# Geek Tested: 17 Thermal Pastes Face Off



## Jaskanwar Singh (Jan 24, 2012)

Maximum PC | Geek Tested: 17 Thermal Pastes Face Off



> *Conclusion*
> On an idling overclocked processor or a stock-clocked CPU, the differences between thermal pastes is minimal—we saw a spread of less than 4C between the best and worst thermal pastes in our roundup. At high temperatures—and we should reiterate that we overclocked the processor to 3.9GHz and used a custom thermal-stress utility to put an enormous thermal load on the CPU—we saw a spread of over 12C. Margin of error is plus or minus 2C to allow for ambient air temperature, which ranged from 23.8C to 25.4C throughout the testing procedure.
> 
> Of the seventeen thermal pastes in this roundup, Tuniq’s TX-4 scored the highest. Its burn temperature was 3C cooler than Arctic Silver 5’s. Eleven pastes earn our Geek Tested & Approved badge: Tuniq TX-4 and TX-2, Shin-Etsu MicroSI X23-7783D, Prolimatek PK-1, Arctic Cooling MX-4 and MX-2, Noctual NT-H1, Xigmatek PTI-G4512, ZeroTherm ZT-100, Cooler Master ThermalFusion 400, and good old Arctic Silver 5. We’d give pride of place to Tuniq’s TX-2, Arctic Cooling’s MX-2, and Prolimatech’s PK-1, because they’re slightly cheaper than some of the other premiere thermal interface materials.
> ...


----------



## Skud (Jan 24, 2012)

Hardware Secrets comes with a monthly test of thermal paste, here's this month's test:-

Thermal Compound Roundup - January 2012 | Hardware Secrets


The interesting thing is that they also test some common materials as thermal paste to check their efficiency, like lipstick, mustard, butter etc. 

Here's the results of the thermal pastes and materials they have tested so far:-

*i.imgur.com/SDaWG.gif


CM's pastes are not that bad.


----------



## Jaskanwar Singh (Jan 24, 2012)

hmmm..mayonnaise seems very good 

BTW good news for those who dont have any TIM applied, they can use a toothpaste and get a 22C drop in temp  and atleast we wont have to share our chocolate with cpu!


----------



## sukesh1090 (Jan 24, 2012)

^^
 guess what?with chocolate the temp is more compared to if we don't use any tim.lolz so chocolate is an awesome insulator of heat.that 150/- CM higher performance looks great bang for the buck.
 btw what is the name( of the thermal paste that comes with CM coolers(specifically hyper 212)
[sorry jas didn't see your post]


----------



## pramudit (Jan 24, 2012)

^^ luks like cpu teeths(pin) also become weak and unhealthy after eating chocolate...


----------



## Skud (Jan 24, 2012)

looks like I have hijacked Jas' thread...


----------



## ico (Jan 24, 2012)

pramudit said:


> ^^ luks like cpu teeths(pin) also become weak and unhealthy after eating chocolate...


it's more like CPU's back being massaged by chocolate.


----------



## coderunknown (Jan 24, 2012)

common paste/chocolate can be used but with rise in temperature, it'll melt & dip down onto the GPU or PSU. TIM must stick to the processor/hsf and shouldn't evaporate.


----------



## Skud (Jan 25, 2012)

Mustard will be hard to melt.


----------



## topgear (Jan 25, 2012)

great to see CM Thermal Fusion 400 doing really well to keep the temps low


----------



## gameranand (Feb 2, 2012)

Toothpaste and mustard seems like ideal deal. I mean look at their VFM. Lol


----------



## aby geek (Feb 6, 2012)

so if the tooth paste has menthol and mint will the temps drop further? 

hmm how about gellos?


----------

