Thanks everybody @LTT for the testing! The methodology was fair and it's good you used Noctua's best thermal paste with their own NH-D15 cooler as a benchmark. We've modified the test rig and are now formulating a liquid metal alternative, stay tuned.
Matching an R&D marvel of an experienced, specialized top-tier manufacturer is beyond impressive, and it seems that's just a start. You guys rock and these kinds of videos are SO much more fun and informative than another computer building. More power to you and please more videos like this.
I'm convinced that LMGs interview process involves a test where the hand a candidate something on camera to see if they drop it. If they do, they get hired.
I don't see the point in not spreading the thermal compound with a spatula though. Wouldn't it be logical if spread is an issue to manually do it yourself? That is the way I do it and it drives me nuts to see that no matter the application there are often dead spots left behind.
They are. Go have a look at their videos. :D They do all sorts of stuff! Air con to electro-hydro-dynamic drive*. Rum to rocket motors! * As made famous in _The Hunt For Red October._
This is here for people who don't realise this is a joke, and need an explanation as to Alex's methodology. By using a case, they would be introducing another variable; this way they can control the ambient temperature. If the PC was in a case, other variables would contribute to temperatures, skewing their findings (admittedly unscientific).
I’ve just realised that when Alex is not trying to dumb things down for some lowest common denominator he becomes a much better and more natural host. This ironically makes for much better communication.
Grandpa: Builds a complex setup to minimize variables in order to say if stuff is good or not LTT: We don't care about that, we got REAL WORLD *LTT does real world test* LTT: Our setup is so shitty, we have no idea which one is actually better 🤷♂️
@@nlingrel No they were correct in saying that. There is literally a 0.9 degree difference in the average, and the noctua's lowest run was lower than TI's lowest run. Considering run to run variance you cannot conclusively say one is better than the other.
That's kinda the point though. For a real world setting you can expect about the same performance from the two. Doesn't really matter if one is like 0.01% better in a tightly controlled experiment.
They've probably tried harder for consistency than any actual person applying thermal paste to their PC. Goes to show that incredibly marginal gains don't really matter.
No offense but Tech ingredients deserved a better analysis of their thermal paste, I was excited to see this video but it feels really "thrown together at the last minute" thing, I just feel Gamers Nexus would have done something way better
could be an "ok linus we'll do it your way first and let the comments agree with me that we need a better control environment before we spend $5000 on making a thermal test control room in the warehouse and test for a few weeks with no content coming out of it in the meantime except a build vlog while you pay our wage still" thing, too. honestly though, it's "good enough" (in my opinion) to verify (for a future vid) that maybe testing needs to be done with a de-lidded and liquid-metal-repaste, incase the die-to-ihs tim is bottlenecking both pastes' abilities, and make linus go "OK FINE DELID THAT SUCKER" but then again idk how much a benefit, if any, liquid metal has over the die's tim, since iirc intel uses solder now
Indeed. It's not just the test environment but the script (or possible lack thereof) being very disorganized. I haven't seen anything this bad from LTT since the Anthony vs Linus repair challenge.
Yeah, seems like a rather rushed video, and no real thought put into any reasoning, I can almost predict that the increase across the tests was due to heat soak from the other components/case, looks like the tests were carried out almost imediatly one after the other only stopping to switch paste. Not really a fair comparison.A haphazard video and I would really hope for better from an LTT video.
1:18 kinda supports this statement. GN has the proper testing apparatus and solid testing procedures. The only issue with GN is that they are sponsored heavily by Thermal Grizzly. While I think the majority of viewers, myself included, would trust them, it's still important to consider.
I'm really looking forward to getting an order with Tech Ingredients. Even if it would have been worse (withing a few degrees) I would buy to help support their shenanigans.
@@joshuascholar3220 the "easy to make at home" one was glycerine. The high performance one was some specialist silicone oil, yes we still don't know if it will evaporate, but they did say in the video that they tested that
@@joshuascholar3220 I'm not certain, but I don't think glycerin does much until it's heated to its boiling point, much hotter than it would get in this application. Anyway I'm also curious how long it lasts.
I HAVE INCURRED SO MUCH LOSSES TRADING ON MY OWN...I TRADE WELL ON DEMO BUT I THINK THE REAL MARKET IS MANIPULATED... CAN ANYONE HELP ME OUT OR AT LEAST TELL ME WHAT I'M DOING WRONG ?
Ok, PC Jesus needs to get involved in this. If Tech Ingredients Grandpa was to build a case with an integrated fluid cooling system I suspect it would be the most BOSS cooling system ever.
That... is actually quite likely, given that the thermal paste videos are on his 'Cooling' playlist: ua-cam.com/play/PLzrI14lOlSqeS5pNkRCiV1-yhoBlCmxms.html
@@chunye215 you don't see many older people use UA-cam. So if you have gray hair you're pretty much a grandpa on here. He probably could be a grandpa too by now tho.
@@Kiritomens You don’t think Gen X folks waste hours and hours on UA-cam? You don’t think Gen X folks don’t have a TON of active channels? If you watch this, I assume you know who Jays2cents is?
He is great because unlike most he runs down everything in detail, alternatives, and why the alternatives might work or not and why he chose what he did. its less of a "heres how to do it" and more of a "how to do it, and why so you can adjust"
Some people (not you Rob) need to learn to lighten up a bit and understand a joke. If Tech Ingredients got upset about it then I'm sure the LTT staff would apologize but it's not meant to be insulting or mean beyond just being a joke. I'm 32, if a15 year old called me Grandpa or old man I'd probably call them a little brat or something, all in good fun (unless they got physical with me or really carried it too far which LTT has not).
Agreed, PC Jesus and Co is a much better choice to go with testing. More than disappointed with the condescending tone. TI's "shed" is much better equipped than LTT from what I've seen.
He's still unboxing the blower test bench crate, probably needs to be calibrated again on site for verification the shipping and installation didn't screw it up.
Yeah. I mean, I wasn't expecting as good testing as GN would do here but this video was... like someone said "hey you go in the back room and make this video we don't want to make." Then rush released it. I was excited to see this video. Now I'm disappointed.
So every time someone does a thermal test these days there is a dogpile of people that come from n to say "Steve would have done it better". Please stop. You aren't helping Steve is many things, an excellent and forceful advocate for consumers, and an intelligent and thoughtful journalist first and foremost. But he is absolutely not to everyones taste, and frankly I find Alex and Collins video more entertaining and more compelling than the video Steve would have produced. Yeah, it's less scientific, yeah there isn't as much data as there could be, but I can also say as a field engineer that their test more closely mimics the reality an end user of the product would likely see. It's fun, and it meets the LTT audience where it's at, and doesn't demand that I engage in rigorous examination of the methodology. There is 💯 a place for that kind of content, and I am great ful for the rigor that Steve puts into holding manufacturers to their claims, but not everything needs to be addressed that way, and constantly chiming in on other channels to tell them that GN does it better does not reflect well on Steve's audience. Commenters like you are a large part of the reason he has to go out of his way to tell his audience not to go review bomb other UA-camrs.
@@isl1ngt0n The reason isn't taste, it's rigorous process and equipment. In regards to this stuff specifically, its because GN actually have tailor made, proper lab test equipment for this. That enables testing with far more variables under control. Meaning the results you get _much (!)_ more closely represent the merits of the actual product you're testing, instead of having tens or even hundreds of other variables affecting your results, many of which you have neither control over nor data on. Also if you don't like GN's or Steve Burke's "style" / persona / presentation, I would like to point out that Gamers Nexus was a _written articles_ hardware testing and news site long before becoming a UA-cam channel. And more importantly, _they still are._ If you would like the GN testing data/results, or a review or hw news piece, but don't like their UA-cam stuff - GN still publish almost all of their content in written article format too. Good articles, not just video version script copypasta. I would suggest giving one of them a chance if you are inclined to such reading, there's definitely gonna be some interesting ones on Alder Lake, Z690 and DDR5 the next handful of days. While I personally enjoy the YT stuff, I often check their articles when wanting/needing a review's test data. For that, I personally find the article format to be more easily digestible. The huge clusterf**k of uncontrolled variables is the challenge with these kinds of uncientific, "real world" comparison tests. Practically no one else is gonna have an identical setup as yours. Here, we have a huge amount of variables you cannot account for, and _a sample group of one._ If you want to get reasonably clear data from "real world" tests of something individually applied, assembled, configured and operated by users, you certainly can - but you need gigantic sample groups. Only one sample of a "real world" test like this, is the measured and statistical accuracy equivalent to the seat belt analogy, here: "Seatbelts serve no purpose and make no difference, because _I_ drove to the store _once_ and did not crash". Ps. Please forgive the typos, I'm sure there's several. And have a great day.
For test results to have value, you have to establish what you are testing for. This is a test whether or not it matters if you use A or B in a real world scenario. It doesn't. I have never spend money on after market paste, because ever cooler I have bought came with good paste. If I need after market paste, I'm going to spend 8 bucks, and not worry too much about whether another paste might give me a result that is 2 degrees Celsius lower,
To be fair, that guy in the shed who made this isn't normal. He's incredibly intelligent, detail oriented, meticulous, almost obsessive. His video on this popped up in my feed recently, but I haven't watched it yet because his videos take my total attention and his video on the thermal paste is over 40 minutes long.
Dude, the guy has in his "shed" more stuff then some labs have. While he is a bright guy, he has the tools too. Those industrial mixers are pretty expensive.
He did have a serendipidous "accident" when selecting powders for heat conduction, I am willing to bet not many in the "professional" Thermal Interface Material field have stumbled upon it, because it seems so counter-intuitive at first. This is probably what gives their paste an edge, even if it is not perfectly mixed as it could be with proper, but really expensive equipment. Watch both videos of TI would be my recommendation
Honestly i most probably wouldn't have known about this unless LMG made a video. I love gamers Nexus but honestly i don't really watch unless I am interested in a product.
I think this was as much effort as needed to understand how it would perform in the real world. It's all fine and good to test this in isolation, but in reality none of us are going to intentionally replicate even this level of consistency in our own homes. It might be the best thermal paste _in theory_ in a well controlled environment. But in real world use, it is at best at least as good as the best thermal paste on the market, and at worst offering less value per unit than its competition because TI doesn't have the resources to produce the volume themselves that would compete with the big players.
Steve's tester is probably about the same as Tech Ingredients, so if TI said theirs was better then so will Steve. But doing a real world test like this one puts that in perspective. Does measured a little better matter? Real world test says "no."
@@UndeadSoulOfPopeBenedict Did you not notice the low quality of the editing, possible complete lack of script and direction in addition to the bad testing methodology? It appears like a rushed video, ala the Linus vs Anthony repair video. I hope LTT can get their shit together and not keep releasing low quality content.
Yeah. I mean, I wasn't expecting as good testing as GN would do here but this video was... like someone said "hey you go in the back room and make this video we don't want to make." Then rush released it. I was excited to see this video. Now I'm disappointed.
@@mokahless The effort behind this video was actually kind of embarrassing to watch for being a follow-up to those Tech Ingredients videos. LTT couldn't even reproduce their own numbers for the noctua paste, so their conclusion was a shoulder shrug and "meh good enough." This level of phoning it in is more fitting of a teenager flipping burgers at mcdonalds.
These tests mean nothing if the stuff degrades over time and that would take years under load to know. Manufacturers have to be conservative and not manufacture paste that will shit the bed within a few years.
Some thermal pastes lose efficiency over time as they dry up & harden, I would like to see them do a 1-month long "burn-in" test to see if it actually holds up against the competition.
Over the years I have had the opportunity to do that with a few big name pastes, although my tests have all been at least 1 year. Here is the order of the most stable paste, as well as their thermal ranking: 1. Coolermaster MasterGel Maker (3rd) 2. Arctic Silver 5 (4th) 3. Noctua NT-H1 (2nd) 4. Noctua NT-H2 (Tied with 1st) 5. Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut (Tied with 1st) My recommendations if you want the longest lasting paste with very acceptable performance, I have ran chips with Coolermaster MasterGel Maker for 5+ years with no change in performance. Noctua NT-H1 is the best compromise between performance and longevity, it will perform well for 2+ years before it begins slowly getting warmer. Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut and Noctua NT-H2 are interchangeable performance wise, but Kryonaut is extremely unstable and falls behind NT-H2 after about 6-8 months on average depending on how hot the paste is getting. Noctua NT-H2 is not as stable as NT-H1, it is also more prone to pump out (although not as bad as Kryonaut is), NT-H2 averages about 1 year or 1.5 years before a new application should be considered. The most valuable lesson I've learned from my own testing is that Kryonaut should absolutely not be used in a 24/7 system. It's excellent for sub-ambient and bench testing, but in a system that you're actually using for long periods it is a waste of money.
The bigger factor is thermal creep. The silicone oil suspension medium both under pressure and experiencing thermal expansion cycles tends to creep out of the suspension and dissipate. This is a major problem with thermal pastes for aerospace where wild temperature and pressure swings exacerbate the problem but it's still a problem at normal temperatures over time. While there is some evaporation of silicone suspension mediums, most of the drying you see with old thermal paste is due to thermal creep.
I can add MX-4 that works fine for a long time between IHS and a cooler, but once put under the lid and it sees around 90C temperatures, the oil separates from the paste within 1-2 days
I totally believe that TI has made good performing paste, but what I'd really like to see tested is the longevity. I don't recall what maker it was, but paste performed well for about year and then temps began to increase dramatically. Opened up the machine and paste had completely dried up. I've never seen this tested.
@@barnett25 That's excellent thing to hear and I'm really glad they've considered this issue. Gotta check out their video. They definitely earn and need all the views they can get. 👍👍
Yeah, shelf live and longterm stability. Those are way more important than 1-2°C for the first few weeks (aside from extreme overclockers). Best example is the thermal paste that OEMs and Intel are using - by far not the best in terms of performance, but they still do their job even after 5 years.
@@ABaumstumpf I fully agree with that. I don't want to open laptops etc. to replace paste. Writing this comment with older business series Lenovo laptop that was bought from reputable distributor. Sales information said that they change thermal paste for models they sell. That's now been about year ago. Either they didn't change the paste and it's now failing or they've used some really poor quality one. Anyway looks like I have to do it to this myself 🙄
That would be thermal grizzly. That's why once in an interview with Steve, Derbauer w̶a̶n̶t̶e̶d̶ recommended you to re-apply your thermal paste every year.
@@barnett25 I watch ltt more for the hey this exists gamers Nexus has set a high bar for testing and it just seems ltt is more focused for the casual but they seem to not really be interested in even trying to meet thebbat for testing like come on how hard is it to do better testing the have the manpower and equipment they just need to put in the effort. This glosses over the cost for the man power and time but I don't expect them to change they have their segment of the tech space and Steve has the other segment but they have halfway decent projects that are cool for time to time.
Can you test it being a bit more generous? I mean you can totally account for less spread with more paste, right? You wouldn't test it against a pea-sized piece of thermal pad either ;)
They don't take it seriously that's all. If they were enthusiastic about it, Linus would do it and do it better. but obviously here no sponsor so.. LTT is so big, they've forgotten their beginnings.
It's a lot better than most. And Steve's set up is probably too similar to TI's - this puts "measures slightly better in a calorimeter [or whatever it's called]" into context.
Problem is, the comments would've probably imploded with people telling them spreading TIM would create air pockets. It's just easier and more consistent to do it the way they did.
@@hamajangz9586 It is easier and probably more consistent because of it, but not necessarily ideal. I've seen very little spreading due to heat in TIM myself.
@Mario Kart Manual spreading was there before heatspreaders and it is still preffered for direct die. (now mostly gpus). With direct die if you don't get all the corners pasted you risk hotspots. (and 20years ago cpus didn't throttle or turn off they just released magic smoke and died). And if you take off the cooler to check the spread and plonk it back the chance of trapped bubbles is probably higher than with carefull spreading.
Focusing on spread and intentionally applying too little paste seems like a weird test to me. You can always just apply more, it's totally fine. With proper mounting pressure, you really can't over apply it.
True. I'll never understand why people add so little paste it's never covering the whole IHS. 100% coverage always dissipates more heat than just a tiny spot in the center.
As Steve from GN has shown us a couple of years ago, even before the whole Verge PC building debacle (where people derided Stefan for the application, it wasn't pretty but it was serviceable).
I disagree. LTT should play with this but... WTF was with this video? Rushed? Low quality? Oops our results weren't as tightly contained as expected release anyway?
@@tim3172 I have no idea what sort of series I had. But I remember it was the last model before they phased it out to get the new models in. Strange though, what I heard about AMD at the time was completely opposite for me. Those were the ones that had a lot of thermal issues, that's why almost everyone preferred intel. It was 3rd hand info, but that's what I heard. I did have issues with Radeon cards though. Every single time I buy one to replace an old one, I keep getting re-reminded why I had Nvidia instead. It was always a massive source of headache for various reasons.
@@noiJadisCailleach it depended on which P4 you got. The Willamette cores were decent and Northwood were the refined later gen P4 chips after the disaster known as Prescott.
ikr! I watch LTT from like beginning and remember themselves tried diy thermal solutions and they failed horribly. come to think of it, maybe that was their point. to fail and show these company products are better (they're been sponsored anyway).
@@noiJadisCailleach Maybe he needs work then. Let's hope videos like this are getting proper internal feedback and Linus is simply pushing his employees to practice making videos in the real world, rather than this being an example of some kind of LTT decline in quality. This video really was poorly put together, not just for a lack of testing methodology. That Linus vs Anthony video was rough.
Alex's testing methodology was so poor it had margins of error greater than the differences between pastes. I can't believe they would post a video like this. Doesn't do Tech Ingredients any justice.
After all these years how does LMG not have a temperature controlled booth for thermal tests like this? Make it sound proof too to do noise testing. It only has to be like closet sized, you have plenty of space.
The name Linus MEDIA Group explains it all.The entire purpose of the company is to make videos.They dont have the space or reason to get that kind of equipment.Its kinda obvious when you see how much space and equipment they dedicate to video production.If you are watching ltt videos expecting they will do a proper job explaining and comparing things then you are watching the wrong channel.
@@pesho9971 They produce tons of content whenever they upgrade their facility. Any upgrade can be made into a video. Temperature controlled booth ("testing upgrade") could easily be one of them.
I'm disgusted by LTT's double standards. they could've done a better job to test this, if this was a sponsored product they would've done plethora of testing and get it right. didn't see an ounce of respect towards another youtuber who idolise them enough to send their best product aside from the constant mockery. shame on you Alex and LTT.
I know this is an old comment, but. There is no double standard here. A test with perfect mounting pressure and temperature and all will never be the real world. The reals world usage will not always have perfect thermal spread over the IHS, or perfect TIM spread. Just like benchmarks with synthetic loads, the testing they could have done would never be achieved in the real world, creating something that is not what will actually be seen and experienced in the real world use cases.
Why wouldn't reducing the amount of IC diamond you put in the center and then adding a little extra IC diamond closer to the corners outperform the Noctua paste, if the only factor is spread?
Or using the credit card method. It sounds like for Noctua, they've got the single dot application down but it's not as taking a minute to spread the paste is a big deal if it can improve your temps.
Spread isnt the determining factor in performance, thinness of the layer is. For the same volume of paste, and compression force, spread is an indicator of how thin the layer is though. It basically works out to "the paste stops flowing outwards at x PSI of pressure" If a paste is so viscous that it doesnt squeeze into a thinner layer, then boosting coverage by using multiple dots wont be as significant as switching to a less viscous paste that can spread into a very thin layer. I.e. if a paste has twice the bulk thermal resistance, but makes a layer 1/4 as thick, it can have half the actual thermal resistance of the original "better" paste, because there is less of it in the way. But to have a thinner paste, you need more carrier oil and less thermally conductive filler, so its all about balance. I.e. as said in the video.
I don't know about you, but a consistent 2C difference is about the result I would expect. After testing this stuff on laptops, I can confirm it results in the lowest temperature by a very small margin compared to things like kryonaut and syy-157. Very pricey for the amount you get though. Can't beat gd-900 in value.
Wait... they signed that letter as Eric and Alex? So I guess we finally found out the presenters' names? Assumedly the main presenter is Eric and the oft-cameraman and occasional second presenter is Alex.
If you aren't overclocking to the point you have to worry about thermals with a cheap aftermarket cooler, thermal paste isn't that important. I'm running a 4770k oc to 4.4ghz, slapped a hyper 212 Evo on it. The thermal paste I have is shitty and degraded and I still don't ever go over 80C, and my fans never spin up to be noticable over the sound of a HEPA fan on low I keep in my room. The majority of all this technology stuff is trying to make you think you are missing out if you don't buy the new thing, these videos make you feel like you are behind the curve if you don't spend a bunch of money. But even in places here the tech is important, like digital photography, even the professionals aren't using the newest stuff.
The paste properties seem to be intrinsically tied to the mesh sizing of the Aluminum powder added. Specifically it needs to be a combination of 3 and 5 micron Al beads. I may have misremembered the exact mesh sizes however the idea is that you have one effect from the 5 micron and another effect from the 3 micron, and then the 2 sizes talk (ie. exchange heat) with each other. The most interesting thing is the emergent properties that arise from sizing control.
@@deelkar Yeah, it definitely looks like a size/mechanical regime of thermodynamics. I wonder if someone could convince thermal paste to grow dendrites? That would be cool, waiting for a battery reaction to activate your thermal compound.
@@deelkar Also, silane solutions are very interesting. The VAPSA research I was involved with was heavily into the stuff. Not my department though. We were all about the ASAP (Accelerated Surface Area Porosimetry) research. Nothing like loading a steel ball into an instrument, wait 10 minutes, take ball out, wait 10 minutes, repeat until you are completely mad and there you go it's Calibrated. Stupid ASAP instrumentation!!!
Super proud of seeing Tech Ingredients in LTT content ! :D Well deserved they're doing amazing quality content ! Anyway, am I the only one using the credit card spread technique on thermal paste or what ?
Back when Athlon CPUs were new and overclockable with a pencil, Arctic Silver 3 (i think this was the version) was the premium thermal compound, The prevailing procedure was to apply tiny tiny amounts, with the theory that it was just there to fill in the (air) gaps between surfaces, and heat transmission still relied predominantly on metal to metal (well, metal to chip die, technically) contact, not on a distinct layer of paste. it worked, and this was before heat pipes were in air coolers. Now we smear it on like we're icing a cake... interesting how things change.
Because the smarter voices finally prevailed over the ignorant ones. Metal-metal contact will happen because the mounting force will squish out the extra thermal paste. The tiny amount of extra metal contact you get by using microscopic amounts of paste is outweighed by the benefits of full IHS coverage you get by applying a lot of paste in an X and the drawbacks of manually spreading the paste and introducing air pockets.
@@angolin9352 not saying current methods are bad (or good), just commenting on how they have changed. At the time, I distinctly remember seeing tests that showed thicker amounts of paste led to poorer performance. I know paste and cooling tech has changed a lot since then, not to mention the presence of an IHS.
What? No PC builder in their right mind would only use a "pea size" if they knew it wasn't spreading to ALL the edges and corners. This is VERY poor testing! This might be mimicking the behavior of a super-n00b but n00bs are NOT going to be using alternative TIMs... What the hell LTT??? Also I know for sure you guys have a room that is cool with the AC off and /also/ maintains a steady ambient - because it was used in some of your previous videos. That you allowed an AC unit to influence your results is pathetic! WTF???
LINUS PLS MAKE M1 MAX VS RTX 3080 165W :D (with optimus disabled and also what happens when unplugged on both the devices pls ) and which one is better? Suggestions please :D ! TY in advance if u do make this video that is xD
I mean, was this a joke? "Tech Grandpa"? How disrespectful and condescending, coming from some millennial punks. That "grandpa" has more intellect and experience than everyone involved in that "test" include Mr. Sebastian as well. Now, I know they were laughing the whole time, and saying "grain of salt" and "incredibly unscientific", but then using proper test equipment, considering environmental conditions, compiling data from averaging testing runs. Serious or not, which is it? I get the whole "for entertainment only" clause, sorta like "not financial advise, not a financial advisor",.. but I just see this as...LTT wanting to be part of a serious conversation, but not wanting to do the work that would qualify them to have their input be seriously considered, as well as not being able to be called out, because they can just say "aahh, we were just goofing off, we weren't really trying". Its a cop out. I feel this is also part of a terrible trend that has been going on at LMG in my opinion,... quick, crap videos. Likely, it's from LMG being over-scaled at this point. Also, noticed Linus' occasional erratic behavior on camera. Something is awry. Maybe they need to step back and reevaluate their current course.
Why was this (apparently intentionally) such a half-assed video? Poor methodology and inconsistent techniques, constantly laughing and acknowledging the lameness. Why? I was not expecting the kind of in-depth coverage that TI produced, but the idea of a homemade compound that could save PC builders and repairers £££, surely deserved better than this?
It's midnight in India and I am a literature student, yet I'm watching this. I don't know a thing about computers or chemistry. My laptop is kinda not working and I miss it and the guy who was supposed to come and fix it has been putting it off on the next day for like three days now. I am SO pissed at him rn but I can't say a word because that minx is the only one who can fix it. FUCK On that I have to take an online test tomorrow and my parents have planned an outing EXACTLY tomorrow and when I asked them to postpone it, they clearly denied saying God ain't gonna wait for you-they were taking us to a temple which is good, but not on the same day when you've got two novels to read, a test to take and also an important class which won't even be recorded. So, ya! Thermal paste to stick or idgaf melt glass... WHATEVER ig i need a diary
It's quite disappointing, that even now there are no good thermal paste tests, this video is, unfortunately, no exception. Firstly, you locked ONLY the core voltages, you should have locked all available voltages. Secondly, you didn't lock the fan speed. Lastly, different thermal paste reach their optimal operating mode at different times, some thermal paste needs a few hours, but some, up to 2 days, but you concluded the test in 2 hours.
But aren't tests like these the actual real world tests that should be conducted? Like what use has for all of us as customers knowing that a thermal compound is great in a super clean place with a thermostat at 20°C under a noctua D15 which is like "the best" air cooler ever on an open air test bench? I'd like to know more like how a good cooler behaves in a bad case or how much difference does it make to apply the paste "this way" or "that way" or how does anything behave or work in a room that is 25-30°C with humidity because it's 37°C outside in a hot day in summer. Or the opposite, it's -15°C or something. Like most of us will have different situations that have to be accounted for. It makes sense to design a product for optimal use and to test it in said optimal situation, for the company. But for the rest of us, what Alex is doing is what makes sense. You could say you're a bit of a scientist yourself, Alex.
When we're talking any thermal paste, there is mostly 1 degree difference between the best non elec conductive stuff and an average one. You need really stringent testing to get good results on this stuff.
Yeah that's just blatantly fkn wrong lol. From Guru3D's article on it earlier this year than can be a nearly 10c difference between various brands and TIMs.
It’s not that hard to come close to the top consumer brand paste. Buy a 1kg can of thermal interface material from a chemical company such as Shin-Etsu, repackage it into syringes and there you have it. Dirt cheap and works extremely well. Consumer brands these days are all about fancy packaging and marketing, there isn't really much R&D involved. In fact I know some of those top brands actually only do repackaging.
You guys need a cold room that is specifically maintained perfectly at a temperature of your choice. No variation in temperature means you can do your tests better.
@@dalemonroe1779 I mean, they could replicate his setup, it just isn't really worth it for them. It is kinda surprising that after all these years they haven't just built a little temperature controlled soundproof booth to do testing in.
Don't really think that's needed for the purpose of determining if it's worth a purchase for home use. Basically, unless you can guarantee your bedroom/living room/whatever can maintain a difference in temp of less than a single degree (I sure as hell can't, and pretty sure neither can 99% of ppl) the variance will have a greater impact in PC temp than the thermal paste.
What the hell is this video honestly. Such little effort put in it's actually embarrassing for the biggest PC channel on UA-cam. Very low standard for an LTT video and it's sad these go through QC without any remarks...
Disappointingly low amount of effort put into this video, and it seemed unnecessarily snarky towards tech ingredients. Hope Gamers Nexus does a review, disappointed in LTT for this. If you can't be bothered to make a good video, then don't make it.
One critical detail that your tests do not reveal is performance over time. Do either of them dry out and lose effectiveness? If so, by how much and how soon?
Bold move from Linus to do a Square space sponsership, knowing that they fund a military occupation that tear down cemeteries to build a theme park.... Didn't expect that from you, Linus.
I don't mean to be rude, but y'all should have tested Tech Ingredients compound a lot more vigorously. You guys have the resources and time to do so. You have similar videos where you go all out testing compounds. The guy spent a ton of time and effort researching and developing that paste. If I was Tech Ingred, I'd be regretting my decision to send it to you by all metrics other than outreach. You guys demonstrated uncharacteristically poor effort, poor video naming, and poor attitude while testing their compound.
Thanks everybody @LTT for the testing! The methodology was fair and it's good you used Noctua's best thermal paste with their own NH-D15 cooler as a benchmark. We've modified the test rig and are now formulating a liquid metal alternative, stay tuned.
wow, DIY liquid metal? can't wait!
It'll be cool to see what new versions you guys come out with.
Cant wait to see what you come up with! I was thinking it would be cool to see a LTT review what you had made.
I am so looking forward to it.. I absolutely love your channel. The Science geek in me thank you.
Matching an R&D marvel of an experienced, specialized top-tier manufacturer is beyond impressive, and it seems that's just a start. You guys rock and these kinds of videos are SO much more fun and informative than another computer building. More power to you and please more videos like this.
I'm convinced that LMGs interview process involves a test where the hand a candidate something on camera to see if they drop it. If they do, they get hired.
Yup it’s the lack of fine motor skills, combined with sometimes fragile objects, that makes the show entertaining!
The fact that Alex and Colin are basically the same person got them hired 😂
The Linus test...
I don't see the point in not spreading the thermal compound with a spatula though. Wouldn't it be logical if spread is an issue to manually do it yourself? That is the way I do it and it drives me nuts to see that no matter the application there are often dead spots left behind.
I paused and read the whole letter. They seem humble and genuinely want an honest review and very appreciative of your previous review. I love that.
They are. Go have a look at their videos. :D They do all sorts of stuff! Air con to electro-hydro-dynamic drive*. Rum to rocket motors!
* As made famous in _The Hunt For Red October._
i love that he puts his sons name down on the letter too, acknowledging his sons inputs and efforts
@@CottonInDerTube What was wrong with it? What would you have done differently?
@@NemoConsequentae I just got that book today from my library, what a coincidence.
And yet Alex responded to that kindness with the most passive aggressive review in the history of this channel, LOL
“What their test apparatus is not, is a real world computer.” *slaps open bench-test rig with no case*
There are 100% people who run open air systems for the thermal benefit.
I mean... My computer BECAME open air when the only 3070 I could find was way too big for my case lol
Mine is open because the temps suck when it isn't >.>
Side panel has been pff mine 5 years
This is here for people who don't realise this is a joke, and need an explanation as to Alex's methodology.
By using a case, they would be introducing another variable; this way they can control the ambient temperature. If the PC was in a case, other variables would contribute to temperatures, skewing their findings (admittedly unscientific).
"this is, again, horribly unscientific"
two seconds later
[ by 0 he means ∞ ]
😂
Well that's due to how the measurement tool works
@@cromefire_ I know how a multimeter works, i just find it hilarious how on-brand Alex always is whenever he does anything remotely "scientific"
@@cromefire_ It's because he read zero instead of OL meaning overload, not really because of the tool
plot twist: it was the world's first room-temp superconductor
@@unluckyguy3637 OL is Out of Limits which is the meter saying it's essentially infinite or beyond the ability to read.
I’ve just realised that when Alex is not trying to dumb things down for some lowest common denominator he becomes a much better and more natural host. This ironically makes for much better communication.
Many smart people have a hard time dumbing things down
LTT made the same mistake that most companies make. Hiring engineers and making them do things that aren't very engineering related.
@@nicksrandomness2774 Smoke a blunt or two if it's legal ;)
I mean... It is a 10 minute video about thermal compounds. Not your average Joe's content.
What's the purpose of dumbing something down to begin with.. Freedom of infinite knowledge at your fingertips
Grandpa: Builds a complex setup to minimize variables in order to say if stuff is good or not
LTT: We don't care about that, we got REAL WORLD
*LTT does real world test*
LTT: Our setup is so shitty, we have no idea which one is actually better 🤷♂️
lol. they also put up a chart showing TI's is better right as they say it's equivalent to Noctua's.
So much for those sweet ads revenue.
@@nlingrel No they were correct in saying that. There is literally a 0.9 degree difference in the average, and the noctua's lowest run was lower than TI's lowest run.
Considering run to run variance you cannot conclusively say one is better than the other.
That's kinda the point though. For a real world setting you can expect about the same performance from the two. Doesn't really matter if one is like 0.01% better in a tightly controlled experiment.
They've probably tried harder for consistency than any actual person applying thermal paste to their PC. Goes to show that incredibly marginal gains don't really matter.
No offense but Tech ingredients deserved a better analysis of their thermal paste, I was excited to see this video but it feels really "thrown together at the last minute" thing, I just feel Gamers Nexus would have done something way better
could be an "ok linus we'll do it your way first and let the comments agree with me that we need a better control environment before we spend $5000 on making a thermal test control room in the warehouse and test for a few weeks with no content coming out of it in the meantime except a build vlog while you pay our wage still" thing, too. honestly though, it's "good enough" (in my opinion) to verify (for a future vid) that maybe testing needs to be done with a de-lidded and liquid-metal-repaste, incase the die-to-ihs tim is bottlenecking both pastes' abilities, and make linus go "OK FINE DELID THAT SUCKER" but then again idk how much a benefit, if any, liquid metal has over the die's tim, since iirc intel uses solder now
Indeed. It's not just the test environment but the script (or possible lack thereof) being very disorganized. I haven't seen anything this bad from LTT since the Anthony vs Linus repair challenge.
Yeah, seems like a rather rushed video, and no real thought put into any reasoning, I can almost predict that the increase across the tests was due to heat soak from the other components/case, looks like the tests were carried out almost imediatly one after the other only stopping to switch paste. Not really a fair comparison.A haphazard video and I would really hope for better from an LTT video.
I think TI talked about sending some to Gamers Nexus as well. I have hopes.
1:18 kinda supports this statement. GN has the proper testing apparatus and solid testing procedures. The only issue with GN is that they are sponsored heavily by Thermal Grizzly. While I think the majority of viewers, myself included, would trust them, it's still important to consider.
Alex: We have a 'home-brew' contender for top tier TIM's.
DerBauer: *sweats*
@Jim McIntosh Exactly, I think the big companies would be the ones sweating. DerBauer would be likely to embrace and collab with TI I would guess.
@@MaxUgly he would at most loose the ppl who would make the efford, not many.
@Jim McIntosh he is cofounder of thermal Grizzly so I would not bet on it
@@MaxUgly ah yeah thermal grizzly is small.
@@ulrichkalber9039 Why would he loose people not many? ( no clue what you try to say )
I'm really looking forward to getting an order with Tech Ingredients. Even if it would have been worse (withing a few degrees) I would buy to help support their shenanigans.
Yes, one of the best channels on UA-cam.
We don't really know if the carrier will last though. It's just glycerin.
@@joshuascholar3220 the "easy to make at home" one was glycerine. The high performance one was some specialist silicone oil, yes we still don't know if it will evaporate, but they did say in the video that they tested that
@@joshuascholar3220 I'm not certain, but I don't think glycerin does much until it's heated to its boiling point, much hotter than it would get in this application. Anyway I'm also curious how long it lasts.
100% 🙌
Tech Grandpa made some awesome video, I basically love his home made AC unit.
Dude is a freakin' genius! :)
“Mmm… Pine.”
- Tech Grandpa
Link? I'd like to check that out. Sounds interesting
.
Well, now I got a channel to go to. I never heard of him. I am interested.
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Tech Ingredients is a seriously good channel.
Absolutely! The detail and science behind everything they do is above and beyond.
one of the best yt content creators, for sure.
Just now discovered them through this video. I can't believe I've never heard of their channel before. They have some damn good content!
Ok, PC Jesus needs to get involved in this. If Tech Ingredients Grandpa was to build a case with an integrated fluid cooling system I suspect it would be the most BOSS cooling system ever.
That... is actually quite likely, given that the thermal paste videos are on his 'Cooling' playlist: ua-cam.com/play/PLzrI14lOlSqeS5pNkRCiV1-yhoBlCmxms.html
Whytf is everyone calling him a grandpa I feel old goddamn
Just no, just no.
He would make MSI Stirling idea look like a cute kid having ideas about cooling.
@@chunye215 you don't see many older people use UA-cam. So if you have gray hair you're pretty much a grandpa on here. He probably could be a grandpa too by now tho.
@@Kiritomens You don’t think Gen X folks waste hours and hours on UA-cam? You don’t think Gen X folks don’t have a TON of active channels? If you watch this, I assume you know who Jays2cents is?
Tech Ingredients is an amazing find on UA-cam for learning everything from rockets to rum and between!
He is great because unlike most he runs down everything in detail, alternatives, and why the alternatives might work or not and why he chose what he did. its less of a "heres how to do it" and more of a "how to do it, and why so you can adjust"
I only wish they'd finally get a proper camera man. The camera work always makes me nauseous. Great content, though.
@@graealex yes! They need to get sponsored by skillshare so his son can take a filmography class or something.
@@graealex The camera guy is his son.
I kinda hope that "Tech Grandpa" starts calling you guys "Tech Kiddies" :).
This guy is a condescending little D-bag.
Tech should test a rocket in his office.
@@breadfan1071 lol, exactly
Linus Tech dicks
(I don’t mind Linus though)
@@breadfan1071 This kiddie made me damn near just unsubscribe from Linus. Quit being a d-bag kid. What happened to being a nice human? SMH.
Some people (not you Rob) need to learn to lighten up a bit and understand a joke. If Tech Ingredients got upset about it then I'm sure the LTT staff would apologize but it's not meant to be insulting or mean beyond just being a joke. I'm 32, if a15 year old called me Grandpa or old man I'd probably call them a little brat or something, all in good fun (unless they got physical with me or really carried it too far which LTT has not).
Someone get Steve on this.
Agreed, PC Jesus and Co is a much better choice to go with testing. More than disappointed with the condescending tone. TI's "shed" is much better equipped than LTT from what I've seen.
Back to you Steve
He's still unboxing the blower test bench crate, probably needs to be calibrated again on site for verification the shipping and installation didn't screw it up.
He stopped doing thermal paste reviews after thermal grizzly started sponsoring him
@@jhontavarish4088 wait what there must be something else he gets case and other sponsors too all the time
I genuinely think GN would make a better and proper testing, hopefully he would do it!
When it comes to true hardware testing, GN is much better.
Yeah. I mean, I wasn't expecting as good testing as GN would do here but this video was... like someone said "hey you go in the back room and make this video we don't want to make." Then rush released it.
I was excited to see this video. Now I'm disappointed.
So every time someone does a thermal test these days there is a dogpile of people that come from n to say "Steve would have done it better". Please stop. You aren't helping
Steve is many things, an excellent and forceful advocate for consumers, and an intelligent and thoughtful journalist first and foremost. But he is absolutely not to everyones taste, and frankly I find Alex and Collins video more entertaining and more compelling than the video Steve would have produced. Yeah, it's less scientific, yeah there isn't as much data as there could be, but I can also say as a field engineer that their test more closely mimics the reality an end user of the product would likely see. It's fun, and it meets the LTT audience where it's at, and doesn't demand that I engage in rigorous examination of the methodology. There is 💯 a place for that kind of content, and I am great ful for the rigor that Steve puts into holding manufacturers to their claims, but not everything needs to be addressed that way, and constantly chiming in on other channels to tell them that GN does it better does not reflect well on Steve's audience. Commenters like you are a large part of the reason he has to go out of his way to tell his audience not to go review bomb other UA-camrs.
@@isl1ngt0n The reason isn't taste, it's rigorous process and equipment. In regards to this stuff specifically, its because GN actually have tailor made, proper lab test equipment for this. That enables testing with far more variables under control. Meaning the results you get _much (!)_ more closely represent the merits of the actual product you're testing, instead of having tens or even hundreds of other variables affecting your results, many of which you have neither control over nor data on.
Also if you don't like GN's or Steve Burke's "style" / persona / presentation, I would like to point out that Gamers Nexus was a _written articles_ hardware testing and news site long before becoming a UA-cam channel. And more importantly, _they still are._
If you would like the GN testing data/results, or a review or hw news piece, but don't like their UA-cam stuff - GN still publish almost all of their content in written article format too. Good articles, not just video version script copypasta. I would suggest giving one of them a chance if you are inclined to such reading, there's definitely gonna be some interesting ones on Alder Lake, Z690 and DDR5 the next handful of days. While I personally enjoy the YT stuff, I often check their articles when wanting/needing a review's test data. For that, I personally find the article format to be more easily digestible.
The huge clusterf**k of uncontrolled variables is the challenge with these kinds of uncientific, "real world" comparison tests. Practically no one else is gonna have an identical setup as yours. Here, we have a huge amount of variables you cannot account for, and _a sample group of one._
If you want to get reasonably clear data from "real world" tests of something individually applied, assembled, configured and operated by users, you certainly can - but you need gigantic sample groups. Only one sample of a "real world" test like this, is the measured and statistical accuracy equivalent to the seat belt analogy, here: "Seatbelts serve no purpose and make no difference, because _I_ drove to the store _once_ and did not crash".
Ps. Please forgive the typos, I'm sure there's several. And have a great day.
For test results to have value, you have to establish what you are testing for.
This is a test whether or not it matters if you use A or B in a real world scenario. It doesn't. I have never spend money on after market paste, because ever cooler I have bought came with good paste. If I need after market paste, I'm going to spend 8 bucks, and not worry too much about whether another paste might give me a result that is 2 degrees Celsius lower,
I love that a man in a shed can produce a product comperable to one that of a leader in the industry. People power rocks.
To be fair, that guy in the shed who made this isn't normal. He's incredibly intelligent, detail oriented, meticulous, almost obsessive.
His video on this popped up in my feed recently, but I haven't watched it yet because his videos take my total attention and his video on the thermal paste is over 40 minutes long.
@@jonathonfee2542 It's a long video. More like a lecture really.
Dude, the guy has in his "shed" more stuff then some labs have. While he is a bright guy, he has the tools too. Those industrial mixers are pretty expensive.
More than a Shed its closer to a damn workshop
He did have a serendipidous "accident" when selecting powders for heat conduction, I am willing to bet not many in the "professional" Thermal Interface Material field have stumbled upon it, because it seems so counter-intuitive at first. This is probably what gives their paste an edge, even if it is not perfectly mixed as it could be with proper, but really expensive equipment. Watch both videos of TI would be my recommendation
This is why one of the top comments was "send it to Steve"
Honestly, this got my interest. Now to wait for a GN deep-dive.
God steve sucks, but i do watch his deep dives because well...who else?
Ill wait for the moment Steve gets his hands on this. I don't feel like this was even remotely worthy of the effort.
Honestly i most probably wouldn't have known about this unless LMG made a video. I love gamers Nexus but honestly i don't really watch unless I am interested in a product.
@@leonardogalindo3324 thank you for all of this honesty. Honestly.
I think this was as much effort as needed to understand how it would perform in the real world. It's all fine and good to test this in isolation, but in reality none of us are going to intentionally replicate even this level of consistency in our own homes. It might be the best thermal paste _in theory_ in a well controlled environment. But in real world use, it is at best at least as good as the best thermal paste on the market, and at worst offering less value per unit than its competition because TI doesn't have the resources to produce the volume themselves that would compete with the big players.
Steve's tester is probably about the same as Tech Ingredients, so if TI said theirs was better then so will Steve.
But doing a real world test like this one puts that in perspective. Does measured a little better matter? Real world test says "no."
@@UndeadSoulOfPopeBenedict Did you not notice the low quality of the editing, possible complete lack of script and direction in addition to the bad testing methodology? It appears like a rushed video, ala the Linus vs Anthony repair video. I hope LTT can get their shit together and not keep releasing low quality content.
"Unfortunately, this is the real world, where things are annoying" that's gold right there
this guy is completely cringe, his teeth clenching is so outrageous it almost seems like he's doing it on purpose
No, that's just another way to say "There's too many variables"
I'm pretty sure gamersnexus will have a more controlled setup.
Yeah. I mean, I wasn't expecting as good testing as GN would do here but this video was... like someone said "hey you go in the back room and make this video we don't want to make." Then rush released it.
I was excited to see this video. Now I'm disappointed.
@@mokahless The effort behind this video was actually kind of embarrassing to watch for being a follow-up to those Tech Ingredients videos. LTT couldn't even reproduce their own numbers for the noctua paste, so their conclusion was a shoulder shrug and "meh good enough." This level of phoning it in is more fitting of a teenager flipping burgers at mcdonalds.
These tests mean nothing if the stuff degrades over time and that would take years under load to know. Manufacturers have to be conservative and not manufacture paste that will shit the bed within a few years.
GamersNexus: time for us to shine.
Some thermal pastes lose efficiency over time as they dry up & harden, I would like to see them do a 1-month long "burn-in" test to see if it actually holds up against the competition.
To be fair, they need to do that to ALL of the pastes on the market.
maybe go watch where TI covered this on their channel?
Over the years I have had the opportunity to do that with a few big name pastes, although my tests have all been at least 1 year. Here is the order of the most stable paste, as well as their thermal ranking:
1. Coolermaster MasterGel Maker (3rd)
2. Arctic Silver 5 (4th)
3. Noctua NT-H1 (2nd)
4. Noctua NT-H2 (Tied with 1st)
5. Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut (Tied with 1st)
My recommendations if you want the longest lasting paste with very acceptable performance, I have ran chips with Coolermaster MasterGel Maker for 5+ years with no change in performance. Noctua NT-H1 is the best compromise between performance and longevity, it will perform well for 2+ years before it begins slowly getting warmer. Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut and Noctua NT-H2 are interchangeable performance wise, but Kryonaut is extremely unstable and falls behind NT-H2 after about 6-8 months on average depending on how hot the paste is getting. Noctua NT-H2 is not as stable as NT-H1, it is also more prone to pump out (although not as bad as Kryonaut is), NT-H2 averages about 1 year or 1.5 years before a new application should be considered.
The most valuable lesson I've learned from my own testing is that Kryonaut should absolutely not be used in a 24/7 system. It's excellent for sub-ambient and bench testing, but in a system that you're actually using for long periods it is a waste of money.
The bigger factor is thermal creep. The silicone oil suspension medium both under pressure and experiencing thermal expansion cycles tends to creep out of the suspension and dissipate. This is a major problem with thermal pastes for aerospace where wild temperature and pressure swings exacerbate the problem but it's still a problem at normal temperatures over time. While there is some evaporation of silicone suspension mediums, most of the drying you see with old thermal paste is due to thermal creep.
I can add MX-4 that works fine for a long time between IHS and a cooler, but once put under the lid and it sees around 90C temperatures, the oil separates from the paste within 1-2 days
I totally believe that TI has made good performing paste, but what I'd really like to see tested is the longevity. I don't recall what maker it was, but paste performed well for about year and then temps began to increase dramatically. Opened up the machine and paste had completely dried up. I've never seen this tested.
@@barnett25 That's excellent thing to hear and I'm really glad they've considered this issue. Gotta check out their video. They definitely earn and need all the views they can get. 👍👍
@@barnett25 Well worth a watch of that video. Went into such depth.
Yeah, shelf live and longterm stability. Those are way more important than 1-2°C for the first few weeks (aside from extreme overclockers).
Best example is the thermal paste that OEMs and Intel are using - by far not the best in terms of performance, but they still do their job even after 5 years.
@@ABaumstumpf I fully agree with that. I don't want to open laptops etc. to replace paste. Writing this comment with older business series Lenovo laptop that was bought from reputable distributor. Sales information said that they change thermal paste for models they sell. That's now been about year ago. Either they didn't change the paste and it's now failing or they've used some really poor quality one. Anyway looks like I have to do it to this myself 🙄
That would be thermal grizzly.
That's why once in an interview with Steve, Derbauer w̶a̶n̶t̶e̶d̶ recommended you to re-apply your thermal paste every year.
Love tech ingredients been watching them for quite awhile now. Pretty impressive with the results they have managed.
i mean your up against the limits of the coolers and how fast heat can leave the cpu anyways as notcua said it doesnt really matter
@@barnett25 I watch ltt more for the hey this exists gamers Nexus has set a high bar for testing and it just seems ltt is more focused for the casual but they seem to not really be interested in even trying to meet thebbat for testing like come on how hard is it to do better testing the have the manpower and equipment they just need to put in the effort. This glosses over the cost for the man power and time but I don't expect them to change they have their segment of the tech space and Steve has the other segment but they have halfway decent projects that are cool for time to time.
Can you test it being a bit more generous? I mean you can totally account for less spread with more paste, right?
You wouldn't test it against a pea-sized piece of thermal pad either ;)
That intro felt so rushed and messy. Had no idea what was going on
They don't take it seriously that's all. If they were enthusiastic about it, Linus would do it and do it better. but obviously here no sponsor so.. LTT is so big, they've forgotten their beginnings.
It would help to watch TI's video first.
@@alphebetguy they could always use crayons to explain the video but I am guessing they are afraid some of you folks might eat the crayons.
@@larchsama9773 r/iamverysmart
Coming from a Gamers Nexus binge, this whole "test" is laughable at best XD
It's a lot better than most.
And Steve's set up is probably too similar to TI's - this puts "measures slightly better in a calorimeter [or whatever it's called]" into context.
I always prefer spreading it, rather than the rice grain method. I can make it super thin that way, and full coverage.
Why tho? The grain method is ideal. No need to manually spread it. The heat will warm up the paste and spread it out more.
Problem is, the comments would've probably imploded with people telling them spreading TIM would create air pockets. It's just easier and more consistent to do it the way they did.
@@hamajangz9586 It is easier and probably more consistent because of it, but not necessarily ideal.
I've seen very little spreading due to heat in TIM myself.
@Mario Kart Manual spreading was there before heatspreaders and it is still preffered for direct die. (now mostly gpus). With direct die if you don't get all the corners pasted you risk hotspots. (and 20years ago cpus didn't throttle or turn off they just released magic smoke and died). And if you take off the cooler to check the spread and plonk it back the chance of trapped bubbles is probably higher than with carefull spreading.
You have to manually spread it if it's a laptop (not as much pressure) or if it's a thick paste or both!
noctua: tony stark was able to match our performance in a shed with parts from ebay
Is Alex becoming the new Linus of Linus Drop Tips
After working with someone for a long time, you kinda get their... "quirks".😂
Lol
Focusing on spread and intentionally applying too little paste seems like a weird test to me. You can always just apply more, it's totally fine. With proper mounting pressure, you really can't over apply it.
This was a strange way to start it off but it was nice to see how it behaved. It just doesn't make much sense as a comparison metric.
True. I'll never understand why people add so little paste it's never covering the whole IHS. 100% coverage always dissipates more heat than just a tiny spot in the center.
As Steve from GN has shown us a couple of years ago, even before the whole Verge PC building debacle (where people derided Stefan for the application, it wasn't pretty but it was serviceable).
This is something GamersNexus should play with, not LTT.
I disagree. LTT should play with this but... WTF was with this video? Rushed? Low quality? Oops our results weren't as tightly contained as expected release anyway?
tech ingredients is honestly an insane phenomenon they next level smart ngl
Throw it on a Pentium 4 and see how it REALLY performs
Why not bulldozer?
@@kaldo_kaldo don't want to burn down the office
Is this a meme? I've had a P4 and I didn't have thermal problems with it, even with the stock cooler back then.
@@tim3172 I have no idea what sort of series I had. But I remember it was the last model before they phased it out to get the new models in.
Strange though, what I heard about AMD at the time was completely opposite for me. Those were the ones that had a lot of thermal issues, that's why almost everyone preferred intel. It was 3rd hand info, but that's what I heard.
I did have issues with Radeon cards though. Every single time I buy one to replace an old one, I keep getting re-reminded why I had Nvidia instead. It was always a massive source of headache for various reasons.
@@noiJadisCailleach it depended on which P4 you got. The Willamette cores were decent and Northwood were the refined later gen P4 chips after the disaster known as Prescott.
I thought alex would be more excited, seems like he's very meh about the whole thing
ikr! I watch LTT from like beginning and remember themselves tried diy thermal solutions and they failed horribly. come to think of it, maybe that was their point. to fail and show these company products are better (they're been sponsored anyway).
It might be an exposure thing. If you've watched enough Alex, you could tell the nuances how excited he was. And here, I could tell he was.
@@noiJadisCailleach Maybe he needs work then. Let's hope videos like this are getting proper internal feedback and Linus is simply pushing his employees to practice making videos in the real world, rather than this being an example of some kind of LTT decline in quality.
This video really was poorly put together, not just for a lack of testing methodology.
That Linus vs Anthony video was rough.
Love how Alex randomly changes into Colin and back again with no explanation lol
Alex's testing methodology was so poor it had margins of error greater than the differences between pastes. I can't believe they would post a video like this. Doesn't do Tech Ingredients any justice.
After all these years how does LMG not have a temperature controlled booth for thermal tests like this? Make it sound proof too to do noise testing. It only has to be like closet sized, you have plenty of space.
Exactly, if the "shed" has it on a much tighter budget, seriously LTT step up your game.
The name Linus MEDIA Group explains it all.The entire purpose of the company is to make videos.They dont have the space or reason to get that kind of equipment.Its kinda obvious when you see how much space and equipment they dedicate to video production.If you are watching ltt videos expecting they will do a proper job explaining and comparing things then you are watching the wrong channel.
@@pesho9971 They produce tons of content whenever they upgrade their facility. Any upgrade can be made into a video. Temperature controlled booth ("testing upgrade") could easily be one of them.
Tech Ingredients knows his stuff.
“Back in 30 minutes? Cool.”
“…So it’s been an hour and a half”
running the tests 3 times. 30x3=90 90 minutes = an hour and a half.
That Linus photo in the background is like emperor Palpatine going like "good, good, let the drop flow through you!".
Search your fingers, you know them be buttery.
Spread testing doesn't really matter much, you can just pre-spread the paste with a spatula
yeah, but then people get hysterical about "air pockets"...
Linus: **drops smooth, well practiced segue into sponsor**
Alex: Sponsor time or something? idk
never been this early on a notification lol
I'm disgusted by LTT's double standards. they could've done a better job to test this, if this was a sponsored product they would've done plethora of testing and get it right. didn't see an ounce of respect towards another youtuber who idolise them enough to send their best product aside from the constant mockery. shame on you Alex and LTT.
I don't think idolize is the right word. More like if you want to increase your reach on tech youtube, you obviously want a collab with LTT
I know this is an old comment, but. There is no double standard here. A test with perfect mounting pressure and temperature and all will never be the real world. The reals world usage will not always have perfect thermal spread over the IHS, or perfect TIM spread. Just like benchmarks with synthetic loads, the testing they could have done would never be achieved in the real world, creating something that is not what will actually be seen and experienced in the real world use cases.
ITS WAS MADE IN A CAVE WITH A BOX OF SCRAPS
This guy has some great videos about custom speakers.
Those panel speakers are not very good though. The voight tubes are better.
i still can't forget about that homemade RUM. haha
@@stefan0ro lmao
"Tech ingredients Grandpa" That line made my day. 😆😆😆😆
they should send this to GN or Igor'sLab what even is this?
The Grandpa: Let me show you how it's done
"Tech Grandpa" LOL.
The video was amazing. He scienced the shit out of thermal compound.
Why wouldn't reducing the amount of IC diamond you put in the center and then adding a little extra IC diamond closer to the corners outperform the Noctua paste, if the only factor is spread?
Or using the credit card method. It sounds like for Noctua, they've got the single dot application down but it's not as taking a minute to spread the paste is a big deal if it can improve your temps.
Spread isnt the determining factor in performance, thinness of the layer is. For the same volume of paste, and compression force, spread is an indicator of how thin the layer is though. It basically works out to "the paste stops flowing outwards at x PSI of pressure" If a paste is so viscous that it doesnt squeeze into a thinner layer, then boosting coverage by using multiple dots wont be as significant as switching to a less viscous paste that can spread into a very thin layer. I.e. if a paste has twice the bulk thermal resistance, but makes a layer 1/4 as thick, it can have half the actual thermal resistance of the original "better" paste, because there is less of it in the way. But to have a thinner paste, you need more carrier oil and less thermally conductive filler, so its all about balance. I.e. as said in the video.
Need to send this to the guys at GN to do some real testing.
I don't know about you, but a consistent 2C difference is about the result I would expect. After testing this stuff on laptops, I can confirm it results in the lowest temperature by a very small margin compared to things like kryonaut and syy-157. Very pricey for the amount you get though. Can't beat gd-900 in value.
Thanks for bumping Tech Ingredients!
Tech Ingredients - one of the best channels on youtube.
Wait... they signed that letter as Eric and Alex? So I guess we finally found out the presenters' names? Assumedly the main presenter is Eric and the oft-cameraman and occasional second presenter is Alex.
At this point so much thermal paste performs essentially the same
I'm still using the same tube a *Arctic Silver* thermal paste I bought for my first PC build in 1998! 😁
If you aren't overclocking to the point you have to worry about thermals with a cheap aftermarket cooler, thermal paste isn't that important. I'm running a 4770k oc to 4.4ghz, slapped a hyper 212 Evo on it. The thermal paste I have is shitty and degraded and I still don't ever go over 80C, and my fans never spin up to be noticable over the sound of a HEPA fan on low I keep in my room.
The majority of all this technology stuff is trying to make you think you are missing out if you don't buy the new thing, these videos make you feel like you are behind the curve if you don't spend a bunch of money.
But even in places here the tech is important, like digital photography, even the professionals aren't using the newest stuff.
The paste properties seem to be intrinsically tied to the mesh sizing of the Aluminum powder added.
Specifically it needs to be a combination of 3 and 5 micron Al beads. I may have misremembered the exact mesh sizes
however the idea is that you have one effect from the 5 micron and another effect from the 3 micron, and then the 2 sizes
talk (ie. exchange heat) with each other. The most interesting thing is the emergent properties that arise from sizing control.
5 micron, .3 micron aluminium and 20-30 nm silane coated ZnO powder. the smaller powders fill in the gaps of the larger powders.
@@deelkar Yeah, it definitely looks like a size/mechanical regime of thermodynamics. I wonder if someone could convince thermal paste to grow dendrites? That would be cool, waiting for a battery reaction to activate your thermal compound.
@@deelkar Also, silane solutions are very interesting. The VAPSA research I was involved with was heavily into the stuff. Not my department though. We were all about the ASAP (Accelerated Surface Area Porosimetry) research. Nothing like loading a steel ball into an instrument, wait 10 minutes, take ball out, wait 10 minutes, repeat until you are completely mad and there you go it's Calibrated. Stupid ASAP instrumentation!!!
you could at least have tried it on air vs liquid cooling. feels a bit half assed.
Torque screwdriver might help to set more consistent clamping pressure.
Tech Grandpa? Lmao hey, his name is Main Presenter show some respect½
Been stoked to see this since I saw his last video on this subject.
You mention the mounting pressure being low on aircoolers, why not test at least a random AIO aswell?
Super proud of seeing Tech Ingredients in LTT content ! :D Well deserved they're doing amazing quality content !
Anyway, am I the only one using the credit card spread technique on thermal paste or what ?
I tried spreading but I'm not sure it matters. Nothing wrong with it though, as long as it covers it doesn't matter how you apply.
Back when Athlon CPUs were new and overclockable with a pencil, Arctic Silver 3 (i think this was the version) was the premium thermal compound, The prevailing procedure was to apply tiny tiny amounts, with the theory that it was just there to fill in the (air) gaps between surfaces, and heat transmission still relied predominantly on metal to metal (well, metal to chip die, technically) contact, not on a distinct layer of paste. it worked, and this was before heat pipes were in air coolers. Now we smear it on like we're icing a cake... interesting how things change.
Because the smarter voices finally prevailed over the ignorant ones. Metal-metal contact will happen because the mounting force will squish out the extra thermal paste. The tiny amount of extra metal contact you get by using microscopic amounts of paste is outweighed by the benefits of full IHS coverage you get by applying a lot of paste in an X and the drawbacks of manually spreading the paste and introducing air pockets.
@@angolin9352 not saying current methods are bad (or good), just commenting on how they have changed. At the time, I distinctly remember seeing tests that showed thicker amounts of paste led to poorer performance. I know paste and cooling tech has changed a lot since then, not to mention the presence of an IHS.
Tech ingredients went into this in a fair amount of detail, watch the latest video on the thermal paste.
2:41 I see papa Linus has taught you well Alex
LOOOL! “We have overclocked it sooo much” im waiting to hear like 5.4GHZ naaah! 4.9. Bruh. My 10900K is 5.2GHZ at 1.35V all core locked.
thermal pastes NEED to be tested over a few months to ensure their performance do not drop dramatically.
Did LTT run out of budget for this video? Dissapointing
Self-made thermal paste, sounds great =D
What? No PC builder in their right mind would only use a "pea size" if they knew it wasn't spreading to ALL the edges and corners. This is VERY poor testing! This might be mimicking the behavior of a super-n00b but n00bs are NOT going to be using alternative TIMs... What the hell LTT???
Also I know for sure you guys have a room that is cool with the AC off and /also/ maintains a steady ambient - because it was used in some of your previous videos. That you allowed an AC unit to influence your results is pathetic! WTF???
The only thermostat is in Linus' office? What a dad.
LINUS PLS MAKE M1 MAX VS RTX 3080 165W :D (with optimus disabled and also what happens when unplugged on both the devices pls ) and which one is better? Suggestions please :D ! TY in advance if u do make this video that is xD
linus, can we get a standardized test rig for thermals? a heat element type testing set up? you can easily calibrate with a water tank and heat probes
I mean, was this a joke? "Tech Grandpa"? How disrespectful and condescending, coming from some millennial punks. That "grandpa" has more intellect and experience than everyone involved in that "test" include Mr. Sebastian as well.
Now, I know they were laughing the whole time, and saying "grain of salt" and "incredibly unscientific", but then using proper test equipment, considering environmental conditions, compiling data from averaging testing runs. Serious or not, which is it?
I get the whole "for entertainment only" clause, sorta like "not financial advise, not a financial advisor",.. but I just see this as...LTT wanting to be part of a serious conversation, but not wanting to do the work that would qualify them to have their input be seriously considered, as well as not being able to be called out, because they can just say "aahh, we were just goofing off, we weren't really trying". Its a cop out.
I feel this is also part of a terrible trend that has been going on at LMG in my opinion,... quick, crap videos. Likely, it's from LMG being over-scaled at this point. Also, noticed Linus' occasional erratic behavior on camera. Something is awry. Maybe they need to step back and reevaluate their current course.
Now test the noctua vs thermal grizzly kryonaut extreme.
Why was this (apparently intentionally) such a half-assed video? Poor methodology and inconsistent techniques, constantly laughing and acknowledging the lameness. Why? I was not expecting the kind of in-depth coverage that TI produced, but the idea of a homemade compound that could save PC builders and repairers £££, surely deserved better than this?
Remember to support DSP. Tips are preferred as he needs that money, he really does.
who asked
It's midnight in India and I am a literature student, yet I'm watching this. I don't know a thing about computers or chemistry. My laptop is kinda not working and I miss it and the guy who was supposed to come and fix it has been putting it off on the next day for like three days now. I am SO pissed at him rn but I can't say a word because that minx is the only one who can fix it. FUCK
On that I have to take an online test tomorrow and my parents have planned an outing EXACTLY tomorrow and when I asked them to postpone it, they clearly denied saying God ain't gonna wait for you-they were taking us to a temple which is good, but not on the same day when you've got two novels to read, a test to take and also an important class which won't even be recorded. So, ya! Thermal paste to stick or idgaf melt glass... WHATEVER
ig i need a diary
It's quite disappointing, that even now there are no good thermal paste tests, this video is, unfortunately, no exception. Firstly, you locked ONLY the core voltages, you should have locked all available voltages. Secondly, you didn't lock the fan speed. Lastly, different thermal paste reach their optimal operating mode at different times, some thermal paste needs a few hours, but some, up to 2 days, but you concluded the test in 2 hours.
But aren't tests like these the actual real world tests that should be conducted?
Like what use has for all of us as customers knowing that a thermal compound is great in a super clean place with a thermostat at 20°C under a noctua D15 which is like "the best" air cooler ever on an open air test bench?
I'd like to know more like how a good cooler behaves in a bad case or how much difference does it make to apply the paste "this way" or "that way" or how does anything behave or work in a room that is 25-30°C with humidity because it's 37°C outside in a hot day in summer. Or the opposite, it's -15°C or something.
Like most of us will have different situations that have to be accounted for. It makes sense to design a product for optimal use and to test it in said optimal situation, for the company. But for the rest of us, what Alex is doing is what makes sense.
You could say you're a bit of a scientist yourself, Alex.
When we're talking any thermal paste, there is mostly 1 degree difference between the best non elec conductive stuff and an average one. You need really stringent testing to get good results on this stuff.
Yeah that's just blatantly fkn wrong lol. From Guru3D's article on it earlier this year than can be a nearly 10c difference between various brands and TIMs.
Making a thermal paste which can compete with one of the top thermal paste brands is the thermal paste equivalent of Micheal Scott paper company
It’s not that hard to come close to the top consumer brand paste. Buy a 1kg can of thermal interface material from a chemical company such as Shin-Etsu, repackage it into syringes and there you have it. Dirt cheap and works extremely well.
Consumer brands these days are all about fancy packaging and marketing, there isn't really much R&D involved. In fact I know some of those top brands actually only do repackaging.
You guys need a cold room that is specifically maintained perfectly at a temperature of your choice. No variation in temperature means you can do your tests better.
LTT facilities not as well equipped as TI's workshop or as so rudely referred to in video as "shed".
@@dalemonroe1779 I mean, they could replicate his setup, it just isn't really worth it for them.
It is kinda surprising that after all these years they haven't just built a little temperature controlled soundproof booth to do testing in.
Don't really think that's needed for the purpose of determining if it's worth a purchase for home use. Basically, unless you can guarantee your bedroom/living room/whatever can maintain a difference in temp of less than a single degree (I sure as hell can't, and pretty sure neither can 99% of ppl) the variance will have a greater impact in PC temp than the thermal paste.
What the hell is this video honestly. Such little effort put in it's actually embarrassing for the biggest PC channel on UA-cam. Very low standard for an LTT video and it's sad these go through QC without any remarks...
The 10900k drawing 204 watts is insane, that's like a small room heater lol
the intel special
AMD be like 500 W 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
Sir, that IS a small room heater
The best part is, almost all that power the CPU draws ends up as heat anyway, so the CPU essentially doubles as a 200W heater
I usually describe my desktop as a heater that does other things.
Disappointingly low amount of effort put into this video, and it seemed unnecessarily snarky towards tech ingredients. Hope Gamers Nexus does a review, disappointed in LTT for this. If you can't be bothered to make a good video, then don't make it.
Things I learned from this video: using thermal paste is a good idea 👍
One critical detail that your tests do not reveal is performance over time. Do either of them dry out and lose effectiveness? If so, by how much and how soon?
I've been looking forward to this one! Time to grab some popcorn.
Bold move from Linus to do a Square space sponsership, knowing that they fund a military occupation that tear down cemeteries to build a theme park.... Didn't expect that from you, Linus.
That thumbnail is gonna be the source of my nightmares tonight.
I don't mean to be rude, but y'all should have tested Tech Ingredients compound a lot more vigorously. You guys have the resources and time to do so. You have similar videos where you go all out testing compounds. The guy spent a ton of time and effort researching and developing that paste. If I was Tech Ingred, I'd be regretting my decision to send it to you by all metrics other than outreach. You guys demonstrated uncharacteristically poor effort, poor video naming, and poor attitude while testing their compound.