Test of 27 thermal compounds, part 2

The list of thermal compounds + test procedures

The second round will be especially interesting for people who want to find the best solution for a standard use. The winner is a big surprise. Gelid, Noctua, Phobya, Reeven, SilentiumPC, Thermal Grizzly or Zalman? We can give away that it is not an expected favourite this time. We enjoyed a nice competition in the middle category, where it takes a lot to keep making a difference. We also tested OEM paste from Scythe as a bonus.

The list of thermal compounds + test procedures

The alphabetical order of tested samples will be familiar to you from the previous part. It will be easy for you to find a particular paste in every picture and in the sampler. The sheet contains 13 entries again. Therefore, the 14th drop on the desk, Scythe compound, can be a bit confusing because you cannot buy it separately. It only comes with the Scythe coolers.


Most of the pastes in the second test have higher viscosity. The highest is proven for Thermal Grizzly Hydronaut which does not contain any silicone, and roughly 190 Pa·s in a cold state figures. On the other hand, the relatively thin Gelid GC-Pro will have less than the specified 170 Pa·s.

The illustration of viscosity. Samples are in the alphabetical order from left to right

We managed to spread every paste evenly, but some were a challenge. However, not Zalman ZM-STG2, which used to be known for its “chewing gum“ consistency and tearing, probably due to inappropriate storage and drying silicone. This time it behaved like a different paste (tested on five samples). Noctua NT-H1 and SilentiumPC Pactum PT-1 are also excellently prepared for smooth spreading. Quite elastic NanoGrease Extreme is a bigger problem, especially HeGrease Extreme which sticks more to the applicator than to the heatspreader. In this case, it is more practical to use the drop method.

    

The heating element was overclocked Intel Core i7-5930K@4.4 GHz (on Gigabyte X99 UD4) with increased Vcore to 1.25 V. We simulated the burn in InterBurnTest (7500 MB). The waste heat was around 225 W. After the initial burn in, the tests took 300 seconds. We used high-flow industrial fans Noctua iPPC NF-F12 2000 and Scythe Fuma cooler, so five minutes should be more than enough for temperatures to stabilize. Temperatures can decrease a bit after several hours, which was the case of Arctic Silver 5, but it is a rare situation because most of compounds do not require a long-term burn in to provide the best results.

We used a smooth layer of 0.1 ml of paste for every application. We repeated every test twice (new installation included) to make sure that measured values match. The intake air temperature was 21 – 21.3 °C, ensured in our air-conditioned lab.

   

 

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Latest Arctic Freezer coolers get LGA 1200/115x support

Roughly half a year after the release of the Freezer 36 and Liquid Freezer III, Arctic has reconsidered its decision to support, or rather not support, older Intel platforms. Initially, you couldn’t even install these coolers on Rocket Lake processors. But that is now changing. However, you need to be careful and add a new mounting kit to your cart in addition to the cooler if you want to use it on LGA 1200 or even older LGA 115x processors. Read more “Latest Arctic Freezer coolers get LGA 1200/115x support” »

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Low profile in 80mm format. Arctic released the P8 Slim PWM PST

Primarily for the needs of very small computer systems, Arctic has expanded its range of low-profile fans. It did this with the P8 Slim PWM PST, which is not only low-profile, it keeps its dimensions smaller in the remaining two axes as well. With 80 mm it copies well, for example, minimalist cases for Raspberry Pi and similar single-board computers. This small fan has a blade count above Arctic’s standards. Read more “Low profile in 80mm format. Arctic released the P8 Slim PWM PST” »

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Tested: Arctic M2 Pro in database of 80 SSD coolers

Arctic also offers SSD coolers. One of the leading brands is betting on low price, excellent compatibility and it also seems the visual impression is also important. However, the emphasis is also on high cooling performance and that the “improvement”, or reduction of (SSD) temperatures compared to a solution without a cooler is significant. What does this mean? For example, even minus 30 degrees Celsius. Read more “Tested: Arctic M2 Pro in database of 80 SSD coolers” »

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Comments (11) Add comment

    1. Hello, we will try to find out in the next test of compounds. If there are any other pastes that you are interested in, please, let us know and we will include them too. And thanks for this tip!

  1. So do you recommend using mastergel (regular non pro/maker version) since it came with my liquid cooler. But from what I seen in your benchmark both Arctic Silver 5 and MX4 (i have both and what I usually used ) performed better than mastergel.

  2. How can the ” Phobya HeGrease Extreme ” beat the ” Phobya NanoGrease Extreme “? It has 10 W/mk. That’s weird af imo.

  3. Great experiment! How would Thermalright TF8 @ 13.8 W/m-K, and Thermalright TFX @ 14.3 W/m-K stack-up against this list?

  4. Good tests. Till now, I used mx2 cuz costwise it is hard to beat and if you test coolers or cpus, it is great for its money. But now preparing for Vega TIM change and things are little more confusing, as some of the best TIMs seems to struggle with this task. Seems that transfered heat might be kinda even bigger and on really small area. Also some pastes are better when used on watter cooling, so tems are quite low. When it goes high, hotspot on Vega for example, they lose their great effectivity. That is probabbly why some guys haf issue with Kryonaut in this case and had great results with GC extreme. I myself wanna buy Gelids extreme pads too and still thinking if also their paste or should try the best GelMaker from CM, as it seems wreck competitors too.

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