Our CPU cooler review methodology is here: ua-cam.com/video/fmTOJP4KOyk/v-deo.html Support test equipment purchases via the GN store, like by buying a Modmat, Mouse Mat, or a limited Chipset Metro poster: store.gamersnexus.net/products/x570-chipset-metro-station-poster-18-x-24 EK AIO Tear-Down: ua-cam.com/video/bAwYEBmSfvE/v-deo.html Or written form of test methodology here: www.gamersnexus.net/guides/3561-cpu-cooler-testing-methodology-most-tests-are-flawed
It is very reassuring when you go this far into your testing controls in the actual test video occasionally. You always reiterate to go check testing methodology but when you show it in video form everyone gets to actually see "Wow thats probably more of a scientific test than the manufacturers use". Really appreciate the extremely strict comparisons and not having to second guess your conclusions/opinions at the end.
Hi Steve, out of curiosity, what would the results or measurements be without any medium between the CPU and cooler? How would that compare against thermal paste?
A quick mention for your graph comparing the thermal intetfaces with different torques: For shortening Newton (kgm/s^2) it is "N" instead of "n". Therefore in your graph "IC Diamond Graphite Pad vs. Thermal Grizzly Hydronaut Past | Torque Test | GamersNexus.net" (maybe the last is just your name) the unit of your Torque Driver Setting Axis should be "Nm", not "nm", with is short for Nanometer (10^-9 m). Btw like your error-bars and would like to see more of them. Especially in the 2 dimensional graphs you got here.
@@sripadhs I agree this would be a nice to have for one video, but since it is very impractical for use (probably), it shouldn't be in every cooler review for every cooler. Just to impractical.
I mean, kinda throwing shade, but they also showed *why* its bad so its undeniable. Corsair cant be mad at anyone but themselves for not having an even coldplate.
A friend actually went and bought that cooler because 'it looks cool' . I forced him to return it by invoking the gods of testing, GN, and explaining he'd bought a turkey. Let him have the Fuma 2 I bought for a new build I'm still collecting parts for (he's under pain of death orders to replace that asap!)
Love that GN follows the advice they give to manufactures about not releasing products till they’re 100% confident with their own videos. As always, this was well worth the wait!
Thanks for noticing! We promised to review this pad something like 2-3 years ago, but we just weren't ready or happy with our degree of accuracy until now. The nice thing is that now we can keep doing more interface/paste tests!
I actually got featured in an ask gn episode way back asking for this review. I've since used one and switched back to paste but I'm still interested in the results and glad to see it finally done. Better late than never, thx gn :P Edit: it's also nice to see there was a legit reason for the time and I did ask for "in depth analysis" and that's exactly what we got
Ihate allofU I’ll take monotone over Austin Evans style of over the top cornyness that’s become the norm on UA-cam. Nothing against him, because I do enjoy some of his content. He’s just the first tech person that came to mind.
Nanometer is a measure of distance. Newton meter is a measure of mechanical force. That's why he mentioned it in relation to the torque driver he was holding. Certain coolers have instructions that specific.
@@artisan002 whoosh! they are saying they used the wrong unit, unintentionally, in the graphs; which is an understandable, easy to make mistake. It is like mispeeling a word and not correcting it. Your response ... is incomprehensible. Not what you said, but why you said it. The person obviously knows the difference between nm and Nm and the rest of your response seems intended for a completely different comment. Are you stoned? If so, share.
@@kuromurasakizero9515 Good god dude. Did you push your glasses up before you started that burn? Try to be calm. "Incomprehensible" is getting a bit hyperbolic.
This missed something I was really interested in. I have heard the *horizontal* conductivity of these graphite pads is significantly higher than pastes (over the same distance). With AMD CPUS using an offset chiplet design, specifically chips with a single offset chiplet like the 3700x, and the majority of coolers not being built for this new design, could a graphite pad provide better overall thermal dissipation compared to paste in this situation? I was excited to hear the dummy bench can simulate AMD chiplet heat points but disappointed that no testing was done in this area.
shortly after release of the current ryzens, different mounting orientations were testet for your mentioned reason. Result was no noticeable difference because of the good heat transfer between the heatpipes.
I think I've heard that some of these pre-cut graphite pads have higher Z conductivity, though that might differ by which one (maybe it was carbonaut that I'm thinking of). There is also paper-like PGS (pyrolytic graphite sheet, like seen in this video ua-cam.com/video/ZAEhyY1_czM/v-deo.html also quickly/easily cutting ice cubes with body heat) that you can get with higher XY thermal conductivity that *might* be useful for DIY cooling solutions where you spread the heat more (larger air coolers, external cooling, multiple air coolers passive or not etc). Would love to see testing to see it this is worth it or even viable, but maybe it's not GN's type of content.
Aye, as Rob stated Gamers Nexus did a piece on the Heat Pipe orientation myth which can be found: ua-cam.com/video/O1WGlPrH4IU/v-deo.html Due to them debunking the myth and saying the only real factor of hindrance would be poor overall case airflow to orientation, or pulling heat directly off the back of a GPU, I highly doubt their results would vary much from this videos tests since the heat pipe direction would have no factor in it.
the thermal graphite pad that AMD used on the reference rx5k series for example is miles better than the IC diamond graphite pad but there's also a reason why it's not re-usable after you pull it off(it'll rip almost every time). i currently use the IC diamond graphite pad in my system with a zen 2 cpu and there's zero benefit to it over paste when it comes to performance. the only reason i still have it installed is because i'm lazy and don't feel like pulling my block off again and applying paste since i'm still under the 65C barrier to hit 4.2Ghz all core boost.. but my temps are still 2-3C higher than with hydronaut in my specific case which equates to my fans having to run about 5-10% higher rpm to make up for the difference. that being said though the graphite pads have saved my ass a few times when i've realized i've run out of thermal paste and didn't have any which is why i currently have it installed on this system since human malware made it impossible to get thermal paste shipped in a timely manner back in march when i was forced to remount my block. otherwise i usually just keep it in the case it came with and use it for testing.
why would that be different? correct me if I'm wrong or misunderstood your comment, but the orientation of the pad relative to the CPU and cooler doesn't change. and regarding the single offset chiplet, does it matter either? what you want in a thermal compound is the ability to transfer the heat from one surface to another, not to soak the heat in the thermal compound itself.
I like pad for laptop cpu. The pad last forever but Paste need to be reapplied every 4 years. This is important as laptop is much harder to service. Also the panda gpu strikes again. Haha
That's a good point that we only briefly mentioned. Thanks for bringing that up. Serviceability of things like laptops is way worse, so it does make good sense there. Laptops are also notorious for garbage stock paste that eventually hardens.
I've kept a pad on hand for testing motherboards/cpus to see if they're functional. IT IS SO CONVENIENT NOT HAVING TO CLEAN PASTE EVERY TIME. I see it as a tool, not as something I'd run day-to-day.
Yup but even for a gaming rig pads are just fine i am of the belief that they're the go to for someone building a pc and leaving it alone for however long @@I_enjoy_some_things
I just like that it's less messy. Literally only benefit, but not a small one. Especially for first time builders putting on this pad may seem less of a concern than "spreading the paste out correctly."
If you build your first computer it's actually good to have that "concern", because it forces you to research more and that will lead to better decisions. Like I was a first time builder 3 months ago and exactly these little questions that you ask yourself before even ordering parts makes you google shit tons and then through finding the necessary info you always also find other beneficial info, like for example I never even asked myself how strong I have to fasten the screws, but while looking for a guide on how to spread the paste I overheard that you should "make it a bit tighter than you think" and that sent me into another google spiral for info. Another point is also that "hard things" are much more rewarding. I enjoyed researching and building my pc a lot and so do many people. Making it "easier" would, for me and many others, actually be a negative. Sounds weird, but I am sure you kow what I mean :)
For stock builds of most 125W TDP or less, with decent air or AIO CLC's, the pads won't likely be enough of a loss in heat transfer over paste to impact performance in a meaningful way, I think it's a good choice for most users. I personally like paste.
I get that, but thermal paste isn't like a difficult thing to do. A single drop of it in the middle, put the cooler on and bingo bango bongo. It's done.
Steve: "You're just not going to realistically encounter a scenario where a screw is tightened to one thread." iBUYPOWER: We can achieve the impossible.
They've actually been using thermal graphite pads in phones since iPhone 1. They conduct a heatspreader into the screen which is enough to keep the arm CPUs cool enough. You can find large sheets on ali for like $5. I can cut and cover almost 20 CPUs with it.
I have 2 of them. What I noticed is that after 1 year on my corsair water cooler; Temps started to go up quick. The pad requires a bunch of mounting pressure and if the screws stretch at all you have no contact.
You know your own testing was solid when it lines up with what GN found, I was able to test the IC graphite asgainst arctic MX2 and found that IC graphite was 1-2 degreese worse consistently with a overclocked Ryzen 5 3600 and that for me is good enough considering its convenience.
@@Spirit532 torque is measured by formulas that include both force (newtons, pounds) and distance (meters, feet). Just like how speed uses distance divided by time (km/h)
@@Spirit532 Torque is force times distance from the center. Multiplying force by distance is correct, that is why it is called newton * meter. Newton - meter does not make sense, you can not subtract 2 different dimensions.
@@Spirit532 when you see a torque value, imagine someone using a wrench. a torque of 1Nm would be using 1 newton of force applied via a 1 meter long wrench, or 2 newtons and a 0.5m wrench, ect.
Out of curiosity, do you guys validate your torque equipment every once in a while? I work with a lot of calibrated equipment and torque wrenches and torque screw drivers are far and away the most common thing to have fail for the values being out of tolerance.
Even looking back at older videos I still learn something every time I watch a GN video. This came out around the time I built my first system and now I’m one of the go to friends in my group for PC stuff and dive headfirst into learning. You past present and future content brings so much to the table
I can say that with a 560mm rad using this pad doesn't really effect my temps that much. For those wondering why a 560mm rad the answer is: whisper quite pc.
Opposite actually. The bigger your rad is the more you shift the bottleneck towards the block, thermal interface and IHS. If your coolant is at ambient and you're hitting 95° you can't just spin up the fans and drop the temps. At some point adding rad space or fan speed only gets you insignificant improvements. And that's when you need to look at the block, delidding, liquid metal etc to push further. Modern CPUs have insane heat density, on my 3900X i have a delta of around 65-70 degrees between the coolant and the CPU, and with CPU only load a delta of around 4 degrees between coolant and ambient...
Basically, until you are in a high wattage, high temperature (high performance) situation, the thermal pad will realistically work fine. It's when you really need to shave a few degrees off your operating temp that you need thermal paste. I like the pads because they aren't messy, in application as well as in storage out of use. They also serve a wider array of purposes, such as nvme drives and gpu ram.
I personally love using graphite pads simply because I don't have to deal with the mess of the paste after the fact. Well worth the slight drop in performance.
I started using this same pad last year after coming from Arctic Silver MX4 paste. My idle temps remained the same and my max temperatures only went up, literally, 2 degrees from the paste.. Not really a big deal in my opinion and now I don't ever have to deal with paste again. I even have my 8700k overclocked to 4.8ghz on all cores. When stressing the FPU in AIDA, my temps max out in mid 70s. And they never go above mid 60s when I'm not torturing the CPU. I really have no reason to use paste at this point. 🤷♂️
Some CPU's IHS are kinda flat. This helps a lot with heat transfer. Some other IHS are horribly far away from being flat and here probably the pads give better results. Using a decent paste on a flattened CPU IHS along with a flat cooler surface is always better than anything else but when the IHS's surface is curved then probably using a decent pad is advised. After lapping a CPU IHS there's only a thin layer of paste needed and the thermal transfer is high. The paste layer is so thin you can easily see through it.
I wonder what the combination of thin Thermal paste and a Thermal pad would do. Microscopic pictures of thermal pads make them look pretty uneven and rough. The Thermal paste should smooth that out and bring the best of both worlds.
I have had the same thought, and wish GN would test this. But I am moving away from TG because that stuff dries out like paint!!! I would want GN to test with Arctic Silver 5.
I've been telling this to people from the start. There is no replacement, for Thermal Paste. It rolls downstairs alone or in pairs and over your neighbors dog. Whats great for a snack, and fits in your pack? Its Paste Paste Paste! It's Paste, It's Paste, It's Soft, squishy, its Great! It's Paste, It's paste, its better than bad, its Paste.
Bummer. I just bought two of these. I put one on my entertainment pc which has a Ryzen 3600X with a Noctua low profile cooler and at startup it was running nearly 50C. Normally, my temps would start in the 30's. I was hoping this would be a better option than paste. Oh well.
Now I'm just running some Windows updates and it's up to 70 celcius. These pads are not a good idea. Thermal paste is a better option, even the cheap stuff is better than this.
One thing this patch can be good for let's say you're building a computer for your grandma, you know for a fact that she's not going to upgrade that computer for 10 years or more. Even the best thermal paste will eventually cure.
I built a home office PC for a friend last year who works from home. I used a pad and now she never has to bother with paste. I tested with good paste and the pad before I gave her the PC and at max temps, the pad was, literally, 2 degrees hotter. No big deal, in my opinion.
Or better yet, using the pad on your cousin's RRoD'd Xbox 360 (which is the newest console they own and yes they still play it, especially his young son as a Minecraft machine). A desktop PC is at least relatively easy to disassemble, but a console is a completely different story.
I have no idea what paste I used back then, but my i5 2500K ran for 8 years with a mugen on it. Maybe by the end the temps weren't quite as good as at the beginning, I don't know, but it was never an issue... It was oc'd for the last two years or so too.
Zellonous if he is building a pc for grandma then its cost will not be as high, so no fancy coolers etc than can help with temps, so that extra reliability over the years can assure him the pc is not gonna auto up the fanspeed.
A topic not mentioned is the "turbo" function on most major manufactures which will both add a "SIGNIFICANT" performance boost and "GREATLY" degrade your paste over a much "SHORTER" period of time and this is where the thermal pad "OUTPERFORMES" paste every time (0% degradation). Single use thermal pad "Superior Longevity" was hinted at but not directly mentioned.
What I really want to see is results after a year of use, when the paste dries up. The pad can make a lot more sense to use if it can get ahead of the paste in just a year. Can you do a video on how much time affects different pastes and compare it to a pad?
Just for anyone reading this, I've had this thermal graphite pad on my 7700K for 3 years now. As far as I know it's as good as it is when it was new. 4.9GHz OC and my temps never go above 73C under full load. Cooled with H115i AIO. Idle temps are around 45C
I put whatever the top rated pad on Newegg was in 2019 on my i9700k while replacing the cooler (noctua dh-something) and after almost 3 years it's still performing amazing, even under heavy load it never goes above high 60's 😇
This is why I like the graphite pad, my paste kept failing in time(I'm no expert at applying it), the pad was an easy and clean install and I've had no more trouble with CPU(i7) temps since that day, years ago. After the thermal pad my temps dropped really low compared to what my previous normal was. I bought the CPU and MOBO used and just thought it was a system that ran hot for some reason, it would start overheating after months and crashing during gaming, then new paste would bring it back down to its "normal" high temps. It may be why the person sold it to me so cheap. I was thinking in my situation my CPU was warped instead of flat, with difficulty getting a good connection to the cooler and the pad helped perfectly connect the CPU to the cooler, it had a lot of coverage and compressed it down when tightening. Reminds me of the XBOX 360 red ring of death days, a lot of those issues were supposed to be from warping and the thermal paste. I fixed my RROD by simply applying new paste but only lasted maybe weeks before it happened again. Would have been neat to know about thermal pads back then to see if it worked any better.
I know this is an old video, but I have been using Thermal Grizzly for awhile now and my experience is that over time it DOES dry out, and A LOT, much more than what I had been using for years, which was Arctic Silver 5. I have used Thermal Grizzly on my high-end RAID card and the CPU on my Netgear NAS, and the temperatures steadily rise within a very short period of time. I open them up and sure enough, the TG paste is dry like paint!!!! I wish GN would test and report on this. So I'm going to try one of these IC Graphite Thermal pads. I think another important factor to consider is the high cost of TG. The IC pad is just $13 bucks, and lasts "forever". Plus, if it's drying out all the time (as it is for me), now you have the wasted time of periodically having to tear down your rig or equipment. I would rather have ZERO down time, a ONE time install, and LOWER cost, PLUS reliable temps that never degrade. Sure, if I'm going to build the highest overclocking computer and compete with others for fastest machine and lowest temps, fine; then you're going to want to go with lowest thermals. But for those doing that, tearing down all the time is normal and expected. I am NOT in that category, especially for my RAID card and NAS; I just want those things to run and run and NEVER have to worry about temperature creep EVER, and this sounds like a perfect use for these IC (or other) pads. And why not these pads for the vast majority of us who DO have gaming machines, but as long as the heat doesn't "redline" and we can do everything we're going to do with NO issue or constant teardowns... well isn't THAT what's better, less costly, and saves us time on unnecessary down time?
That's why I really like Arctic Silver 5 and still use it. It's thick/viscous and not too thin and gooey which leads to pump out and doesn't dry out as quickly. Best of all, it just works!
so nice that you guys got a great tool to know actual heatsink performance since the TPD is basically useless info can you please make a comparison on the low profile cooler since I have been looking around and they either vary in performance either they all seem the same even some are bigger than other or they have a big difference
Corsair is actually the worst most popular brand name. Watercooling gpus that leak, poorly designed heat sinks, no care for ram at all, 100s of systems that crash from there rgb software and more. So sad they are popular despite the nonsense junk they produce and the suckers that buy it and fanboy for them and worse the clout youtubers who keep giving them positive reviews for sponsorship. So sad.
Your channel is what's great about UA-cam. You provide real world information that is actually helpful! You go above and beyond to make sure it's as accurate as possible and as unbiased any human can be. I mean what enthusiast or person with a modicum of intelligence would not appreciate or find that valuable. Well done to you and your team. Love the channel. Keep up the great work from an appreciative viewer on the other side of the planet.
I'm super curious about thermal pads from the electronics space. Thermal pads exist with thermal conductivity around 1600W/(m*K) compared to 35 of this pad. Could you maybe check these out. A part number you could find at DigiKey would be EYG-S091203DP. I'm thinking this might have a shot compared to paste.
"It's not going to be better" Should be... "It's not going to give lower temperatures." Because **better** can mean many things. These pads are honestly 'Good Enough' for most people. The benefits of being a clean install and reusability matter quite a bit once you don't REALLY need the extra cooling from paste. Just like a 500hp car is not "better" than a 200hp car, if all you do is pick up groceries with it. At some point other features begin to matter more. NOTE: Reusability doesn't **just** mean when you replace a part. being able to take the cooler off when cleaning without having to re-apply paste is nice. And being able to reseat the cooler if you are getting anomalous readings without re-applying paste is also useful.
mind if I use some of your videos as a learning video for middle school children's about math in a real world use (and as a English course as well since I'm French and i will have to translate )
That poster... Dude, I never seen anything like that 'til I came out here and used the subway (Austria, Vienna), and that thing was more confusing than today's gender identities! Looks like a motherboard layout tho with a taste of, remember vienna?!^^ \O>
After two years I'm changing my case and fans (and only the case and fans), bit I thought since I got the PC taken apart anyways, I could use the opportunity to reapply paste. I would probably never bother to do that at any other time so long I don't change the CPU/Motherboard, so carpe diem. Since I don't have any spare paste and would need to get new one anyways, I feel like this could be a good opportunity to just get the pad and spare myself the hassle of "picking a paste, checking it for conductivity, applying it correctly, get paranoid about application" etc etc
I'm jumping to AM5 and have read people being frustrated with the cleaning of the 7000 series CPU heatspreader. All those groves appears to be a hassle to clean up the cpu. COnsidering maybe it's time to use a thermal pad as I know this low end 7600 will be replaced at some point.
Great testing, much appreciated. A small thing to improve: in the Low Mounting Pressure graph, the correct unit for Newton meter should be N m, not nm (nanometer). Keep up the good work!
Steve, what cooler would you get for a 20 core 40 threaded 14 nm broad-well oem chip with a 200 watt TDP but think the max is 150 watts, usually around 140 however it does read 200 on the screen, its an original and unique, rare Xeon 2679 V4 but already have it sitting so going to use it with my ASUS-X99 Workstation USB 3.1 CEB Board, I am just down to cooler, was going to get that German monster 280mm that is refillable and cased in a honeycomb shell and the name is odd but means "ice bear" but then like the Kracken z73 as have the new corsair 5000x rgb icue case in the box sitting also now.... I NEED to decide on a cooler, I am digging those two but now unsure if I am even supposed to be using a water cooler as if that is better or worse for a T CASE OF just 53c however I heard chip runs on thee cooler side believe it or not.... I liked cooler-master ma620 but know its not that good and plan to use the blue heat paste, you know who's, king pins as have that here also now.... I am hoping it is his and not a knock offs...... (was bought on new-egg).... anyway.... so, air cooler or water cooler and if water cooler, which option, I HATE the look of the arctic freezer II's pump at the board with the off shape and all, totally out of question, the EK I did not like to much either, so Kracken Z73 (I do want the lcd for temps but I can get my own LCD and build it into case later also...) ....or some NON-Brown absolute beast of an air cooler? Somebody HELP .... FOR MY PARTICULAR SITUATION.... Thanks Guys, Steve
After ripping my 2700x out of the socket twice using mx-4 I switched to an ic pad. I noticed about 2C of temperature difference, which is fine for me. I am using a noctua nh-d14 which means I can't twist the cooler before taking it off so that I don't rip out the Cpu. About the name of the pad: I think the company is called innovation cooling (ic) and the pad is called graphite pad. The diamond in the name describes the ic paste which includes diamond dust. Thanks for the great testing!
I ripped mine out of the socket trying to pull the stock cooler. lack of space at the top of my case caused to cooler to get caught on the bracket. I ended up replacing the stock cooler.
I couldn't twist the stock cooler because the top bracket gets caught due to severe lack of space. replaced the stock with an ac 34 that bolts in so it'll no longer be an issue. I even benchmarked the CPU to get the paste nice and soft beforehand. still bent enough pins I had to replace the cpu
I prefer graphite myself, mostly because I'm lazy. I don't do heavy overclocking, and I don't want to have to replace thermal paste. I'm using it with a water cooled system and I'm more than happy with my running temps. Another working application I would have mentioned is when building a pc set up for a long time use scenario, because you don't have to worry about paste drying ever.
Poor Corsair... You can tell that they put some real R&D into certain aspects of the A500, but history will show that the A500's primary use case will be to demonstrate how NOT to create a high-performance air cooler. Seriously, how can the same engineering team get so much right while getting so much wrong on the same product?
It seems like these graphite pad products may be more useful in certain long-term equipment deployment circumstances, particularly if you wanted to ensure better product longevity in high thermal cycle products like gaming laptops. You could mitigate long term product thermal degradation by replacing paste with pads in high performance laptops. That said, I imagine these pads would be far more expensive per unit cost when compared to the hundreds of gallons of paste SIs buy for assembling laptops. That and manufactures unfortunately don’t care about the entire life-cycle of their products, as long as it survives the warranty period. I think you could make a good argument for thermal pads having some impact on mitigating e-waste if people are able to hold onto their gaming laptops a year or so longer thanks to the more reliable performance these graphite pads can provide. Thanks for the insight here.
Steve, just a thought, Lets do a 1 year test, with both Thermal pads vs paste. This should allow us to see if there is any degrading value in the pads overtime vs the degrade in paste. Plus gives an interesting test for the pad vs pad as well. Like i believe the IC diamond pad would be better than the Thermal Greezly pad in constant removal of heatsink/cpu swapping cause of durability, but would love to see the difference in performance change after 1 year, even longer.
I'll take the convenience over a 1-2° difference. I like working with old pcs and i keep swapping cpus, etc. I have a ton of old cpus that i can now buy for $.50
What about x570 chipsets ? The pads on the gigabyte master x570 are bad and you can see a 12c stop replacing it with paste. Would these pads be better. Would be a good video to see the difference
and it basically doesn't expire... where as that tube will be toast in about 2 years. considering most people dont build a new system for another 3 or 4 years... they'd have to buy another tube.
I bought one several years ago and have been satisfied. Picked up a used cooler earlier this year and didn't even consider that without the pad I would have had to get some new thermal paste.
Paste round up comparison, with best air and best water cooler? With your test equipment and methodology it would great. Would settle some forum/pub arguments too!
It's a great alternative to paste. No cleaning, and having to think about how much is too much or too little when applying. Makes cleaning less of a chore and I'm able to do it more often with my air cooler. The few degrees higher is pointless as a gamer
I like not having to worry about too little paste and poor cooling or too much paste overflowing onto the socket. The 30mm pad is too small and the 40mm seems too large for Ryzen. Can the pad be cut to the correct size so there is no overhang?
8:57 into the video. what is with the person holding up the gpu? like they are raising and holding up a stereo outside a womens window. playing a love song as they try to serenade them. after they got their attention by throwing pebbles at the window like a cheesy 80's movie.
Do they make a graphite paste derivative. I agree paste is better thus a graphite paste should do very well. Graphite is 5x better a conducting heat than copper
2:34 It's precise, not accurate. High precision is a highly-clustered group of measurements, while high accuracy is a particular measurement that is especially close to the "true" value.
did you do any type of real world testing? how long do people actually wait till changing thermal paste? Years alot of the time. By that time the thermal paste is not helping. But a graphite pad will still be going as strong as it was on day 1. Consistency.
I wonder if pads are better for systems that are to stay together for longer. For a build that goes for about 5 years without a fresh application of thermal paste, would these thermal pads be a better choice?
Is there a reason why you chose Hydronaut over Kryonaut? Also based on the pressure testing, Im supposed to not use a lot in order for temps to be better? lol
I ask you, what other review channel uses a torque screwdriver? I would wager some don't even know what that is let alone know how to use it correctly.
the reason ive bought 2 is i always struggle to get the cpu cooler on and i fuck up the thermal paste in the process, with the pad is its very hard to screw up.
How effective would a Grizzly Graphite sandwich be? A spread of paste, a pad and another spread of paste? How effective would be the heat spreader on the CPU being grooved and the cooler heat spreader being grooved by the same machine - better contact? Remember if there is any lubricant on the screw thread you need to reduce the torque - just like a car wheel...
So when can we expect to see y’all test thermal grizzlies pad? I’m currently running that on my build but I’ll be putting together a custom loop once my parts get here. Curious if I should use paste or keep the pad on it once I start putting it back together.
Hello everyone, I have a question regarding the correct size of thermal pads. The manufacturer used both 1.25mm and 1.75mm thermal pads. However, I'm unable to find thermal pads in those specific sizes. I'm unsure whether I should opt for a size that is one level up or one level down. For the 1.25mm thermal pads used by the manufacturer, should I choose 1mm or 1.5mm? Your guidance on the best option would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.
If you can't get the exact measurements then you can safely go up one when required. It will compress when tightened. Just don't do any higher than that.
"You're not going to face a situation when all the heatsink screws are just using 1 revolution of threads..." The Verge: "Y.. y.. you need to use all screws on the heatsink? ...oh dear"
Now you guys can start testing thermal pastes! If you guys are in the market for some suggestions, I would suggest testing Prolimatech PK-2&3, GD900 (cheap AliExpress, but can be bought on Amazon), Arctic MX-2&4, Arctic Silver 5, Noctua NT-H1&2, Corsair XTM50, Cooler Master MasterGel, ThermalCoolFlux, HY-883-4g, and Kingpin KPx. Just a thought. :)
But.... what if I make a Thermal Pad/Paste Sandwich!? It'll be the best of both worlds! Or the worst of both worlds! Either way! Win! Or... either way! Lose!
Our CPU cooler review methodology is here: ua-cam.com/video/fmTOJP4KOyk/v-deo.html
Support test equipment purchases via the GN store, like by buying a Modmat, Mouse Mat, or a limited Chipset Metro poster: store.gamersnexus.net/products/x570-chipset-metro-station-poster-18-x-24
EK AIO Tear-Down: ua-cam.com/video/bAwYEBmSfvE/v-deo.html
Or written form of test methodology here: www.gamersnexus.net/guides/3561-cpu-cooler-testing-methodology-most-tests-are-flawed
erratum : at 13:04 the X axis is in Nm (Newton Meter) not nm (nanometer)
It is very reassuring when you go this far into your testing controls in the actual test video occasionally. You always reiterate to go check testing methodology but when you show it in video form everyone gets to actually see "Wow thats probably more of a scientific test than the manufacturers use". Really appreciate the extremely strict comparisons and not having to second guess your conclusions/opinions at the end.
Hi Steve, out of curiosity, what would the results or measurements be without any medium between the CPU and cooler? How would that compare against thermal paste?
A quick mention for your graph comparing the thermal intetfaces with different torques:
For shortening Newton (kgm/s^2) it is "N" instead of "n". Therefore in your graph "IC Diamond Graphite Pad vs. Thermal Grizzly Hydronaut Past | Torque Test | GamersNexus.net" (maybe the last is just your name) the unit of your Torque Driver Setting Axis should be "Nm", not "nm", with is short for Nanometer (10^-9 m).
Btw like your error-bars and would like to see more of them.
Especially in the 2 dimensional graphs you got here.
@@sripadhs
I agree this would be a nice to have for one video, but since it is very impractical for use (probably), it shouldn't be in every cooler review for every cooler. Just to impractical.
"Right now you see an A500 mounted to it because I needed something bad" Noice!
When I heard that I was like "goddamn corsair can't possibly reply to this"
I mean, kinda throwing shade, but they also showed *why* its bad so its undeniable. Corsair cant be mad at anyone but themselves for not having an even coldplate.
Companies need good roasting
it is 100% true though. corsair's cooler was so uneven it made for a great thermal paste tester
A friend actually went and bought that cooler because 'it looks cool' . I forced him to return it by invoking the gods of testing, GN, and explaining he'd bought a turkey. Let him have the Fuma 2 I bought for a new build I'm still collecting parts for (he's under pain of death orders to replace that asap!)
Damn, lol savage....."or of one consisting with Corsair's manufacturing ability".......
oof size: *Large*
That was hilarious :D
Laughed way too much about this
der8auer ok but what’s the significance at 9:01
@@der8auer Hi Roman!!! I would like to buy some Carbonaut could you tell me how many pads are in a pack? Is €25 a good price for a 38x38 pack?
Love that GN follows the advice they give to manufactures about not releasing products till they’re 100% confident with their own videos. As always, this was well worth the wait!
Thanks for noticing! We promised to review this pad something like 2-3 years ago, but we just weren't ready or happy with our degree of accuracy until now. The nice thing is that now we can keep doing more interface/paste tests!
@@GamersNexus compared to Linus, you guys make him look like a 12 year old doing test
Jon Jones' Dealer Very true but Linus can’t keep a CPU cooler in his hand for more than 5 seconds anyway
@@GamersNexus quick comment btw. You look good in a undercut faded manbun my guy
I actually got featured in an ask gn episode way back asking for this review. I've since used one and switched back to paste but I'm still interested in the results and glad to see it finally done. Better late than never, thx gn :P
Edit: it's also nice to see there was a legit reason for the time and I did ask for "in depth analysis" and that's exactly what we got
Considering that every time I use thermal paste, I get it all over my body, I think thermal pads are pretty promising.
I'm going to coat the thermal pad with thermal paste and get double cooling
It's the mechanics anti sieze equivalent
I think you are confusing thermal paste with tooth paste.
sounds hot.
As a lube? ^^
Your testing methodology always blows me away no matter how many times I see it.
Agreed, however, the monotone bores me to death. I can never watch more than a few minutes.
@@ihateallofu8233 Comes with the territory and isn't changing.
Ihate allofU I’ll take monotone over Austin Evans style of over the top cornyness that’s become the norm on UA-cam. Nothing against him, because I do enjoy some of his content. He’s just the first tech person that came to mind.
@@bobbabouie91 Totally agree with you there.
@@GamersNexusEverything is bound to change. Someday you'll have to be a
Linus.
"We would pick paste...there's a few reasons for this. One is that [good] paste is just objectively better". That's a good reason.
And the pads don’t spread on toast
@@float32 the zestiest condiment.
To prevent heat ups. Eat thermal paste
They come in syringes, so just skip the whole digestion process and go straight for a vein.
@@Jaco_Schutte enema?
*People about to go to bed. But DAMMIT when Tech Jesus summons you, you bring your ass to CHURCH.*
Amen!
The megabyte, the gigabyte, & the mighty terabyte; Bill Gates. IBM 8100:VV2136 Thou shalt not skimp on thy thermal compound
"This setting is not realistic at all"
*stares in the Verge's AIO install that is full on missing a screw*
Small observation about your graphs: nm is nanometers, Nm is Newton meters!
Nanometer is a measure of distance. Newton meter is a measure of mechanical force. That's why he mentioned it in relation to the torque driver he was holding. Certain coolers have instructions that specific.
@@artisan002 to be precise, Nm is torque that's why I mentioned it should be like that on the graphs!
@@artisan002 whoosh!
they are saying they used the wrong unit, unintentionally, in the graphs; which is an understandable, easy to make mistake. It is like mispeeling a word and not correcting it.
Your response ... is incomprehensible. Not what you said, but why you said it. The person obviously knows the difference between nm and Nm and the rest of your response seems intended for a completely different comment. Are you stoned? If so, share.
@@kuromurasakizero9515 Good god dude. Did you push your glasses up before you started that burn? Try to be calm. "Incomprehensible" is getting a bit hyperbolic.
@@apostolosnt Well, yes. A unit of force. But, I get what you're saying now. I'd missed the first line.
9:05 Love the A500 is being flanked by the Yeston GPU. Its clearly mad at the lackluster cooler
For real though, I wish I could just buy the cooler from that GPU. It's become quite the meme. 😂
Uhh at last.. was waiting for this for so long. Hope got Thermal Grizzly Carbonaut review. Thumb up*
Will Steve dare to make Roman feel the heat? We'll see.
Please please please review Thermal Grizzly's Carbonaut!!!!!
Thermal Grizzly's Carbonaut is supposed to have twice the thermal conductivity of ic diamond's pads!!!
This missed something I was really interested in. I have heard the *horizontal* conductivity of these graphite pads is significantly higher than pastes (over the same distance). With AMD CPUS using an offset chiplet design, specifically chips with a single offset chiplet like the 3700x, and the majority of coolers not being built for this new design, could a graphite pad provide better overall thermal dissipation compared to paste in this situation? I was excited to hear the dummy bench can simulate AMD chiplet heat points but disappointed that no testing was done in this area.
shortly after release of the current ryzens, different mounting orientations were testet for your mentioned reason. Result was no noticeable difference because of the good heat transfer between the heatpipes.
I think I've heard that some of these pre-cut graphite pads have higher Z conductivity, though that might differ by which one (maybe it was carbonaut that I'm thinking of).
There is also paper-like PGS (pyrolytic graphite sheet, like seen in this video ua-cam.com/video/ZAEhyY1_czM/v-deo.html also quickly/easily cutting ice cubes with body heat) that you can get with higher XY thermal conductivity that *might* be useful for DIY cooling solutions where you spread the heat more (larger air coolers, external cooling, multiple air coolers passive or not etc). Would love to see testing to see it this is worth it or even viable, but maybe it's not GN's type of content.
Aye, as Rob stated Gamers Nexus did a piece on the Heat Pipe orientation myth which can be found: ua-cam.com/video/O1WGlPrH4IU/v-deo.html Due to them debunking the myth and saying the only real factor of hindrance would be poor overall case airflow to orientation, or pulling heat directly off the back of a GPU, I highly doubt their results would vary much from this videos tests since the heat pipe direction would have no factor in it.
the thermal graphite pad that AMD used on the reference rx5k series for example is miles better than the IC diamond graphite pad but there's also a reason why it's not re-usable after you pull it off(it'll rip almost every time). i currently use the IC diamond graphite pad in my system with a zen 2 cpu and there's zero benefit to it over paste when it comes to performance. the only reason i still have it installed is because i'm lazy and don't feel like pulling my block off again and applying paste since i'm still under the 65C barrier to hit 4.2Ghz all core boost.. but my temps are still 2-3C higher than with hydronaut in my specific case which equates to my fans having to run about 5-10% higher rpm to make up for the difference. that being said though the graphite pads have saved my ass a few times when i've realized i've run out of thermal paste and didn't have any which is why i currently have it installed on this system since human malware made it impossible to get thermal paste shipped in a timely manner back in march when i was forced to remount my block. otherwise i usually just keep it in the case it came with and use it for testing.
why would that be different? correct me if I'm wrong or misunderstood your comment, but the orientation of the pad relative to the CPU and cooler doesn't change. and regarding the single offset chiplet, does it matter either? what you want in a thermal compound is the ability to transfer the heat from one surface to another, not to soak the heat in the thermal compound itself.
The thumbnail gives me chills down my spine
All that thermal paste, scary.
As someone on the verge of a breakthrough once said, "it's good PC building practice to apply a little extra"
@@pseudingus the verge heheh
fucking triggered me lol
"consisting of corsairs manufactering abilites" I needed that laugh today.
I was going to bed but then a GN video came across my notifications.....
Seriously. Goddamnit Steve. Now I'm losing sleep *and* regretting using an IC Diamond pad on my 9700k instead of paste...
lol same
i thought Steve's voice is perfect to lull you to sleep..? JK, great analysis as usual GN
Reusability also includes never having to clean thermal paste :) i enjoy that a lot
I like pad for laptop cpu. The pad last forever but Paste need to be reapplied every 4 years. This is important as laptop is much harder to service.
Also the panda gpu strikes again. Haha
That's a good point that we only briefly mentioned. Thanks for bringing that up. Serviceability of things like laptops is way worse, so it does make good sense there. Laptops are also notorious for garbage stock paste that eventually hardens.
That's an excellent point.
I also use the thermal pads for friends and family build so they don’t have to maintain it very much.
@@bradhaines3142 yeah. But some laptop are just PITA to remove the cpu and or gpu heatsink. Others will void your warranty if you do that.
Game Console's suffer the same bad serviceability as laptops, maybe pads could help that.
It is actually much better than I expected!
It performs like cheap paste but it won't dry, so it's a nice alternative for low maintenance builds.
I've kept a pad on hand for testing motherboards/cpus to see if they're functional. IT IS SO CONVENIENT NOT HAVING TO CLEAN PASTE EVERY TIME.
I see it as a tool, not as something I'd run day-to-day.
Yup but even for a gaming rig pads are just fine i am of the belief that they're the go to for someone building a pc and leaving it alone for however long @@I_enjoy_some_things
I just like that it's less messy. Literally only benefit, but not a small one. Especially for first time builders putting on this pad may seem less of a concern than "spreading the paste out correctly."
If you build your first computer it's actually good to have that "concern", because it forces you to research more and that will lead to better decisions. Like I was a first time builder 3 months ago and exactly these little questions that you ask yourself before even ordering parts makes you google shit tons and then through finding the necessary info you always also find other beneficial info, like for example I never even asked myself how strong I have to fasten the screws, but while looking for a guide on how to spread the paste I overheard that you should "make it a bit tighter than you think" and that sent me into another google spiral for info.
Another point is also that "hard things" are much more rewarding. I enjoyed researching and building my pc a lot and so do many people. Making it "easier" would, for me and many others, actually be a negative. Sounds weird, but I am sure you kow what I mean :)
For stock builds of most 125W TDP or less, with decent air or AIO CLC's, the pads won't likely be enough of a loss in heat transfer over paste to impact performance in a meaningful way, I think it's a good choice for most users. I personally like paste.
@@GuRuGeorge03 you're not alone, the difficulty is rewarding.
I get that, but thermal paste isn't like a difficult thing to do. A single drop of it in the middle, put the cooler on and bingo bango bongo. It's done.
@@nktslp3650 i found a bertical line is better and spreads out better aswell
Steve: "You're just not going to realistically encounter a scenario where a screw is tightened to one thread."
iBUYPOWER: We can achieve the impossible.
Well this aged like fine milk.
Alienware: "Hold my beer"
Should the graph for torque be in Nm not nm?
Yes. Thanks. It's definitely not in nanometers! Just used to typing "nm" from all the silicon.
@@GamersNexus, you should also be used to tipe "+" and 14, aren't you?
"nanometers phycological disorder" - Powered by mOaR SoLdIeRs
Your product team is on fire!!!
Thank you!
Seems like the graphite pad is an extremely good product.
They've actually been using thermal graphite pads in phones since iPhone 1. They conduct a heatspreader into the screen which is enough to keep the arm CPUs cool enough. You can find large sheets on ali for like $5. I can cut and cover almost 20 CPUs with it.
Its very thermally conductive. Reusable and doesnot make a mess
had mine since 2017. place it on and forget about it. reusable forever too as long dont do anything wreckless.
@@levynkhs8820 It's "too thick" to out perform a good paste though.
I have 2 of them. What I noticed is that after 1 year on my corsair water cooler; Temps started to go up quick. The pad requires a bunch of mounting pressure and if the screws stretch at all you have no contact.
You know your own testing was solid when it lines up with what GN found, I was able to test the IC graphite asgainst arctic MX2 and found that IC graphite was 1-2 degreese worse consistently with a overclocked Ryzen 5 3600 and that for me is good enough considering its convenience.
For future reference: nm is specifically nanometer and Nm is Newton meter.
Newton * meter
@@Hoshikani Since when do you multiply force by distance?
It's newton-meter, torque.
@@Spirit532 torque is measured by formulas that include both force (newtons, pounds) and distance (meters, feet).
Just like how speed uses distance divided by time (km/h)
@@Spirit532 Torque is force times distance from the center. Multiplying force by distance is correct, that is why it is called newton * meter. Newton - meter does not make sense, you can not subtract 2 different dimensions.
@@Spirit532 when you see a torque value, imagine someone using a wrench. a torque of 1Nm would be using 1 newton of force applied via a 1 meter long wrench, or 2 newtons and a 0.5m wrench, ect.
Out of curiosity, do you guys validate your torque equipment every once in a while? I work with a lot of calibrated equipment and torque wrenches and torque screw drivers are far and away the most common thing to have fail for the values being out of tolerance.
Should be checked and certified every year for any legitimate business.
@@tacticalcenter8658 If the application doesn't require rubber stamping, you can self calibrate pretty easily using an electric torque meter.
@@zoravar.k7904 then who calibrates the torque meter? :D
@@Techy93 this must be why low tolerance applications are so tough lol
We calibrate most of the tools in the lab based on manf. recommendations and timelines.
Yay. I've been waiting for this for like two years.
Even looking back at older videos I still learn something every time I watch a GN video. This came out around the time I built my first system and now I’m one of the go to friends in my group for PC stuff and dive headfirst into learning. You past present and future content brings so much to the table
I can say that with a 560mm rad using this pad doesn't really effect my temps that much. For those wondering why a 560mm rad the answer is: whisper quite pc.
Opposite actually. The bigger your rad is the more you shift the bottleneck towards the block, thermal interface and IHS. If your coolant is at ambient and you're hitting 95° you can't just spin up the fans and drop the temps. At some point adding rad space or fan speed only gets you insignificant improvements. And that's when you need to look at the block, delidding, liquid metal etc to push further. Modern CPUs have insane heat density, on my 3900X i have a delta of around 65-70 degrees between the coolant and the CPU, and with CPU only load a delta of around 4 degrees between coolant and ambient...
i assume you meant whisper quiet not whisper quite lol
overcompensation
@@Kineticartist It was 2am, me was tired!
I love how serious GN is about accurately and quality, that's how I know when GN uploads a video it's gonna be good.
Basically, until you are in a high wattage, high temperature (high performance) situation, the thermal pad will realistically work fine. It's when you really need to shave a few degrees off your operating temp that you need thermal paste.
I like the pads because they aren't messy, in application as well as in storage out of use. They also serve a wider array of purposes, such as nvme drives and gpu ram.
I personally love using graphite pads simply because I don't have to deal with the mess of the paste after the fact. Well worth the slight drop in performance.
I started using this same pad last year after coming from Arctic Silver MX4 paste. My idle temps remained the same and my max temperatures only went up, literally, 2 degrees from the paste.. Not really a big deal in my opinion and now I don't ever have to deal with paste again. I even have my 8700k overclocked to 4.8ghz on all cores. When stressing the FPU in AIDA, my temps max out in mid 70s. And they never go above mid 60s when I'm not torturing the CPU. I really have no reason to use paste at this point. 🤷♂️
Some CPU's IHS are kinda flat. This helps a lot with heat transfer. Some other IHS are horribly far away from being flat and here probably the pads give better results. Using a decent paste on a flattened CPU IHS along with a flat cooler surface is always better than anything else but when the IHS's surface is curved then probably using a decent pad is advised. After lapping a CPU IHS there's only a thin layer of paste needed and the thermal transfer is high. The paste layer is so thin you can easily see through it.
I wonder what the combination of thin Thermal paste and a Thermal pad would do. Microscopic pictures of thermal pads make them look pretty uneven and rough. The Thermal paste should smooth that out and bring the best of both worlds.
I have had the same thought, and wish GN would test this. But I am moving away from TG because that stuff dries out like paint!!! I would want GN to test with Arctic Silver 5.
I've been telling this to people from the start. There is no replacement, for Thermal Paste.
It rolls downstairs
alone or in pairs
and over your neighbors dog.
Whats great for a snack,
and fits in your pack?
Its Paste Paste Paste!
It's Paste, It's Paste,
It's Soft, squishy, its Great!
It's Paste, It's paste, its better than bad, its Paste.
Yes
Dude, lay off the paste! You're not supposed to smoke this stuff
Don’t ice the cake Stefan
C'mon Steve! That thumbnail is on the Verge of becoming a problem
I see what you did here
I've used a thermal pad with a cooler master air cooler. I guess you can say paste is objectively better, and mine would run great if I had a GPU.
8:56 you got me laughing out loud with your cute pet card! Are more Chinese video cards incoming?
Bummer. I just bought two of these. I put one on my entertainment pc which has a Ryzen 3600X with a Noctua low profile cooler and at startup it was running nearly 50C. Normally, my temps would start in the 30's. I was hoping this would be a better option than paste. Oh well.
Now I'm just running some Windows updates and it's up to 70 celcius. These pads are not a good idea. Thermal paste is a better option, even the cheap stuff is better than this.
One thing this patch can be good for let's say you're building a computer for your grandma, you know for a fact that she's not going to upgrade that computer for 10 years or more. Even the best thermal paste will eventually cure.
I built a home office PC for a friend last year who works from home. I used a pad and now she never has to bother with paste. I tested with good paste and the pad before I gave her the PC and at max temps, the pad was, literally, 2 degrees hotter. No big deal, in my opinion.
Or better yet, using the pad on your cousin's RRoD'd Xbox 360 (which is the newest console they own and yes they still play it, especially his young son as a Minecraft machine).
A desktop PC is at least relatively easy to disassemble, but a console is a completely different story.
I have no idea what paste I used back then, but my i5 2500K ran for 8 years with a mugen on it. Maybe by the end the temps weren't quite as good as at the beginning, I don't know, but it was never an issue... It was oc'd for the last two years or so too.
Mx 4 is rated to last 8 years. Also what sort of pc are you building where a few degrees over 10 years is a big deal for your grandma?
Zellonous if he is building a pc for grandma then its cost will not be as high, so no fancy coolers etc than can help with temps, so that extra reliability over the years can assure him the pc is not gonna auto up the fanspeed.
A topic not mentioned is the "turbo" function on most major manufactures which will both add a "SIGNIFICANT" performance boost and "GREATLY" degrade your paste over a much "SHORTER" period of time and this is where the thermal pad "OUTPERFORMES" paste every time (0% degradation). Single use thermal pad "Superior Longevity" was hinted at but not directly mentioned.
Plus the much lower cost!
What I really want to see is results after a year of use, when the paste dries up. The pad can make a lot more sense to use if it can get ahead of the paste in just a year.
Can you do a video on how much time affects different pastes and compare it to a pad?
Just for anyone reading this, I've had this thermal graphite pad on my 7700K for 3 years now. As far as I know it's as good as it is when it was new.
4.9GHz OC and my temps never go above 73C under full load. Cooled with H115i AIO. Idle temps are around 45C
I put whatever the top rated pad on Newegg was in 2019 on my i9700k while replacing the cooler (noctua dh-something) and after almost 3 years it's still performing amazing, even under heavy load it never goes above high 60's 😇
@@TechAndGamingSLA96 hahaha I posted my comment before reading yours, hell yeah dude 🥶😎
I have had this pad in my system for a year and a half. (R7 5800X 280mm aio) I works just as good as it did on day 1.
This is why I like the graphite pad, my paste kept failing in time(I'm no expert at applying it), the pad was an easy and clean install and I've had no more trouble with CPU(i7) temps since that day, years ago. After the thermal pad my temps dropped really low compared to what my previous normal was.
I bought the CPU and MOBO used and just thought it was a system that ran hot for some reason, it would start overheating after months and crashing during gaming, then new paste would bring it back down to its "normal" high temps. It may be why the person sold it to me so cheap.
I was thinking in my situation my CPU was warped instead of flat, with difficulty getting a good connection to the cooler and the pad helped perfectly connect the CPU to the cooler, it had a lot of coverage and compressed it down when tightening.
Reminds me of the XBOX 360 red ring of death days, a lot of those issues were supposed to be from warping and the thermal paste. I fixed my RROD by simply applying new paste but only lasted maybe weeks before it happened again. Would have been neat to know about thermal pads back then to see if it worked any better.
I know this is an old video, but I have been using Thermal Grizzly for awhile now and my experience is that over time it DOES dry out, and A LOT, much more than what I had been using for years, which was Arctic Silver 5.
I have used Thermal Grizzly on my high-end RAID card and the CPU on my Netgear NAS, and the temperatures steadily rise within a very short period of time. I open them up and sure enough, the TG paste is dry like paint!!!! I wish GN would test and report on this.
So I'm going to try one of these IC Graphite Thermal pads. I think another important factor to consider is the high cost of TG. The IC pad is just $13 bucks, and lasts "forever". Plus, if it's drying out all the time (as it is for me), now you have the wasted time of periodically having to tear down your rig or equipment. I would rather have ZERO down time, a ONE time install, and LOWER cost, PLUS reliable temps that never degrade.
Sure, if I'm going to build the highest overclocking computer and compete with others for fastest machine and lowest temps, fine; then you're going to want to go with lowest thermals. But for those doing that, tearing down all the time is normal and expected. I am NOT in that category, especially for my RAID card and NAS; I just want those things to run and run and NEVER have to worry about temperature creep EVER, and this sounds like a perfect use for these IC (or other) pads. And why not these pads for the vast majority of us who DO have gaming machines, but as long as the heat doesn't "redline" and we can do everything we're going to do with NO issue or constant teardowns... well isn't THAT what's better, less costly, and saves us time on unnecessary down time?
That's why I really like Arctic Silver 5 and still use it. It's thick/viscous and not too thin and gooey which leads to pump out and doesn't dry out as quickly. Best of all, it just works!
08:58 - OwO
I think the best use is for laptops or low end PC's that your mom or grandma use so in 2y you don't have to repaste
I've been waiting for this moment all my life, OH LAWD!
We promised this like 3 years ago. Sorry for the delay!
@@GamersNexus Thank you handsome
And it's still summer even.
23:49 getting a 'fine' from Steve is quite an accomplishment I'd say!!
so nice that you guys got a great tool to know actual heatsink performance since the TPD is basically useless info
can you please make a comparison on the low profile cooler since I have been looking around and they either vary in performance either they all seem the same even some are bigger than other or they have a big difference
Corsair A500 is now legendary meme status
Corsair is actually the worst most popular brand name. Watercooling gpus that leak, poorly designed heat sinks, no care for ram at all, 100s of systems that crash from there rgb software and more. So sad they are popular despite the nonsense junk they produce and the suckers that buy it and fanboy for them and worse the clout youtubers who keep giving them positive reviews for sponsorship. So sad.
Your channel is what's great about UA-cam. You provide real world information that is actually helpful!
You go above and beyond to make sure it's as accurate as possible and as unbiased any human can be. I mean what enthusiast or person with a modicum of intelligence would not appreciate or find that valuable.
Well done to you and your team. Love the channel. Keep up the great work from an appreciative viewer on the other side of the planet.
I'm super curious about thermal pads from the electronics space. Thermal pads exist with thermal conductivity around 1600W/(m*K) compared to 35 of this pad. Could you maybe check these out. A part number you could find at DigiKey would be EYG-S091203DP. I'm thinking this might have a shot compared to paste.
In summary - this thermal pad is "pretty not bad"
@@riccardocattozzo2579 Yeah, I hate having context for my thoughts.
You can usually skip towards the end and he sums up his thoughts a couple of times in a lot of videos.
Hell there’s sections in UA-cam now and they’re titled lmao it says CONCLUSION right there and there’s even a section for thermals...
"It's not going to be better"
Should be...
"It's not going to give lower temperatures."
Because **better** can mean many things.
These pads are honestly 'Good Enough' for most people.
The benefits of being a clean install and reusability matter quite a bit once you don't REALLY need the extra cooling from paste.
Just like a 500hp car is not "better" than a 200hp car, if all you do is pick up groceries with it. At some point other features begin to matter more.
NOTE: Reusability doesn't **just** mean when you replace a part. being able to take the cooler off when cleaning without having to re-apply paste is nice. And being able to reseat the cooler if you are getting anomalous readings without re-applying paste is also useful.
as always, learning a lot
mind if I use some of your videos as a learning video for middle school children's about math in a real world use (and as a English course as well since I'm French and i will have to translate )
That poster... Dude, I never seen anything like that 'til I came out here and used the subway (Austria, Vienna), and that thing was more confusing than today's gender identities! Looks like a motherboard layout tho with a taste of, remember vienna?!^^
\O>
Steve, would you be able to try a "lapped so flat they wring together" scenario with no thermal interface at all?
LTT tested that on an open bench, it's actually usable but still worse than TIM.
After two years I'm changing my case and fans (and only the case and fans), bit I thought since I got the PC taken apart anyways, I could use the opportunity to reapply paste. I would probably never bother to do that at any other time so long I don't change the CPU/Motherboard, so carpe diem.
Since I don't have any spare paste and would need to get new one anyways, I feel like this could be a good opportunity to just get the pad and spare myself the hassle of "picking a paste, checking it for conductivity, applying it correctly, get paranoid about application" etc etc
I've been waiting on this video for years! Finally! Haha. Jokes aside, Steve, why not do a video about the feasibility of these in laptops?
I'm jumping to AM5 and have read people being frustrated with the cleaning of the 7000 series CPU heatspreader. All those groves appears to be a hassle to clean up the cpu. COnsidering maybe it's time to use a thermal pad as I know this low end 7600 will be replaced at some point.
Great testing, much appreciated. A small thing to improve: in the Low Mounting Pressure graph, the correct unit for Newton meter should be N m, not nm (nanometer). Keep up the good work!
Steve, what cooler would you get for a 20 core 40 threaded 14 nm broad-well oem chip with a 200 watt TDP but think the max is 150 watts, usually around 140 however it does read 200 on the screen, its an original and unique, rare Xeon 2679 V4 but already have it sitting so going to use it with my ASUS-X99 Workstation USB 3.1 CEB Board, I am just down to cooler, was going to get that German monster 280mm that is refillable and cased in a honeycomb shell and the name is odd but means "ice bear" but then like the Kracken z73 as have the new corsair 5000x rgb icue case in the box sitting also now.... I NEED to decide on a cooler, I am digging those two but now unsure if I am even supposed to be using a water cooler as if that is better or worse for a T CASE OF just 53c however I heard chip runs on thee cooler side believe it or not.... I liked cooler-master ma620 but know its not that good and plan to use the blue heat paste, you know who's, king pins as have that here also now.... I am hoping it is his and not a knock offs...... (was bought on new-egg).... anyway.... so, air cooler or water cooler and if water cooler, which option, I HATE the look of the arctic freezer II's pump at the board with the off shape and all, totally out of question, the EK I did not like to much either, so Kracken Z73 (I do want the lcd for temps but I can get my own LCD and build it into case later also...) ....or some NON-Brown absolute beast of an air cooler? Somebody HELP .... FOR MY PARTICULAR SITUATION.... Thanks Guys, Steve
After ripping my 2700x out of the socket twice using mx-4 I switched to an ic pad. I noticed about 2C of temperature difference, which is fine for me.
I am using a noctua nh-d14 which means I can't twist the cooler before taking it off so that I don't rip out the Cpu.
About the name of the pad: I think the company is called innovation cooling (ic) and the pad is called graphite pad. The diamond in the name describes the ic paste which includes diamond dust.
Thanks for the great testing!
I ripped mine out of the socket trying to pull the stock cooler. lack of space at the top of my case caused to cooler to get caught on the bracket. I ended up replacing the stock cooler.
You can 100% avoid this by just turning the heatsink before pulling it off. Also helps to let it warm up a bit before removing.
@@trazac not every coolers mounting mechanism allows you to twist it. I'm pretty sure I can't twist my noctua cooler when taking it off.
I couldn't twist the stock cooler because the top bracket gets caught due to severe lack of space. replaced the stock with an ac 34 that bolts in so it'll no longer be an issue. I even benchmarked the CPU to get the paste nice and soft beforehand. still bent enough pins I had to replace the cpu
I prefer graphite myself, mostly because I'm lazy. I don't do heavy overclocking, and I don't want to have to replace thermal paste. I'm using it with a water cooled system and I'm more than happy with my running temps. Another working application I would have mentioned is when building a pc set up for a long time use scenario, because you don't have to worry about paste drying ever.
Thanks Steve, I love how you do your very best to keep everything scientific and objective. This kind of integrity is rare.
Poor Corsair... You can tell that they put some real R&D into certain aspects of the A500, but history will show that the A500's primary use case will be to demonstrate how NOT to create a high-performance air cooler. Seriously, how can the same engineering team get so much right while getting so much wrong on the same product?
That thumbnail brought back nightmares of the old "Too Much Thermal Paste" video from years ago. That one was brutal.
It seems like these graphite pad products may be more useful in certain long-term equipment deployment circumstances, particularly if you wanted to ensure better product longevity in high thermal cycle products like gaming laptops. You could mitigate long term product thermal degradation by replacing paste with pads in high performance laptops. That said, I imagine these pads would be far more expensive per unit cost when compared to the hundreds of gallons of paste SIs buy for assembling laptops. That and manufactures unfortunately don’t care about the entire life-cycle of their products, as long as it survives the warranty period. I think you could make a good argument for thermal pads having some impact on mitigating e-waste if people are able to hold onto their gaming laptops a year or so longer thanks to the more reliable performance these graphite pads can provide. Thanks for the insight here.
The biggest issue is that this test doesn't factor in hot spots, which are one of the biggest advantages of the graphite pads.
Steve, just a thought, Lets do a 1 year test, with both Thermal pads vs paste. This should allow us to see if there is any degrading value in the pads overtime vs the degrade in paste. Plus gives an interesting test for the pad vs pad as well. Like i believe the IC diamond pad would be better than the Thermal Greezly pad in constant removal of heatsink/cpu swapping cause of durability, but would love to see the difference in performance change after 1 year, even longer.
I'll take the convenience over a 1-2° difference.
I like working with old pcs and i keep swapping cpus, etc. I have a ton of old cpus that i can now buy for $.50
What about x570 chipsets ? The pads on the gigabyte master x570 are bad and you can see a 12c stop replacing it with paste. Would these pads be better. Would be a good video to see the difference
according to my personal experience, the pad only leads to 1 or 2 degree higher compared to paste. It is really good.
and it basically doesn't expire... where as that tube will be toast in about 2 years. considering most people dont build a new system for another 3 or 4 years... they'd have to buy another tube.
Anyone notice the blue graphics card in the background around the 9 min mark? What was that? Out of focus teaser!?!?!?
To anybody reading this have a good day, wish you all the best!!! And also i wish that you get more slip than i do...
I bought one several years ago and have been satisfied. Picked up a used cooler earlier this year and didn't even consider that without the pad I would have had to get some new thermal paste.
Paste round up comparison, with best air and best water cooler? With your test equipment and methodology it would great. Would settle some forum/pub arguments too!
It's a great alternative to paste. No cleaning, and having to think about how much is too much or too little when applying. Makes cleaning less of a chore and I'm able to do it more often with my air cooler. The few degrees higher is pointless as a gamer
I like not having to worry about too little paste and poor cooling or too much paste overflowing onto the socket. The 30mm pad is too small and the 40mm seems too large for Ryzen. Can the pad be cut to the correct size so there is no overhang?
Good test, now use a flat polished reference base to benchmark many thermal interface materials and make a list
8:57 into the video. what is with the person holding up the gpu? like they are raising and holding up a stereo outside a womens window. playing a love song as they try to serenade them. after they got their attention by throwing pebbles at the window like a cheesy 80's movie.
Do they make a graphite paste derivative. I agree paste is better thus a graphite paste should do very well. Graphite is 5x better a conducting heat than copper
2:34 It's precise, not accurate. High precision is a highly-clustered group of measurements, while high accuracy is a particular measurement that is especially close to the "true" value.
did you do any type of real world testing? how long do people actually wait till changing thermal paste? Years alot of the time. By that time the thermal paste is not helping. But a graphite pad will still be going as strong as it was on day 1. Consistency.
At 13:30 you got the Units wrong ;)
Nm and not nm
Nice Video nonetheless, i know you do 99% of your stuff better than anyone else
Good for laptops. Grizzly pumps out on my laptop
Man imagine a 0 tolerance cpu and cooler so no thermal was needed. They would just stick together.
I wonder if pads are better for systems that are to stay together for longer. For a build that goes for about 5 years without a fresh application of thermal paste, would these thermal pads be a better choice?
Is there a reason why you chose Hydronaut over Kryonaut? Also based on the pressure testing, Im supposed to not use a lot in order for temps to be better? lol
I ask you, what other review channel uses a torque screwdriver?
I would wager some don't even know what that is let alone know how to use it correctly.
the reason ive bought 2 is i always struggle to get the cpu cooler on and i fuck up the thermal paste in the process, with the pad is its very hard to screw up.
How effective would a Grizzly Graphite sandwich be? A spread of paste, a pad and another spread of paste? How effective would be the heat spreader on the CPU being grooved and the cooler heat spreader being grooved by the same machine - better contact?
Remember if there is any lubricant on the screw thread you need to reduce the torque - just like a car wheel...
So when can we expect to see y’all test thermal grizzlies pad? I’m currently running that on my build but I’ll be putting together a custom loop once my parts get here. Curious if I should use paste or keep the pad on it once I start putting it back together.
I swear you have the best videos man. Super informative thank you for your time making this video
can you test thermal epoxy on this with some modifications like detachable dummy IHS?
Hello everyone,
I have a question regarding the correct size of thermal pads. The manufacturer used both 1.25mm and 1.75mm thermal pads. However, I'm unable to find thermal pads in those specific sizes. I'm unsure whether I should opt for a size that is one level up or one level down.
For the 1.25mm thermal pads used by the manufacturer, should I choose 1mm or 1.5mm? Your guidance on the best option would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks in advance.
If you can't get the exact measurements then you can safely go up one when required. It will compress when tightened. Just don't do any higher than that.
"You're not going to face a situation when all the heatsink screws are just using 1 revolution of threads..."
The Verge: "Y.. y.. you need to use all screws on the heatsink? ...oh dear"
it is 2023 now and graphite thermal pads are actually pretty good today.
Now you guys can start testing thermal pastes! If you guys are in the market for some suggestions, I would suggest testing Prolimatech PK-2&3, GD900 (cheap AliExpress, but can be bought on Amazon), Arctic MX-2&4, Arctic Silver 5, Noctua NT-H1&2, Corsair XTM50, Cooler Master MasterGel, ThermalCoolFlux, HY-883-4g, and Kingpin KPx. Just a thought. :)
But.... what if I make a Thermal Pad/Paste Sandwich!?
It'll be the best of both worlds!
Or the worst of both worlds!
Either way! Win!
Or... either way! Lose!