In the past I’ve mentioned how my past testing of coolers had focused on Intel CPUs because they were the most challenging to cool and also consumed the most power. When Alder Lake was released, I noticed that the thermal difficulty of cooling the 12900K was more difficult compared to prior generation products – only a few coolers were able to keep it under TJMax. Arctic Cooling MX-4 or MX-5 I was using on 3 builds in past and to the date(I built them like 8 months ago) I didn't replace TIM there, temperatures are still same and took apart only one of build and from TIM spread and viscosity of TIM, TIM is still okay and didn't dry out on GPUs, all 3 builds are running 3080 or 3080Ti and 3090 ZF-EX is another great TIM for money, used that on my 5950X and on RTX 2080Ti Strix and Zotac RTX 2080Ti AMP and never had any problems with this TIM, didn't tested this TIM on RTX 3090 but I would suspect it would perform quite close to TFX or SYY-157 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. I know this is been asked a lot, but still there is no conclusive answer and is not easy to believe anything you read around this subject simply cause no one has done a long term review of multiple TIMs.

In this experiment, we tested the heat transferability of 9 different thermal pastes. With each thermal paste, we:If you’re looking for noise normalized results to see how coolers compare when set for silent operation, you’ll want to fast forward to the Ryzen 7700X results at the last half of this review. For testing with Intel’s i9-13900K, these results will show performance and acoustic results when tied to the default fan curve of my motherboard. No Power Limits We tested each thermal paste with a low-tension air cooler mount, high-tension air cooler mount, and a high-tension AIO liquid cooler mount. Each application was given a 1-hour burn-in using Prime95 with ten load and cooling cycles over the course of the hour; six minutes each with a ten-second cool-down between. Each testing load session was then executed for a one-hour load period, again using Prime95. SYY-157 is again good paste, easy to spread, cheap and performance is on par with TFX or Kryonaut, that thermal paste will not dry out after while, used that on few builds and no issues, this TIM I was using on my another RTX 3090 and no issues, temperatures was within 1-2°C from TFX and core to GPU hot-spot delta was in 8-10°C

There is also Alphacool Apex rated at 17W/mK, but the one I tried was so dry that after two attempts I just used something else. Most loads that common users run won’t use more than 200W, so this is a better analogue for a worst case scenario of what folks might actually see in day to day usage. At 50C, the results here are good, only beaten by the strongest coolers like DeepCool’s 360mm LT720 or Corsair’s 420mm iCUE H170i ELITE (results not shown here, see Tom’s Hardware). The noise levels here are good too, at 42.7 dBA it runs with a low hum.It’s important to know these criteria because even if your thermal paste can support a high heat transferability, if it can’t be applied easily and evenly in a thin and flat layer, then that aspect can negate its heat-transferring qualities. Additionally, electrical conductivity will give you a hint as to how meticulous the application process will be overall.

It’s important to note that for this experiment, we did not include any liquid metal-based thermal pastes. Despite being great thermal conductors, Liquid metal-based thermal pastes are electrically-conductive and require their own special application and removal process. 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?

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For the air cooling low- and high-tension tests, we used a large Noctua NH-D15 air cooler. We created the low tension mount environment by torquing the mounting screws to 1.13 Nm (10 in/lbs). 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. In any field, “best” always depends on several categories – which we’ll get to later – but everyone can agree that for thermal paste the “best” one needs to be able to maintain the lowest CPU temperature possible. 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!). 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. a.) This means no power limits on Intel’s i7-13700K, and AMD’s default power limits on AMD’s Ryzen 7 7700X. All testing is performed with 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: GC-Extreme I was using only on older GPUs and CPUs and there performance was meh for me, sometimes was on par with EK Ecotherm or Hydronaut but sometimes was worse than cheap TIM

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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. The fans are easy to mount, the metal clips don't require much force to stretch them over to the heatsink However, the results were different when paired with AMD’s Ryzen 7700X – performing only on par with high end air cooling. For this reason, I recommend the Frozen Notte 240 for cooling Intel’s i9-13900k – but not AMD’s Ryzen 7700X.