Innovation Cooling IC Graphite Thermal Pad in Test – Convenience wins, but what about performance?

1 - Einführung und Testaufbau 2 - Kühlperformance und Fazit

In direct comparison, I use the Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut, one of the best current thermal pastes, and with the Arctic MX-2 and the Titan Nano Grease, I contrast two very inexpensive and slippery pastes. In addition, there are two thin thermal pads from Gelid and Phobya, each containing silicone. It will now be interesting to see how the pad beats the pastes and the conventional thermal pads.

Measurement with rough radiator bottom

First, we look at the measurement with a rough surface of the radiator floor and see that the pad works at least satisfactorily. It is about the same as the Arctic MX-2, but is about three and a half Kelvin worse than the best thermal paste in the test. This can certainly be hurt with cheaper setups, especially since the pads on AMD CPUs are quite good due to the rougher heat spreaders. In view of the easy handling and the certainly long durability, you can already turn a small eye on the price.

However, theoretical data on the thermal conductive coefficient are once again not what really matters in practice. The thin, even 8 x 4 cm large Gelid GP Extreme Thermal Pad I bought for a whole 5 Euros incl. Shipping from an Asian online shop ordered, but you can also get it on Ebay for approx. 9 euros. A Kelvin difference is really nothing that energises you, only with the long-term stability remain unanswered because of the contained silicone and a possible dry-out.

Measurement with smooth radiator bottom

No children, it's not going to be like that. With smooth surfaces, as already suspected on the previous page, the pad does not fail completely, but it actually performs a little worse than the thin Gelid-Pad! This soft pad completely excludes the air, while the IC Graphite Thermal Pad certainly only flattens the air between the piggybacks of the surface. Better handling and supposedly higher durability are no longer of any use.

Almost five Kelvin differences from the best thermal paste exclude the graphite pads from the sensible use as the other two pads and also the cheap thermal pastes. If a less powerful cooling solution were used, these differences could already decide on full turbo and throttling of a CPU.

Conclusion and summary

At the end of the day, it is necessary to add up fairly and objectively what the almost 13 hours of testing have now brought. And then there is a little bit of disillusionment. Even IC cannot reinvent physics and so these pads remain a nice feasibility study for users with two left hands. If you have even a milligram of matching skills, you really won't need these pads. Let me briefly summarize:

Even though I have more individual arguments for the Pro on the credit side at the end – the performance is maximum average and therefore the pads are not suitable for high-end systems. It is a nice toy, where at least your hands stay clean and you can enjoy it for longer. But I wouldn't buy these products privately. The one small blob, which you can also get clean for less than one euro, will probably not present any insoluble tasks.