What’s really inside!
High-tech or junk? That’s exactly what I wanted to find out! According to the label, we’re expecting 50% silicone, 20% carbon (some clear carbon compound), and 30% of an unspecified metal oxide. I conducted a total of 40 measurements across various surface areas (25-point matrix) and depths (15x drill) and consistently received nearly identical results. Even using maximum laser power to search for the smallest traces of elements didn’t change this outcome.
Based on the nearly white color, I would have been surprised to find any traces of the touted carbon. And lo and behold, at least the 50% silicone is almost exactly right! Only, the other half is solely cheap zinc oxide. Carbon? None to be found. Carbon is also very stable over time and wouldn’t have decomposed or evaporated from the tube. It simply wasn’t there! So much for marketing. It’s a tube of chained and thus slightly more viscous silicone, spiced up with a lot of zinc oxide (ZnO). That wasn’t really innovative even back then, but the carbon trick probably made it easier to sell.
You can also test the consistency or mix by measuring the beginning and end of the squeezable paste. Here, I analyzed the first and last centimeter of the contained paste in sausage form. And yes, it did get slightly thinner towards the end, so we can infer that the paste has dissolved a little bit over time. However, for a 20-year storage, that’s not even bad:
The fact is: Back then, as now, there was never a speck of carbon in this paste. The white color alone indicates a very high zinc oxide content, and the rest was confirmed by the device using LIBS. Of course, ZnO works as a heat conductor and silicone can replace air, but it’s not even close to being “high-performance thermal paste.” And it’s always nice to destroy these old myths and expose the marketing lies. Yes, it’s just a serendipitous find, but what a find!
Counter-test with a modern paste
Let’s take a current corundum paste with very balanced grinding degrees and only about 20% silicone as a binder. The Alphacool Apex is an almost ideal test and comparison object. First, let’s just look at the surface area, for which the 300-fold magnification of the laser optics is sufficient. We’re at a real 83% corundum (Al2O3) and only 17% silicone as an average from 25 measurements. The consistency is very similar, even though the silicone content is significantly lower. This is also because the silicone chosen here is not as viscous as in the Arctic paste.
Now let’s compare both pastes directly with each other (you can also click the image to enlarge it):
This is what high-performance thermal paste should look like! But what does the chemical composition bring us in practice? We’re going to measure a round! On the next page…
50 Antworten
Kommentar
Lade neue Kommentare
Urgestein
1
Veteran
1
Urgestein
1
1
Urgestein
1
Urgestein
Urgestein
Urgestein
Urgestein
1
Urgestein
Moderator
Urgestein
Mitglied
Urgestein
Alle Kommentare lesen unter igor´sLAB Community →