This stuff is super easy to use. You'll see people complaining about it being slippery and hard to hold in place ... I had to install this under a desk on my home server, which means I could not lay the case flat. (The Corsair H100i V2 pump died and I was replacing it with an H100i Pro). So I put two tiny daubs of regular paste in the top corners of the processor and stuck it on with that. Then I put everything together and fired up the system.
I had been using Thermal Grizzly Conductonaut liquid metal before this. It had dried out and failed after two years. It's a serious pain to install and it is really, really hard to get applied correctly. It's almost worse to try to clean it off. I used a Dremel and a buffing wheel and polished it off after getting the bulk removed with ArticClean binary cleaner. I'll never use that stuff again. BUT it did do a good job as a new install until it began failing. The problem is that eventually either your cooling solution or your thermal paste is going to fail and then you're going to be taking things apart ...
Degrading thermal paste, even liquid metals, is a serious problem for high use, high availability, high performance, long duration computer systems. I have replaced the thermal paste on the processor for this machine at least a half dozen times because I've had at least a half dozen CPU coolers on this machine.
The computer I'm using this pad on is an AMD FX 8350 Black (On an ASUS 990FX Sabertooth R1 board) that's been running this machine for over ten years. Pretty much everything on the machine has been replaced multiple times except for the processor and motherboard. The processor has a nearly 25% overclock running 24/7/365 (4.95 GHz) It serves all my multimedia (which is a LOT) and is my security camera server (22 cameras), plus the computer I use (3 video cards, six monitors) at the main desk in my shop/office/man cave. Because of the camera system, "idle" is never less than around 50% CPU clock cycles. I can and do use it for gaming though I'm not much of a gamer. It's not a gaming computer. Think more along the lines of a semi-truck than a sports car. It works hard. It gets hot. It's still doing a great job after all this time and I have no intention of replacing it one second before I have to.
This is VERY impressive performance for a computer. I don't know if I got lucky with processor and board or it's just that this combination is particularly robust. Whatever the reason, it has been and continues to be a truly great machine.
I don't want to trust the cooling system to just any old nonsense. That's why I tried Thermal Grizzly liquid metal last time. I thought long and hard about using this pad before buying and installing it. I'm really glad I did. My temps are almost exactly even with what I got with the liquid metal even though this pad is only rated for half the thermal conductivity that the liquid metal is. So the conclusion I've come to is that the liquid metal either wasn't applied optimally, it squeezed out to the edges when the cold plate on the pump was attached or some other unseeable and unknowable problem occurred ... OR both thermal conductors have maxed out the capacity of my cooling solution. It would not be at all surprising as difficult as that stuff is to apply on a vertical surface that there was an unseen problem in the installation.
The pad was super easy. I just put a tiny little daub of TX-2 (that I had laying around, nothing special as far as pastes go) on the top corners of the CPU to hold the pad in place while I bolted on the pump. Those two tiny bits of paste are well away from the die and should in no way interfere with the heat carrying capacity of the system. I literally used paste to paste the pad on long enough to finish the installation.
It should be noted that I bought the 40x40mm pad which covered the entire lid and that my CPU is obviously not delidded. I think that's important because it establishes maximum conductivity across the largest possible area. It's only $3 more for the larger pad, don't cheap out on this. Be sure to measure your CPU, look up the dimensional specs or just buy the larger pad and be prepared to cut it down.
I also polished the CPU and cold plate with a Dremel and a buffing wheel using green rouge. I had to do that to the CPU to get all the liquid metal off so I figured I might as well do the cold plate while I was at it. I didn't lap it, I didn't mate the surfaces perfectly, I just put a semi-mirror polish on the surfaces free handed. Be careful if you do that so as not to create micro-concave areas that will cause problems with gapping.
Temperatures are running around 40 degrees normal use (remember I said it never actually goes to "idle" in normal use?) to around 50 under max load and I don't stress test it with Prime95 or anything like that. There's no need to stress test it, all I care about are real-world results and it's under stress just because it's on. When I turn everything off and it is truly idle it sits just a couple degrees F (~24C) above ambient.
As mentioned previously, this pad is rated about half the thermal conductivity of the Thermal Grizzly Conductonaut liquid metal it replaced and it does as well or slightly better on my machine. That could mean that both the Thermal Grizzly liquid metal and this pad are maxing out the possible conduction of heat between my CPU and the pump cold plate. This pad is rated for thermal conductivity about four times what MX-4 produces. There are other factors besides thermal conductivity that work together in determining the effectiveness of your cooling solution. If you're not getting as good or better results with this than you did with MX-4, you're doing something wrong and/or one of those other factors needs to be addressed. The incontrovertible proof of that is all the other highly positive reviews. If we're all getting excellent results and you're not, it is very likely something on your end that is the problem and not an issue with this pad. Unlike paste that can have unknown and unseen air gaps, bubbles, uneven spreading etc. this pad is either in place on clean surfaces or it is not. This isn't arbitrary. The physics of this mean that if it works for me, it works the same for you. If it doesn't work for you as well or better than MX-4 or a similar thermal conduction paste then it's a problem that YOU have, not a problem with this pad.
I'm not saying people who have issues with this pad don't know what they're doing. I'm merely pointing out the irrefutable logic of the physical science involved. If all the pads are the same (meaning no manufacturing defects) and every installation follows the same basic process on the same basic materials ... (CPU heat spreader/lid > thermal conductor > copper cold plate) And the vast majority of installations are extremely successful but yours isn't -- Then it's not the pad. You need to find that other variable that's causing the problem if you want to get the same positive results the rest of us are getting. It's worth the effort because this pad is an amazing and highly effective solution. I've been building computers for almost 30 years so it's not like I'm a novice at this stuff, but if you want to challenge my logic please feel free to comment and we'll discuss it.
SO -- The performance of this thermal pad is phenomenal. I'm very, very happy with it and the fact that it will outlast my water cooler is a big plus. (I now have three water cooler radiators laying around so I may just go to a reservoir fed open liquid system next time, and I can use this pad again if I do.) Time will tell if it actually resists the degradation that thermal paste experiences and if it dies like thermal paste I'll come back and amend this review. If you don't see an edit below then it's still doing a great job and that being the case ... I'll never go back to goop again.
28 December 2020 - Two years later and the pad is still performing like the day I installed it. I have to shut down the machine and clean the radiator about twice a year but that's it. With a clean radiator on the overclocked processor previously mentioned this pad still works like brand new.
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How to Apply CPU Thermal Paste Properly
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Customer reviews
Works as advertised. Stress tests (i7 3930K) yielded about the same temps as they did with the Arctic Silver 5 I had on there before. We're taking their word on it that this will last a long time, but it seems reasonable given one of the known properties of graphite, in particular that it is virtually inert. It's not hard to find evidence that graphite has terrific thermal conductivity.UPDATE: I moved my computer into a new case and while doing so, temporarily removed the heatsink. It was laughably simple to remove the ICG patch and reinstall it in the new case. When I removed it, it looked the same as before I originally installed it and performs the same after reinstallation. Unless you need the couple three degrees a premium paste-type TIM will get you, there is no reason to not use one of these.
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Top reviews from the United States
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Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on April 20, 2019
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Julian
Thermalpad util
Reviewed in Spain 🇪🇸 on February 20, 2019
Thermalpad util
Reviewed in Spain 🇪🇸 on February 20, 2019
Hola,Reviewed in Spain 🇪🇸 on February 20, 2019
He comprado este thermalpad porque vi un video de youtube de un usuario que se llama eseka y que recomendaba su uso.
Asi lo he comprado para probar si era util y era un buen sustituto de la pasta termica.
Lo he usado un rato y mi conclusion es que las temperaturas en mi caso son similares a las que tenia con la pasta termica.
Como me gusta trastear y mirar cosas y el precio de este thermalpad no era desorbitado pues decidi adquirirlo ya que como ventaja tiene que supuestamente no se deteriora con el tiempo y que se puede reciclar en diferentes cpus o gpus porque no pierde caracteristicas de transmision termica con el uso.
Como dice un usuario, el thermalpad viene en un encaje de plasticos y sellado con celo, a primera vista me dio la sensacion de que podia haberse usado o manipulado pero no le dado mayor importancia ya que el thermalpad no lo habian recortado.
Yo he comprado el de 30mmx30mm, usado en un ryzen 5 1600 no ocupa toda la superficie de la cpu, pero ocupa bastante, he limpiado la pasta termica del disipador y la cpu con papel de cocina y alcohol de 96º y despues he centrado en la superficie de la cpu el thermalpad y ya he encajado el disipador.
Pongo 3 fotos.
Deseo pueda ser util mi opinion.
Gracias y saludos.
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Lynda Thorpe
Reliable and easy to install but not the best solution
Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on October 21, 2018Capacity: 40x40mm (1-pack)Verified Purchase
The Meerkat
Can be doubled - Highly recommended upgrade/thermal paste replacement
Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on May 15, 2019Capacity: 40x40mm (1-pack)Verified Purchase
@GotanTM
Don't use for Xbox One X, console goes into thermal shutdown even just sat at the dashboard!
Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on May 3, 2019Capacity: 40x40mm (1-pack)Verified Purchase
Amazon Customer
Never have to replace again! (Doesn't work quite as good as paste)
Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on October 11, 2018
