Proper test of thermal pastes

**elmor** · 12-02-2010, 08:43 AM

After many speculations about which impact thermal pastes have when overclocking at really low temperatures I decided to test it out.

To get some good results I produced a simple dummy heat load consisting of five power resistors developing around 36W each (180W total). This should be close to what a cpu produces under these conditions.

The setup consists of this dummy load with a F1EE standing on top of it (figured the weight was enough). One thermal probe is attached to the base of the pot and the other to one of the power resistors.

The thermal pastes tested were Arctic Cooling Ceramique, OCZ Freeze and Antec Formula 7. The results were the following:

Temperature delta:

As you can see Ceramique is terrible all the way, the Antec is doing very good however failing when temperatures are reaching around -50*C. The OCZ is clearly the winner but something particular happens at around -165*C. The dummy load temperature suddenly starts increasing. The temperature delta increases from around 50*C to 70*C and stays there until I went back to around -50*C pot temp.

I'll try to get my hands on some more thermal pastes to find an alternative to the Freeze which is EOL.

**diezel** · 12-02-2010, 08:48 AM

this is good mate thanks

**Leeghoofd** · 12-02-2010, 08:50 AM

Great job Jon !! Some say the ceramique works better if you heat up first, let it cool down and then start benching...

**K404** · 12-02-2010, 08:58 AM

Thanks for posting this up Jon!

Some more ideas in here:

http://www.ocxtreme.org/forumenus/showthread.php?t=6122

Last time I buy Arctic Ceramique then.....

There must be something that uses the same recipe as OCZ Freeze?

**Hondacity** · 12-02-2010, 11:11 AM

nice work elmor....

some tim/pastes just freeze and becomes an insulator at really cold temps....

also applying something really thin helps alot...

how did you apply the thermalpaste?

**Dani-boy** · 12-02-2010, 02:24 PM

nice findings, maby next time try without thermal paste so we can se how much it helps or maby even makes the tempreture worse

**KanGaXx** · 12-02-2010, 02:28 PM

so what we have to do ? benching without thermal paste?

dow corning how it perfoms ?

**ScottALot** · 12-02-2010, 04:12 PM

Get some Shin Etsu!

**rbuass** · 12-02-2010, 04:58 PM

Nice work Elmor...
That s a pity we can t find OCZ freeze...
I did try PerformancePC, Sidewindercomputers, Frozen CPU and Petra's Shop...then...is very hard to find...
Do you know where are the thermal for sell???

**Wumpus** · 12-02-2010, 05:52 PM

I might try gelid GC extreme...heard it was pretty damn good

**Johnny87au** · 12-02-2010, 06:09 PM

rbauss i got heaps of ocz freeze if you want some mate, Cant wait to see more tests with some shin/mx- series

**steponz** · 12-02-2010, 06:45 PM

One of the reasons I have used ocz for a while... actually its not.. I stumbled on it by chance...

It would be cool to try different methods of applying the paste also to see if it makes a difference... should make for a great read...

Keep it up...

**ScottALot** · 12-02-2010, 07:09 PM

http://www.amazon.com/Ocztfrztc-Extr.../dp/B00128TA78 is the only legit place I can find it at.

**Deux** · 12-02-2010, 08:04 PM

Very interesting results

I'd love to see ICD7 tested if you're planning to continue doing this testing. I switched from ceramique to ICD7 on a CB free chip and gained ~200MHz could have been a fluke who knows. IIRC, the thermal conductivity of diamond is higher than copper at cryogenic temperatures so should be pretty solid.

**subaruwrc** · 12-03-2010, 05:16 AM

so arctic ceramique sucks in subzero?
well its good to hear after buying a 22gr tube .. .. .... .

**KanGaXx** · 12-03-2010, 06:30 AM

ICD7 or antec formula 7 ?? anyone tryed ?

**slaske6** · 12-03-2010, 06:47 AM

nice test elmor , iam using the ocz freeze on my 275 gtx , but sombody says TITAN NANO BLUE is better
again nice test m8

**tsan** · 12-03-2010, 08:39 AM

I have tryed 8~10 thermal paste (coolmaster,noctua,revoltec,.....)
best than these they is titan nano grease and revoltec nano grease
http://www.revoltec.net/revoltec.net...websiteLang=en
http://www.titan-cd.com/product/show...sp?ProID=861:D

**Don_Corleone** · 12-03-2010, 10:02 AM

Nice work elmor
Tnx for sharing

**Pupo** · 12-03-2010, 11:04 AM

Well done, just a pity that you dont have more different thermal pastes (MX-3, generic Zalman, AS5)

**tsan** · 12-03-2010, 11:26 AM

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...highlight=tsan
wprime 32m revoltec nano grease
wprime 1024m+3dmarck06+vantage titan nano grease

**TiN_** · 12-03-2010, 12:04 PM

how did you collect temp data, elmor ?

It's unclear from your post.

You can mod your flukes to have dual channel on both and to make precise data logs from them (max speed = 1 meas/sec).

Like this :

I did the guide on KPC forums

**elmor** · 12-03-2010, 02:31 PM

Originally Posted by Hondacity

nice work elmor....

some tim/pastes just freeze and becomes an insulator at really cold temps....

also applying something really thin helps alot...

how did you apply the thermalpaste?

Just a blob that spreads out when I mount the pot.

Originally Posted by Dani-boy

nice findings, maby next time try without thermal paste so we can se how much it helps or maby even makes the tempreture worse

I tested really quickly and it's way worse. Already at positive temperatures the delta was around 80*C.

Originally Posted by rbuass

Nice work Elmor...
That s a pity we can t find OCZ freeze...
I did try PerformancePC, Sidewindercomputers, Frozen CPU and Petra's Shop...then...is very hard to find...
Do you know where are the thermal for sell???

It's hard to find since it's EOL. There should be some other good ones though

Originally Posted by tsan

I have tryed 8~10 thermal paste (coolmaster,noctua,revoltec,.....)
best than these they is titan nano grease and revoltec nano grease
http://www.revoltec.net/revoltec.net...websiteLang=en
http://www.titan-cd.com/product/show...sp?ProID=861:D

Cool, will have to try and get some of those.

Originally Posted by TiN_EOF

how did you collect temp data, elmor ?

It's unclear from your post.

You can mod your flukes to have dual channel on both and to make precise data logs from them (max speed = 1 meas/sec).

Like this :

I did the guide on KPC forums

Manually :P Havn't had time to start modding the flukes yet (have ordered parts though).

**youngpro** · 12-03-2010, 04:01 PM

nice elmor, Dino and I have been banging on about this for a few months now, it is a very interesting subject,

I have been collecting data on 10 thermal pastes over the last month,

Ceramique delta I have found to be very good over repeated tests but it fails miserably at -120, but if you have a -100 chip the delta can be nothing..

I have tested Antec Formula7, Ceramique, Arctic Silver, Noctua, Thermalright, Coolaboratory, OCZ Freeze, some others I can't remember LOL

If you check the specifications of all these products, the lowest any of them claim to be rated is -50.. But we are all using lower than this right?

oh guys OCZ freeze is EOL now..

**Hondacity** · 12-03-2010, 04:43 PM

Originally Posted by elmor

Just a blob that spreads out when I mount the pot.

ceramique is multiphase..you have to heat the pot up so that it will change into another phase...when you tightten the pot it does spread out..but better compared to ceramique that is cold

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