The HardwareLogic Thermal Compound Round-Up

[screwballl]

excellent write up!!!
Good to see someone finally took the time to actually do this. Also I can understand where some aggravation comes in when doing this over a long period of time.

Good stuff, keep up the good work Rich.

[simple_inhibition]

awesome comparison rich! dug 3 times now

[theburan]

Sweet article! Thanks for writing it!

[Capper]

Originally Posted by Reloadron

Everything came out just great. Great collection of data for one to digest in making a decision.

Ron

Of course....but for some reason Ron (Reloadron) Blain didn't get the credit he deserved as co-author........this article would have been nothing without his help.

As to the roundup, thanks guys....it was much more a pain in the ass than I anticipated. Every compound was tested AT LEAST three times.....meaning if there were results that weren't consistent, I did it again to verify things. I wore the numbers off my processor and killed my testing motherboard.

A couple questions have come up....first, why don't we use graphs for our results. We don't use graphs on any of our reviews......I hate looking at a review and seeing 3 pages of content stretched over 20 pages.....We always try to highlight the best results and explain our conclusion well....but I'm not going to waste time, mine or yours, on some cool looking graph (If you can't look at numbers and decypher them, you shouldn't be tinkering with a computer anyway).

As far as "the worst"....none of the compounds were "terrible" all performed adequately for 99% of users......and all outperformed the stock cooling compound. If there was one I didn't like, it was the Coollaboratory LIQUIDPRO.......while it performed well, it was awful to work with removes any chance of RMAing your processor (AS you have to use a scrub pad to remove it), and it eats aluminum....over time it would have the same effect on copper.

Lastly....I am not bashing Arctic Silver 5....it is great stuff....but considering the cure time, electric conductivity, etc.....the 5 compounds I chose , I feel are much better options.

[Jokerswild]

Wow I'm amazed at the detail done to compare all these thermal compounds. Very good work.

[RangerXLT8]

Originally Posted by Capper

Of course....but for some reason Ron (Reloadron) Blain didn't get the credit he deserved as co-author........this article would have been nothing without his help.

As to the roundup, thanks guys....it was much more a pain in the ass than I anticipated. Every compound was tested AT LEAST three times.....meaning if there were results that weren't consistent, I did it again to verify things. I wore the numbers off my processor and killed my testing motherboard.

A couple questions have come up....first, why don't we use graphs for our results. We don't use graphs on any of our reviews......I hate looking at a review and seeing 3 pages of content stretched over 20 pages.....We always try to highlight the best results and explain our conclusion well....but I'm not going to waste time, mine or yours, on some cool looking graph (If you can't look at numbers and decypher them, you shouldn't be tinkering with a computer anyway).

As far as "the worst"....none of the compounds were "terrible" all performed adequately for 99% of users......and all outperformed the stock cooling compound. If there was one I didn't like, it was the Coollaboratory LIQUIDPRO.......while it performed well, it was awful to work with removes any chance of RMAing your processor (AS you have to use a scrub pad to remove it), and it eats aluminum....over time it would have the same effect on copper.

Lastly....I am not bashing Arctic Silver 5....it is great stuff....but considering the cure time, electric conductivity, etc.....the 5 compounds I chose , I feel are much better options.

Nice article guys it had to have taken soo many hours of hard work.

The IC7D came right in where I thought it would. IC7D, just removing it one or two times from my processor is already starting to take the numbers off my processor. I guess the diamonds scrape scrape the processor when removing it with a coffee filter and Arti-Clean...

[theburan]

Hmm, I just read through part three of Tom's Hardwares cpu cooler roundup, and I thought it was quite funny that when they tested the intel box coolers with the stock, pre-applied thermal paste, instead of the (junk?) industrial thermal paste they were using (armasan t12 or something random like that...), well, the pre-applied stuff was far superior, lol. To the point where with the stock thermal paste the processor would be fine, but with their industrial stuff the cpu would be either throttling itself or on the verge of throttling.

I guess they needed a review like this a little sooner, lol!

[onebxr]

Originally Posted by RangerXLT8

Nice article guys it had to have taken soo many hours of hard work.

The IC7D came right in where I thought it would. IC7D, just removing it one or two times from my processor is already starting to take the numbers off my processor. I guess the diamonds scrape scrape the processor when removing it with a coffee filter and Arti-Clean...

I use turpentine and a belt sander to get my thermal compound off.
Not really I use 70% alcohol/coffee filters, I would use 90% but they dont trust us Texans with anything over 70 proof!
-1

[azianai]

great review man, i'd hate to have to keep removing and applying the thermal lol

[Capper]

Originally Posted by theburan

Hmm, I just read through part three of Tom's Hardwares cpu cooler roundup, and I thought it was quite funny that when they tested the intel box coolers with the stock, pre-applied thermal paste, instead of the (junk?) industrial thermal paste they were using (armasan t12 or something random like that...), well, the pre-applied stuff was far superior, lol. To the point where with the stock thermal paste the processor would be fine, but with their industrial stuff the cpu would be either throttling itself or on the verge of throttling.

I guess they needed a review like this a little sooner, lol!

We've touched on that review a few times....IMO its a terrible review. It seemed they were looking for reasons to fail coolers, and tossed out common sense when they wrote that.