:

The serial is completely gone.

Here's the before:

Also while lighting can make the serial hard to read, I know for a fact the i7's serial is severely etched off. Also, I was building an i5 AND i3 system simultaneously this May when I disassembled my year old i7 to examine the etching.

That was my i3 or something and compared to it my i7 serial was impossible to read.

Now I understand that these compounds CAN have abrasives, but as someone who is working in the metallography lab to polish and grind to get nanometer smoothness for graphene growth, I tend to think it's not that easy for a HS to cause that kind of damage. You really have to put a lot of lateral forces on your CPU with your HSF and CONTINUE to rub back and forth to get any type of grinding effect. I was grinding copper plates on 200, 400, 600, 800, 1200 grit paper and that was more than a workout. Then going down to micron level stuff, you go to to the spinning polishing pads with alumina powder. Working with nanometer level, I'm using a vibratory polisher where the sample is in a slurry and the vibratory polisher kinda swirls it around on its own with a heavy metal holder giving it pressure. Unless you're suggesting my HSF unit is giving my CPU enough vibration to polish it, I highly doubt this is what's going on.

I'm not one to mount and remount my CPU. I've probably done 5 mounts TOTAL with IC Diamond 7. And that's split between the original CPU I got which I RMAed in a week. Sure in between I used MX-3 and AS5 for a day or two, but having used AS5 since 2002, I've never seen any abrasion or corrosion. IC Diamond 7 on the other hand was visible in days!

I mean you could think about it this way.... Put your hand on sandpaper. Lift and put your hand down again. Repeat 10 times. Now compare this to putting your hand down on sandpaper, rubbing it back and forth 10 times. Yeah, you can tell which one is far more damaging.


Overall I don't think IC Diamond 7 is bad. I just think there are side effects people need to be aware of. I could go all out and do SEM testing to see wtf is going on, but really? I'm not that interested in my CPU's IHS. It's still my TIM of choice for my main rig, but for anything else I'll stick to good old MX-3 which is DIRT cheap.

 

[Ben90]

At the same time, I have a problem with the temperature needed to get Indigo to "re-flow."

There is nothing wrong with running a modern CPU at its thermal threshold. There seems to be a bit of hysteria on enthusiast forums whenever temperature is mentioned.

Yes, running high temperatures along with high voltages will harm things over the course of months or years. Fortunately we don't need high voltages to flow Indigo. Your CPU will not be damaged from heat alone in the course of a year, much less a few seconds to flow Indigo.

 

[WhoBeDaPlaya]

I use IC Diamond almost exclusively for all my builds in the last ~2 years.
It performs very well, is available at a B&M store (Microcenter) and I have yet to notice any unwanted IHS etching on any of my CPUs (Phenom IIs, i7s and a C2D).