Thermal Compound Roundup – August 2011

[nextpage title=”Introduction”]

Following up on our Thermal Compound Roundup – July 2011 review, we are adding five more thermal compounds to our roundup, for a total of 35 different models from Antec, Arctic Cooling, Arctic Silver, Biostar, Cooler Master, Coolink, Deepcool, Dow Corning, Evercool, Gelid, Nexus, Noctua, Prolimatech, Scythe, Shi-Etsu, Spire, Rosewill, Thermalright, Thermaltake, TIM Consultants, Titan, Tuniq, Xigmatek, and Zalman. In this review, we will determine if certain products are superior to others. We will also try another "alternative" thermal compound to see if it works.

For a better understanding of how thermal compound (a.k.a. thermal grease or thermal paste) works and how to correctly apply it, please read our How to Correctly Apply Thermal Grease tutorial and our article What is the Best Way to Apply Thermal Grease? The most important concept that you must understand is that it is a mistake to think that the more thermal grease you apply, the better. The thermal compound is a worse heat conductor than copper and aluminum (the metals usually found on cooler bases). So, if you apply more thermal compound than necessary, it will actually lower the cooling performance instead of improving it.

In Figure 1, there are the five new thermal compounds we are adding to our roundup.

Figure 1: The new thermal compounds included in this roundup

Let’s get a closer look at the new contenders in the next pages.

[nextpage title=”The Thermal Compounds”]

We will now examine the five new thermal compounds we are including in our roundup.

Figures 2 and 3 illustrate the Nexus TMP-1000 gray compound.

Figure 2: Nexus TMP-1000

Figure 3: Nexus TMP-1000

Figures 4 and 5 show the Cooler Master ThermalFusion 400 thermal compound, which has a gray color as well.

Figure 4: Cooler Master ThermalFusion 400

Figure 5: Cooler Master ThermalFusion 400

[nextpage title=”The Thermal Compounds (Cont’d)”]

We also tested the Dow Corning TC-1996 gray thermal compound, shown in Figure 6. This is the thermal compound that came with the Intel XTS100H cooler.

Figure 6: Dow Corning TC-1996

Figure 7 displays the TIM Consultants Thermal Grease thermal compound. Its color is also gray. It’s a shame that it comes in a regular injection syringe. Is it too difficult to make a sticker with the manufacturer and product name, and stick it to the tube?

Figure 7: TIM Consultants Thermal Grease

In Figures 8 and 9, you can see the Evercool Deep Bomb gray thermal compound.

Figure 8: Evercool Deep Bomb

Figure 9: Evercool Deep Bomb

We also ran a test using spray oil as a thermal interface. We just sprayed about a drop of oil over the CPU, mounted the cooler and tested. Let’s see if it works.

A detailed look at the other thermal compounds included in this roundup, please read our Thermal Compound Roundup – July 2011 review.

[nextpage title=”How We Tested”]

We tested the thermal compounds using the same testbed system that we currently use to test CPU coolers, which is fully described below. Our Core i7-860 (quad-core, 2.8 GHz) CPU, which is a socket LGA1156 processor with a 95 W TDP (Thermal Design Power), was overclocked to 3.3 GHz (150 MHz base clock and 22x multiplier), and we kept the standard core voltage (Vcore). We used a Zalman CNPS9900 MAX CPU cooler. The only different part in each test was the thermal compound itself.

We measured temperature with the CPU under full load. In order to get 100% CPU usage in all threads, we ran Prime 95 25.11 (in this version, the software uses all available threads) with the "In-place Large FFTs" option. For each test, we applyied the same quantity of thermal compound (about the size of a grain of rice) at the center of the CPU, as shown in Figure 9.

Figure 9: Applying thermal compound

After each test, we checked the base of the cooler, making sure the quantity of thermal compound was optimal. The thermal compound must be spread evenly on the metallic part of the CPU, without exceeding it, creating a thin layer. The "fingerprint" shown in Figure 10 illustrates that the compound was properly applied.

Figure 10: CPU "fingerprint," showing the thermal compound was correctly applied

Room temperature measurements were taken with a digital thermometer. The core temperature was read with the SpeedFan program (available from the CPU thermal sensors), using an arithmetic average of the core temperature readings. During the tests, the left panel of the case was open.

We also tested the system with no thermal compound on the CPU.

Hardware Configuration

• Processor: Core i7-860
• CPU Cooler: Zalman CNPS9900 MAX
• Motherboard: Gigabyte P55A-UD6
• Memory: 2 GB Markvision (DDR3-1333/PC3-10700 with 9-9-9-22 timings), configured at 1,200 MHz
• Hard disk: Seagate Barracuda XT 2 TB
• Video card: Point of View GeForce GTX 460
• Power supply: Seventeam ST-550P-AM
• Case: 3RSystem L-1100 T.REX Cool

Operating System Configuration

• Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit

Software Used

• Prime95
• SpeedFan

Error Margin

Since both room temperature and core temperature readings have 1 °C resolution, we adopted a 2 °C error margin, meaning temperature differences below 2 °C are considered irrelevant.

[nextpage title=”Our Tests”]

The table below presents the results of our measurements.

Thermal Compound	Room Temp.	Core Temp.	Difference
No Thermal Compound	26 °C	88 °C	62 °C
Zalman ZM-STG2	24 °C	59 °C	35 °C
Prolimatech Thermal Compound	24 °C	56 °C	32 °C
Cooler Master Thermal Compound Kit	23 °C	58 °C	35 °C
Evercool EC420-TU15	22 °C	57 °C	35 °C
Spire Bluefrost	22 °C	58 °C	36 °C
Gelid GC Extreme	26 °C	61 °C	35 °C
Coolink Chillaramic	26 °C	61 °C	35 °C
Deepcool Z9	26 °C	61 °C	35 °C
Noctua NT-H1	26 °C	61 °C	35 °C
Thermalright The Chill Factor	26 °C	63 °C	37 °C
Antec Thermal Grease	24 °C	58 °C	34 °C
Arctic Silver 5	24 °C	57 °C	33 °C
Arctic Silver Céramique	24 °C	57 °C	33 °C
Biostar Nano Diamond	22 °C	57 °C	35 °C
Xigmatek PTI-G3606	22 °C	55 °C	33 °C
Antec Formula 7	21 °C	55 °C	34 °C
Arctic Cooling MX-4	21 °C	56 °C	35 °C
Cooler Master High Performance	22 °C	56 °C	34 °C
Thermaltake Thermal Compound	21 °C	54 °C	33 °C
Tuniq TX-3	22 °C	54 °C	32 °C
Shin-Etsu MicroSi	14 °C	49 °C	35 °C
Scythe Thermal Elixer Scyte-1000	14 °C	49 °C	35 °C
Titan Connoisseur Platinum Grease	14 °C	49 °C	35 °C
Evercool Cruise Missile STC-03	14 °C	49 °C	35 °C
Rosewill RCX-TC001	14 °C	53 °C	39 °C
Pink Lipstick	14 °C	54 °C	40 °C
Arctic Silver Matrix	12 °C	50 °C	38 °C
Evercool T-grease 800	13 °C	49 °C	36 °C
Gelid GC-2	13 °C	50 °C	37 °C
Prolimatech PK-1	13 °C	47 °C	34 °C
Tuniq TX-4	12 °C	48 °C	36 °C
Toothpaste	13 °C	53 °C	40 °C
Toothpaste (12 h after)	13 °C	56 °C	43 °C
Cooler Master ThermalFusion 400	13 °C	47 °C	34 °C
Evercool Deep Bomb	13 °C	47 °C	34 °C
TIM Consultants Thermal Grease	13 °C	48 °C	35 °C
Dow Corning TC-1996	13 °C	49 °C	36 °C
Nexus TMP-1000	13 °C	50 °C	37 °C
Spray oil	13 °C	53 °C	40 °C

In the following graph, at full load you can see how many degrees Celsius hotter the CPU core is than the air outside the case. The lower this difference, the better is the performance of the thermal compound. The red bars refer to the compounds included in the last batch.

[nextpage title=”Conclusions”]

Unfortunately (or fortunately), the results reached by the thermal compounds we tested in this batch are pretty much the same we are accustomed to seeing.

The five commercial thermal compounds were within the normal curve of performance, which means that they are good products.

The big question of the day was: is spray oil (nowadays used for several purposes) a good thermal compound? Well, let’s say it is as good as the other “alternative” compounds we tested so far (lipstick, toothpaste). It will work at first, but nobody knows how long it will endure before flowing away and degrading the cooling performance.