Innovation Cooling's Diamond 7 TIM test results

[tastymannatees]

Victor, I believe how you can get a higher overclock, simply because you can supply a little extra voltage if needed. However, for us crunchers, I don't think it'll make much of a difference, since we're never on the bleeding edge of stability.

There are 2 sides to this coin. One is the performance side which is pretty well established with approx 80% of the people seeing an improvement and with 50% seeing 3C or more over their previously installed grease. In my testing I have never seen a compound perform better than ICD7, that's not to say a couple do not come pretty close but we are at the bottom performance wise. For some 2C is a kind of "oh well" event and for others who are taking the holistic approach refining conditions throughout their system trying to get 10C lower it is another.

The other side here and the more critical point is what is the most important feature of any product besides it's performance?

It's quality. What if all CPU's steadily declined in performance a month after you bought them? or the shovel you just bought breaks the second time you use it? OEM compounds are quality type, not real exciting on the performance side but great over the long term.
Most of the 3C improvement are compared to installed pastes of less than 30 days. Most of the 4C to 14C improvements are on pastes that have been installed 30 days to one year. Less obvious because most have their eye on the absolute number, but not one of the competitive performance compounds hold up under stress. Over relatively short periods breakdown starts sometimes in only 4 weeks on highly stressed systems, less stressed maybe 12 weeks. ICD7 is bulk loaded Over 90% per Intel recommendation for stability, ICD7 is an OEM quality paste with high performance.

I realize the niggling focus on contact pressures and calibration is an irritation to some, it even annoys me but it is critical refinement to our trouble shooting for the 20% that do not and being able to do some guidance there long term saves people a lot of time remounting, re lapping and just generally beating their heads against a wall