Thermalright TFX I would say is one of the best TIM although can be harder to spread, I recommend put that TIM to hot water for few minutes prior to building the PC, but sadly this TIM can suffer as well from drying out, on my loop I have used that on one GPU and after 6 or 7 months no drying out and TIM still has a good consistency When I opened my card I found the NT-H1 was noticeably drier and was harder to remove on the die but still wet on the original extra squeeze. It was quite remarkable.

I'm not sure why the difference is so little between PBO without OC and PBO+OC, I thought it should be higher, also voltages seem a bit high when using Auto OC so I disabled it after the tests (it reached over 1.4v) When choosing a thermal paste, factors such as heat transferability, ease of application, ability to support a thin, flat, and even layer, and electrical conductivity should be considered. Why does a thermal paste with high thermal conductivity not necessarily provide better heat transfer efficiency?In contrast, traditional thermal paste compounds are relatively simple for every experience level. Most, but not all, traditional pastes are electrically non-conductive. All testing is performed at a 23C ambient room temperature. Multiple thermal tests are run on each CPU to test the cooler in a variety of conditions, and acoustic measurements are taken with each result. These tests include: Corsair Commander Pro, 100%/50% PWM Speed profiles (liquid cooling pump always @100%, if applicable) It doesn't come with a screwdriver like some other coolers, but you don't need it because it has access to the mounting screws, unlike some coolers where you need to insert a long screw driver to a tiny hole In general, it looks like when you apply the TIM correctly, then everything rated at 10-17W/mk will give you +/- 1-2°C difference. For me it matters more so the TIM spreads well and I won't waste it too much to apply another time when something is wrong. It happens on large IHS when optimal is to spread it on the surface. If you use a "grain of rice" method then it won't cover the IHS.

Thermal compounds might always be compared and debated over, but the simple fact remains: PC system building needs thermal compounds to effectively dissipate thermal loads. Without them, our beloved gaming and content-producing machines would struggle to keep components cool during heated frag sessions, heavy workstation computations, or just simply browsing the web.

I Swapped the CEO's Assistant For a Day!

We’ll start by first looking at performance with no power limits enforced whatsoever. There are “only” ten comparison coolers shown here, so I’ve included some of the testing results I have submitted to Tom’s Hardware to give a better idea on how Thermalright’s Frozen Notte compares to other coolers. These results are directly comparable because they were performed using the same system, by the same person (me!). Personally I love Liquid Metal (because is quite stable despite its crazy heat transfer) but I don't think is smart to do that in the most expensive GPU in the current state of the market. Also the cooler is copper based so it would require multiple applications until it stops "drying" out. I want to share with you the results of replacing thermal paste from Arctic MX4 to Thermalright TF8. I make an experiment on the RTX3080 MSI Gaming X Trio. Kingpin KPx seems is one of the best TIM but sadly its not available here in UK, I got just small tube which I was using on one of the build and from tests, that paste would beat TFX or SYY-157 and ZF-EX maybe 1-2°C, I have built friend loop like 6 months ago and to the date temperatures are still okay and not increasing

As shown in the slides above, the outcome of the different testing scenarios resulted in some interesting comparisons among the compounds. We’ll look at the overall thermal load averages for each, as well as the relative performance value of each in terms of price-per-gram. Even though a dizzying array of different thermal pastes is available — some blends have been around for over a decade — new formulations still come to market at a surprising pace. Long-time PC cooler maker NZXT recently entered the market with its first paste, the not-very-excitingly named NZXT High-Performance Thermal Paste. Cooler Master introduced a new purple CryoFuze, and Alphacool unveiled its Apex thermal paste. Cooling mainstay Corsair also has a new XTM70 blend that will be heading to our test bench soon, and Gelid has recently released its GC-4 Thermal Paste, showing that the TIM market is still thriving. The radiator included with the Frozen Notte 240 is 27mm, the most common size you’ll see used in liquid coolers. This should fit most cases without having to worry about space constraints. The results here were surprising to me, as I had expected the Frozen Notte to have better performance in comparison to air cooling based on my results with Intel’s i9-13900K. Default Power LimitsWe chose to run these tests with a PC build using minimal cooling. By minimizing the effects of the cooling system on CPU temperatures, we isolated the tested thermal pastes as the variable. It also comes with a tube of the thermalright TF7 thermal compound but I have no idea how well it works as I've used Noctua NT-H1 or NT-H2 for years. At the default PPT of 105W, the most intensive loads can be difficult to cool and result in the CPU running at TJMax with anything less than the strongest coolers. DeepCool’s LT720 and EKWB’s EK Elite coolers are the only two I’ve tested (yet) which can handle that much heat. As such, we’ll be looking at two metrics in this situation where coolers run with the CPU reaching TJMax (95c): Noise levels and watts cooled. From personal experience and personal testing of thermal pastes, I used on my loop like NT-H1, NT-H2, Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut, Hydronaut, GC-Extreme, Arctic Cooling MX-4,MX-5, Thermalright TFX, SYY-157,ZF-EX and Kingpin KPx Modern CPUs, whether Intel or AMD, are difficult to cool in intensive workloads. In the past reaching 95C+ on a desktop CPU might have been a cause for concern – but with today’s processors, it is considered normal operation. Similar behavior has been present in laptops for years due to cooling limitations in tight spaces.