Heat conductive paste against food, cosmetics and various lubricant – with expected unexpected results | Practice

1 - Test system, selection and preparation 2 - Thermal paste for reference 3 - BBQ sauce, the dark side of classic ketchup 4 - Mustard the bastard? Tastes good, but... 5 - Hygiene after the meal: Toothbrushing gel 6 - Pain-relieving ointment for the CPU? Expensive... 7 - Against wrinkles and shine - day cream for the gentleman 8 - Again something for the face: full hydra power ahead! 9 - Lubricant for gearboxes 10 - Lubricant for everything possible 11 - Summary and conclusion

Groundhog day, again and again. Today, I’m pushing up a classic review for you to enjoy on a cold winter Sunday, and it was a very interesting experiment. Already 12 years ago I had tested various things up to the adhesive cream for the third for their thermal conductivity. However, this time I have modified the classics a bit and included other exotics in the test series – for a good reason. In fact, the test winner has been my absolute favorite for a few weeks now when it comes to easy and clean changes where systems are in use for a day at most, if at all. And no, it is not a thermal paste, but washable, hygienic and much easier to handle. Curious?

But I don’t want to spoil too much. Especially since my random find and the thermal paste used here in the lab for a long time (hence the large family pack) perform about the same, but my version stands out positively due to a non-existent burn-in phase and a very good consistency over 24 hours at power dissipations up to 250 watts. Because on the one hand, it’s much easier and cleaner to apply, and on the other hand, it’s much, much cheaper. This is because it spreads so perfectly by means of the blob (or rather drop) method that the reproducibility is almost perfect. You usually only get that with pads.

In contrast to many tests already made with various more or less sensible or senseless substitutes, I tested everything with chiller and constant water temperatures as well as a good water block on a CPU with fixed 130 Watt power dissipation. The Ryzen 9 3900XT can thus still be cooled well. When choosing the power dissipation, I went to great lengths in advance to ensure that I could test even the worst subject for over 60 minutes. But here it ended at about 89 degrees with 130 watts on the CPU.

The measurement runs in each case after a warm-up phase (10 minutes Prime95) and then cooling down with again 60 minutes Prime95, AVX and Small FFTs. In the inlet there is a temperature sensor whose difference (delta) to the set 20 °C water is subtracted from the measured value (Tctl/Tdie) in order to also take into account the fluctuations (max. +/- 1 degree deviation in both directions due to the hysteresis of the compressor cooler).

All of the replacement pastes shown here are not intended for long-term productive use, and long-term consistency is simply not a given, even with the better representatives. It is a feasibility study, the imitation of which is entirely at your own risk. All products shown here and tested as paste were purchased by the author himself or come from the author’s long-term stock or private household. Pixelation is done for many reasons, but with full intent and the imposed sense of duty.

Benchmarks, test system and evaluation software

The benchmark system relies on an X570 motherboard in the form of the MSI MEG X570 Godlike with a Ryzen 9 3900XT (PBO 130 watts, 200 MHz offset). Add to that the matching DDR4 3600 VIPER from Patriot, as well as several fast NVMe SSDs. Everything is cooled with a chiller and about 30 litres of distilled water at a set temperature of 20 °C, which is the same as the room temperature.

I have also summarized the individual components of the test system in a table: