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Battle of the Goop - Thermal Paste Comparison Page: 1
Introduction

Affectionately named 'goop', Thermal Interface Compound (TIC) plays a key role in transferring the heat from your processor to your heatsink or water block. There are 3 primary types of compound: Silicone, Ceramic and Metal based all of which have their advantages and disadvantages and varying levels of performance.

Today I'll be testing out 4 different types of Metal based TIC from 3 different manufacturers to see if there really is a worthwhile reason for switching from that generic "white stuff" that came with your heatsink.

And here are the candidates. Left to right we have: Shin Etsu X23-7762, Shin Etsu G751, Coollaboratory Liquid Pro and the ever popular Arctic Silver 5.

Luckily nobody walked in on me during this photo shoot, otherwise I might have been taking a trip down to the local police station to explain my collection of substance filled needles!

Let's take a closer look....

Battle of the Goop - Thermal Paste Comparison Page: 2
Arctic Silver 5

Arctic Silver 5 (AS5) has been the favourite compound among the overclocking community for a long time. This is mainly down to the fact that Arctic Silver 5 is easy to spread, produces excellent results and is competitively priced.

Supplied in a short and stubby syringe, AS5 is the only compound in our review that comes in suitably sized packaging for the amount of paste contained within.

The paste is silky smooth with no 'clumps' and can easily be spread evenly over the surface of your CPU with a razor blade or other flat instrument. Many people prefer to place a pea-sized amount of AS5 directly to the heatspreader of their CPU and allow the pressure from the heatsink to distribute the paste. This is actually the way that Arctic Silver recommend that AS5 is applied to heatspreaders, but in the end it's just a matter of what works out best for you.

Arctic Silver have provided instructions on spreading the compound here.

Battle of the Goop - Thermal Paste Comparison Page: 3
Coollaboratory Liquid Pro

Coollaboratory are fairly new to the thermal paste scene, and a name that not many people will have heard of. Being priced the same as Arctic Silver 5 we are hoping to see some equally good results.

The Coollaboratory paste comes in a generic syringe complete with a hypodermic needle at the end (eek). You will probably want to make sure that you always replace the cap on the syringe after use, otherwise the experience of being jabbed and injected with liquid metal will probably not be a good one.

Interestingly Coollaboratory Liquid Pro is not a paste like the rest of the thermal compounds in this review, but a liquid. This may leave you with images of water dripping out from between your processor and heatsink, but 'Liquid Pro' is quite different.

When you squeeze the liquid out of the syringe, it forms an almost perfect ball which looks very much like a ball of solder. This ball of liquid metal can then be spread over the surface of the CPU using the tip of the hypodermic needle. In total, it took me 20 minutes to completely cover the surface of the heatspreader. Many people have reported success spreading 'Liquid Pro' using a q-tip or plastic bags, but i didnt have any joy with either of these methods.

It is also worth mentioning that this compound cannot be used with aluminium heatsinks. as they will be corroded by gallium inside the liquid. Copper and Silver heatsinks are not affected as they do not react with gallium.

Instructions on applying Coollaboratory Liquid Pro can be found here.

Battle of the Goop - Thermal Paste Comparison Page: 4
Shin-Etsu G751 @ X23-7762

Shin-Etsu are probably one of the top 3 most known thermal compound brands on the market. Interestingly, both of these thermal compounds have been around for over 3 years, but I've never personally used either of them.

Unfortunately Shin-Etsu's site is very sparse on information regarding these two pastes, and finding any information as to the differences between them has proven almost impossible.

Both compounds come in a long plastic syringe with the name Shin-EtsuMicroSi printed down the side. The only distinguishing feature between them is the different colour caps - Blue for G751 and Red for X23-7762.

The consistency of both compounds is very similar and can only really be described as thick and lumpy. Spreading the compounds evenly over the heatspreaders surface proved quite difficult with the compound not wanting to thin out. Eventually I found the best method was to place a plastic bag over the tip of your finger, and spread it using the bag.

Other reported methods include using a cocktail stick to roll the compound out over the surface or heating the syringe up in boiling water to make the compound more spreadable.

Battle of the Goop - Thermal Paste Comparison Page: 5
Testing

Applying Thermal Compound can be a hit and miss affair, so to ensure our test results were as accurate as possible each of the compounds was applied several times. The application providing the lowest temperature was then allowed to 'settle in' for 24 hours before any measurements were taken.

The 'settle in' period consisted of the test machine being placed under heavy load for a total of 12 hours, and then left in an idle state for a further 12 hours.

Load temperatures were taken after 1hr of Prime95 with "In-Place large FFT's".

Test machine specification:
Intel P4 630 'Prescott' @ 4.2ghz (1.6v Vcore)
Swiftech Apogee Water Block
Laing D5 Pump
Black Ice Xtreme II Radiator
4x 72cfm Fans on Radiator

The clear winner in these tests was the Coollaboratory Liquid Pro. Being a full 6°C lower than Arctic Silver 5 when placed under load, this truly does go to show that there are major benefits to be had by switching your thermal compound.

Arctic Silver 5 took second position throughout, being threatened only by the Shin-Etsu X23-7762 compound which equalled its temperatures at idle, and was within 1°C of the AS5 under load.

In last place was the Shin-Etsu G751, which despite producing fairly reasonable results, was still almost a full 10°C above the Coollaboratory Liquid Pro in the load tests.

Conclusion

For me the competition really came down to two candidates, the Arctic Silver 5 and the Coollaboratory Liquid Pro. The Arctic Silver produced some good results and was by far the easiest to spread out of all the compounds, however its performance was somewhat overshadowed by the excellent results from the Coollaboratory Liquid Pro.

It is also worth mentioning that many people find Shin-Etsu to produce better results than AS5 when used on bare core CPU's (Such as the Athlon XP), or uneven surfaces such as North/SouthBridge's.

Arctic Silver 5

Pro's
+ Easy to spread
+ Cleans up very easily
+ Good results

Con's
- Results overshadowed by the Coollaboratory Liquid Pro

Recommended

Coollaboratory Liquid Pro

Pro's
+ Excellent results - 6°C better than the next best compound
+ Enough in syringe for many applications
+ Performance improvements equivalent to upgrading your heatsink

Con's
- Takes time and can be a pain to spread
- Hard to clean up

Recommended

Shin-Etsu G751

Pro's
+ Easy to clean up

Con's
- Hard to spread
- Needs warming up to get successful application
- Performance not on par with the other compounds

Reviewed

Shin-Etsu X23-7762

Pro's
+ Performance within 1°C of AS5
+ Easy to clean up
+ Cheaper than AS5 in most stores

Con's
- Hard to spread
- Needs warming up to get successful application

Reviewed

Thanks to WaterCoolingUK for making this review possible. All of these compounds can be purchased HERE.

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