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Thermal Compound Round-Up

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Hardware Secrets has posted a new Thermal Compound Round-Up today that features 20 different types of paste. The one drawback? The Achilles heel of this round-up? No sliced cheese. :D


Following up on our Thermal Compound Roundup - April 2011 review, we are adding five more thermal compounds to our roundup, for a total of 20 different models from Antec, Arctic Cooling, Arctic Silver, Biostar, Cooler Master, Coolink, Deepcool, Evercool, Gelid, Noctua, Prolimatech, Spire, Thermalright, Thermaltake, Tuniq, Xigmatek, and Zalman. In this review we will determine if certain products are superior to others.
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Just goes to show that using properly applied TIM is more important than which TIM you use. Drop the outliers, and temps are close enough to be within the margin of error.
 
Zap said:
Just goes to show that using properly applied TIM is more important than which TIM you use. Drop the outliers, and temps are close enough to be within the margin of error.
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^Exactly, and man is it amazing to see a difference when it isn't applied correctly :p
 
I guess i have no reason to replace my tube of AS5 as it is still in the top 3 :p

IN addition to testing without compound, I would be interested to see how the traditional white silicon stuff we all used to use before arctic silver first came out stacks up. Not that I'd actually use it, but I am curious :p
 
I would be interested to see how the traditional white silicon stuff we all used to use before arctic silver first came out stacks up. Not that I'd actually use it, but I am curious
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I second that.
 
No, IC Diamond.... Sucks, because i use it for everything now, works wonders...
 
I just use what comes with the damned cooler. Dayum..... :)
 
Yeah, too bad that they couldn't do a better job of controlling the ambient temperatures. Also, some of the highest performers seem to be missing, namely shin etsu and IC Diamond.
 
Not really an apples-to-apples comparison since the ambient air temps varied by a wide margin. he tried to correct for this by coming up with a temp differential above ambient, but things don't work so neatly in the real world. Cooler air cools better because it is more dense in addition to being cooler. Instead of a linear correction he needed to find a more sophisticated method.

Sure you can use cheese, but where was the Vegemite? :D :D
 
nice to see the generic Cooler Master compound that came packaged with my Hyper 212+ works well. the fact that they omitted sliced cheese from the test group shows they are novices, and i consider this round-up incomplete.
 
LOL. Looks like the giant tube of AS Ceramique is still fine. That thing's gonna last long enough to pass on to my kids.

Proper application + proper airflow > tiny exotic overpriced tubes of questionable content
 
I would also like to know how the stock thermal pads stack up. I have a Phenom 9600 Black Edition AMD processor with the stock HSF with heat pipes. I just slapped it on with the little gray thermal pad that It came with pre-attached. I am usually pretty solid at 38C under full load while folding ( 36C-42C range throughout a period of 2-3 days with core temp). It would be interesting to know how much of an improvement I would get, or if it would be worth it to bother putting some new paste on.
 
I always thought all paste is mostly the same. Been using same AS5 for about six years now.
 
Article shows you still can't go wrong with good old Arctic Silver 5. More than you'll ever need for under $3 on amazon.
 
I've tried a bunch of different pastes and none of them are really any better than MX-2. I love how easily this stuff spreads and cleans up. It's also cheap and non-conductive.
 
Untitledone said:
I would also like to know how the stock thermal pads stack up. I have a Phenom 9600 Black Edition AMD processor with the stock HSF with heat pipes. I just slapped it on with the little gray thermal pad that It came with pre-attached.
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Most heatsinks these days no longer use a hard pad. You should try touching it. It'll get on your fingers just like the fancy grey TIM you can buy in a small and expensive syringe. ;)
 
Zap said:
Most heatsinks these days no longer use a hard pad. You should try touching it. It'll get on your fingers just like the fancy grey TIM you can buy in a small and expensive syringe. ;)
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I am sure I dont want to do that! I will take your word for it. I will have to look around and see if anyone has done tests on the stock goop that comes pre-applied.
 
So the takeaway is if you're getting a good cooler from a reputable brand, and it ships with its own thermal material, you'll be fine.

Maybe I'm just getting older and less [H]ard, but getting a sammich, kettle cooked chips, and a drink from Wawa seems more compelling to me than spending that money for Shin Etsu or IC Diamond.

My idle temps with the ChillFactor3 which Thermalright shipped along with my HSF are right around 30C, load temps rarely go much higher than the low-to-mid 40s except when stress testing. Taking that to an average of around 28-29C and load temps in the low 40s is less exciting than some meatballs and provolone on a toasted roll.

Edit: Speaking of, I wonder how the thermal properties of provolone compare to American...
 
I'm actually surprised how well AS-5 held up in these tests. Still probably not enough to convince me to go back to it from the GC-Extreme I have been using.
 
Warrior said:
No, IC Diamond.... Sucks, because i use it for everything now, works wonders...
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I was hoping it would be included in the testring to dispell the myths of 7-10 degree cooler temps with IC Diamond compared to other thermal grease.
 
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