Is graphene viable for enthusiast cooling yet?

First off, sorry. I know this has been talked about forever (any application of graphene) and doesn't seem to be going anywhere. Or it doesn't leave the lab, at least.

Part of my interest in this is actually Pyrolytic Graphite (or Annealed Pyrolytic Graphite) for better air cooling. The sort of stuff that made me interested:


Particularly I'm wondering if it could be used to transfer heat out of your case (either with flexible wire or a huge block heatsink that extends out of the case directly) where it is dissipated, reducing need of airflow through the case and thus less issue of dust. Especially if this could also be used to cool other components like VRAM.

With threadripper having such a huge IHS, I think it'd be really cool to have a horizontally-mounted-motherboard case (like the Haf XB evo) with a giant pyrolytic graphite tower (insulated in the case) that extends out of the case. It seems like that would have a huge thermal capacity (and thermal conductivity even without fins/airflow if it cooling off from glowing hot in a few seconds is any indication). Though this might be too big of a dream with current costs :older_man:

Or maybe I'm underestimating it, maybe a long strip of PGS that travels out of the case would be good enough to cool it. I have seen people online talk about crazy stuff like geothermal watercooling so it makes me wonder when I will start seeing stuff with pyrolytic graphite.

It’s been a while and Threadripper is now out. Anyone have any thoughts?

Threadripper’s mounting is pretty sturdy metal too (with a specific mount):

It makes me wonder if the plastic insert could be replaced with something more thermally conductive so the socket itself could be used to get slightly more cooler contact. Or, going even crazier, replacing the top part of the socket itself with something more thermally conductive.

That is assuming you could do this with no electrical conduction issues, and no issues of heat being dumped into the PCB+surrounding components.