Watch our IC Diamond Graphite Thermal Pad Review for more information on how we do this testing: ruclips.net/video/niAQs8dZohE/видео.html Our CPU cooler review methodology is here: ruclips.net/video/fmTOJP4KOyk/видео.html Or written form here: www.gamersnexus.net/guides/3561-cpu-cooler-testing-methodology-most-tests-are-flawed Support GamersNexus directly via the store! We have PC building modmats, PC component mouse mats that are desk length, X570 chipset posters in the design of a metro, and more. All store purchases go straight toward supporting our research: store.gamersnexus.net/
what about testing a pure indium foil? personally I'd like to think that a CPU at full load would have enough heat to partially melt the foil/pad filling gaps while also having better conductivity then impure liquid metal "galinstan" mixes. with the added benefit of not leaving a stain due to the lack of gallium. but I could be wrong.
I thought you were looking familiar🤪. You also recommended using a big dot of thermal paste for every processing core. If you ever do a Threadripper 3990X build, please use one of these pads🤣.
@excelsior ink You probably should recognise the OP as a meme and their comment as a joke. I don't believe paste with thermal pads is a good idea at all. But i am curious whether shim (and paste) or carbon pads behaved better for you.
I was recommended this channel when I asked for info about how to build a new PC. And WOW, this is *monumentally* detailed info! I had no idea anyone even cared about this level of detail for thermal paste and competitors. I am fascinated!
More importantly they take great care into their testing methodology. It's fine to watch reviews from Linus and Jay but GN is great for tests that compare competing hardware head to head for many different use cases. This is especially useful when putting together a parts list for your new PC. A PC you mainly use to play Fortnite has different requirements than one used for video editing. Though a channel that can be recommended if you're on an extremely tight budget is LowSpecGamer. He has the best tips and tricks to run demanding games at an acceptable frame rate on very low end hardware like a dual core Athlon APU using integrated graphics. Don't expect games to look pretty though. That kind of hardware actually isn't often worth buying if you live in a western country but can be very useful in countries where the average income is relatively low and PC hardware is relatively expensive without an abundant 2nd hand market (like Brazil for example).
@ 0:02 That's not how to apply thermal paste! You need to drill a hole in the IHS, and inject the paste in there with the syringe till it won't hold any more!
One of the things about the pads is that you don't have to wonder if you put too much or too little grease on. They are basically always consistent with the "dosage".
Yes as someone who never put thermal paste on and was putting together a new pc for the first time, this is why I went with it. I was sure I would have to take it right back apart to troubleshoot, so doing thermal paste 3 times didn't sound fun. Luckily it ran fine first assembly but I didn't test parts so the new mobo could have been doa. Long term under pressure it gets rough and I wouldn't really put it from one cooler to another, but for straight reassembly I think it's fine. I might have tightened it too much and I did the second one less when I upgraded my cpu. We will see in another few years if it's right. If I remember correctly thermals went down when I tightened it more but it stopped at a point and I went a little further for testing so when you see it stop improving I would leave it there.
Oh I had to swap the cpu cooler for one 20mm shorter a few weeks/months into the first assembly to fit side fans. I wasn't sure about the clearance, got the tall one and had to wait a while to get the second one when I could. A weird use case for "reusability" but SFF is getting big right now and chasing every mm of clearance when new parts come out. Mine was an old matx mini tower case with side fans above the gpu and cpu and the 155mm I got first left me 7mm not even enough for the slimmest 12mm fan so cpu cooler had to change.
@Optical Claritystill won't be as good as just using the paste, bigger gap less heat transfer. \also you would combine both disadvantages, bigger gap, and having a paste that needs renewing.
I've used IC's pads over thermal paste for most of my PC builds for the last five years. I am very happy with their performance, which is so close to optimal paste, while also reducing the chance of screwing things up with a bad application, that I feel it's the best option overall.
I can definitely see these being useful in things like iMacs, where they’re basically glued shut. So you don’t want to open the damn thing more than once or twice. So just adding a “fire and forget” pad and not needing to worry about thermal paste is seriously damn cool.
To me, the best use case for Carbonaut is consoles, where you really don't want to open them up and repaste them, and their longevity is typically longer than a standard PC. Console users generally would have no idea about repasting.
I recently had to open up and clean out a Phat PS4. I certainly agree with this comment. It would be a perfect application for one of these thermal pads.
@@Xirpzy Same here, using a generic cooler master paste from my 212 evo cooler on a 10 year old I7 860, the paste is 7 years old still runs cool even if the paste is most likely to be dried out and crusty.
Engineer: Boss, we have imperfections on the cut process Boss: No one will notice them Steve: So we grabbed the microscope... Edit: Image credit to Johanness Whener
I’ve used paste, liquid metal, and those graphite pads. Paste is messy. Liquid metal cleanup is even worse. I went to thermal pads and will never go back. You also forgot to say pads are good for getting rid of the “you put the thermal paste on wrong” comments. Thermal pads FTW!
I been trying to decide on Carbonaut vs Cryptonaut Extreme for about an hour now and this is the best review I came across. Also, having it 'mapped' with chapters is a very, very nice touch. Loved the presentation and the scientific approach. Didn't get into unnecessary detail and didn't try to any obnoxious humour. Well done!
@@internetexplorer6824 Can´t say for sure but I wouldn´t try ripping it. I handle it with two fingers only since I didn´t want to damage it by mistake.
Here's a possible fun test case for your new high precision CPU heater that I've been curious about for a few years: *Tinting* ... I remember a few years back I *actually* read the instructions that came with a tube of Arctic Silver (for some reason). It suggested "Tinting" the IHS and cold plate by applying a tiny amount of paste to them then buffing it back off. At first I thought it was just a clever way to get people to use more paste, but as I thought about it, it started to make sense. By buffing in a microscopic layer of paste, you can apply more direct pressure to the surfaces, filling in the tiny imperfections with more force than just the mounting pressure of the cooler, so when you apply the paste to like usual, and mount the cooler, you'd theoretically get better contact. There would be no way to detect any improvement by using a real CPU, but your test rig may actually have the resolution to check this. Just a thought.
Dont know if you cover this, and i dont want to forget, but I've noticed that carbonaught gets 'gummy' when hot, you have to let it cool completely off before removing the cooler or it might tear, or tear when pulled from the IHS Also, i want these pre-installed in OEM desktops and servers, i dont like having to re-paste hundreds of machines
Thermal pads would be excellent for servers. I bought a used server off eBay, and the thermal paste on the two CPUs was easily over a decade old, and it was hard, dry, and flaked off. The thermal performance was terrible. On the upside, I put some Kryonaut on there, and the improvement was drastic. Even the noise went way down because the fans weren't having to work so hard.
I'd be interested in knowing if gold leaf (you can get thicker varieties), being relatively soft yet solid. Also, I'm curious to see the hotspots of different CPUs (Ryzens being wonky) and hot much the IHS actually spreads the heat. Take Ryzen again, CPUs with only CCS have the bulk of the heat on one corner. That must have an impact on heatpipes? Maybe embed a series temperature probs in the surface of a heatsink or waterblock that you can rotate 90 degrees to map wear the heat is located. I think a thermal camera would be a great idea if you can find a way to read the source not the reflection. Can't wait for a comparison/ review of all the TIMs on the market. 😉 (Or just the popular ones.)
YES! I've been curious about using gold as a TIM as well! I've kind of let my imagination go crazy with ideas of lapping the IHS and cold plate down to a perfectly leveled surface, then plating them each with gold, then wring them together to cold weld the surfaces together. A lot of work, but more of a thought experiment.
@@BRUXXUS the issue is that the level of "flatness" required to cold weld something of that size isn't likely attainable at home, and it needs to be done in a vac chamber. The possibility of getting a full weld on the entire surface with no free space isn't that good. Though gold leaf as a TIM is something to test.
@@Knirin cheap stuff will be used in the workshop, office pc etc ... I'm talking about MX-4, Cooler Master and others (I know there are many versions). there are also the same priced items with really low W / (mK) and don't trust Worty. From experience, ultra-cheap paste is only good for the office: after 70w it is horrible P.Š. sorry now native speakers
@@ElettroStef92 I've been using the same thermal compound bundled with my Hyper 212 from 2011 and it always worked flawlessly, especially considering the price.
So guys, first of all I love your videos. I've been here for some time now, and I am really thankful to know a tech reviewer with such strong believes in testing methodologies, wanting to deliver simply quality content, pointing out how things are. For me personally, I was always most impressed by your statements and philosophy regarding bias, and how to properly deal with it. Now, to be really clear: I do NOT believe your reviews to be biased in general - and I think this one here neither. But... you guys know how, especially in this area, it is often difficult to keep things apart. You said some time ago, that for this exact reason you don't like to take techy sponsoring deals and prefer those mostly unrelated to your content. With all that in mind: How did you forget to mention, that alot of your other videos are sponsored by Thermal Grizzly, a company founded by Roman aka der8auer who is actually (for all I know) a friend of yours? I mean he even gave you an early sample of the Carbonaut thermal pad personally. I can remember that; I was actually really looking forward to your review, because I do believe that you can keep things apart, despite all odds. And I still think of it that way, otherwise I wouldn't even be botherd to write this comment. So why didn't you mention this at all, although your audience could benefit from this information? I guess one could argue that probably most of your audience knows about these facts - your friendship with Roman isn't exactly a secret, neither is your sponsoring deal. But that definetly won't be the case for all of your viewers, and even some of your subs and supporters might not be aware. I think to briefly mention this fact at the beginning, to inform your audience of possible bias, would have actually benefitted your content. And surely it would've earned you a lot of additional trust within the community. Now I don't really know how to feel about this. Maybe I'm just overreactig on this, maybe I'm all wrong here - but I really wanted to point this out. Nonetheless, great video as always - and I'm looking forward to (maybe?) more thermal compound reviews! Thanks for listening
This carbon sheet looks like a perfect laptop and phone solution, where you are unlikely to open it up to replace the paste and they do deteriorate using paste.
Now that you have such a good setup, could you maybe have a page/chart with every single thermal paste you can get your hands on? That would be an invaluable resource.
There was this old TIM that was basically a sheet of some Gallium alloy that melts around 70C, you installed it and then unplugged your CPU fan and let the processor idle the whole thermal solution up to around 70-75, then plug the fan back in and you've basically soldered the CPU to the heatsink. Worked damn well and was pretty easy to remove afterward, not reusable and very expensive though. It was one of those "I'm building a whole PC anyway I'll try the $20 shiny" purchases. I don't remember what it was called and can't find it now though, sadly...
Steve, his team and his associates are the bane of lazy engineers everywhere. The moment a flaw is overlooked, they jump on it and rip it apart. That's why I love this channel. Who else goes that in depth into their reviews and testing?
I just got a Carbonaut pad for my 3400G build that lives behind my TV. I probably won't replace or upgrade it for a decade if Windows doesn't end up needing far higher end hardware, I just use it to play very light old games it stream from my main machine. Main machine and servers get paste, and that gets replaced every few years if the machine isn't being upgraded. I got the Carbonaut because I didn't want to have to worry about the graphite pad potentially breaking and having conductive flakes get somewhere on the board. But yeah, for my 3400G with a Noctua NH-L9a, the temps of MX-4 vs. the pad were very nearly identical, although the Carbonaut pad seemed to heat up faster...
I think it has to be said that although these pads are not as good as one of the market leading pastes, it's still very impressive to what we had a few years ago (nothing) and can be done very quickly. Plus looking at the benchmarks the pads clearly beat medium and low end pastes.
Thanks GN! I learned about the thermal pads from you. I did some research and replaced the thermal pads on my 2012 i7 Laptop. I used TG minus pad 8, Arctic cooling mx4 paste for CPU and GPU, removed the dust carpet from behind the radiator, soft brushed the cooler and the results are amazing!!! From constant throttling with 80-100 Centigrade, down to 60-70 Centigrade! My SSD is safe now....
As someone who loves playing around with retro PCs, I absolutely love my IC Graphite Pads. They save so much time and effort, and flipping CPUs back and forth takes only seconds. Glad to see there's more development in this space, gonna have to try the Carbonaut next time. :) Good video, thanks guys!
I've used both, and I much prefer the IC Diamond pad. The Carbonaut part tears very, very easily. One time handling it a tiny bit too much and it tears. And that happens easily when taking the pad off a CPU, or when it's stuck to a cooler cold plate which happens quite a lot. Also, I often have lower quality coolers with sharp edges and/or old coolers with a fairly small cold plate. I feel the Carbonaut pad performs somewhat better though, seems I was correct at that.
GN team, in this test you are using the Intel block that has all the heat in the center with an AIO cooler that prioritizes the dead center spot. Paste is expected to win here. Can you test a chiplet design with the same aio and then add a good aircooler that has multiple heatpipes to understand how the horizontal properties of the different cooling interfaces affects overall cooling? Depending on the results it could either make it non-relevant for future tests or expose specific combinations where performance differs. Lastly, in my N=1 testing, I used both paste and ic thermal pad on my 3900x. Both performed similar for me so I decided to use both at the same time. I did three super tiny dots over the chiplet locations and then placed the pad on it. My noctua 12s performance was significantly better (like 5C) compared to paste alone or pad alone. Edit: also, great work building the testing rig!
I want to propose a use case with low mounting pressure: Retro PCs. Any high clocked 486, 586, 686, or the K6 line of CPUs. They all use clamps to mount the cooler, and these can be very loose. Also the engravings on those CPUs are extremely deep compared to modern IHS's. Having a slightly lower thermal conductivity won't hurt at all in such cases, and the potentially better longevity is very welcome.
Phil's Computer Lab seems to really like the IC Diamond Pad. I wonder if he accidentally stumbled upon the mounting pressure anomaly that GN discovered. Could be why he was so impressed, he might have seen issues with Carbonaut if he ever tried it.
Aluminium oxidizes naturally, it's just that we're used to seeing the oxidized version of it. Unlike steel, it self seals and the oxidation layer prevents further oxidation beneath it, so it's corrosive effects make it more akin to a layer of paint than something that will further degrade the material. Maybe a useless piece of info, and the factory might chemically speed the oxidation process up, but thought I'd mention it.
Id like to see a big Review with the best Thermal Paste at the Market benching with Ryzen CPU`s. KIngpin, Artic, Grizzly etc...Would be interesting since not many RUclipsr do that. Specially not big channels
It's been awhile since someone did a serious review of how Lipstick, Mustard, Mayo and toothpaste perform. Your channel now seems uniquely positioned to do this accurately if you ever find yourself with too much time on your hands. Keep up the great reporting, thanks!
You're right about that. My view is pretty simple: Paste probably comes with your cooler anyway, so buying something extra just produces more waste. That said, if you're swapping stuff all day and constantly applying/cleaning paste (e.g. at a repair shop), I'd think it's less wasteful to use a pad ~20+ times. But if you're buying a pad instead of using some paste that came with an aftermarket cooler, that's just doubling-up on waste.
@@GamersNexus I agree with you, but I am also wondering how say 1 pad compares to a tube of paste, is paste degradable, how is the toxicity?. if my coffee starving brain is not malfunctioning, the pads components should be almost completely inert in that regard. The packaging for the Carbonaut looks to be using no plastics as well? I guess it's a minor issue compared to all the other plastic packaging out there but every bit helps. Edit: Oh, and while paste is indeed included with coolers, nothing is preventing cooler manufacturers from switching. :) Except for willingness to do so... But hey, if paste is actually safe then I don't really care.
@@GamersNexus Hi Steve, love your work! Have you considered the "consistency" of pads between tests and re-tests? Like, testing the thermals between uses of a single pad, or between multiple samples of the same kind of pad. And then compare it to multiple appliances of the same thermal paste.
@@Machistmo you have intimate knowledge of my driving habits (or non driving habits...) I see. I assume that you were addressing me since I started this thread and you didn't mention anyone else. Seems like I got a stalker, and an incompetent one at that.
I've used IC Graphite thermal pad for 6 years in a gaming desktop computer, it's awesome, no need to apply paste anymore. Just bought Carbon thermal pad this time, will install it in a custom DIY NAS that will run for a very long time.
Id try this with an older CPU but theres no way Im trying these things with an i9 or something. But anyway. The amount of editing, attention to detail, the animations.. EVERYTHING in this video is just top of the line. You guys have earned my trust 100 times over at this point. If you tell guys me to jump, Im gonna ask how high.
As an electronics engineer I quite often use silicon grease to mount transistors. So I tried it on my 14600k. I quickly ran into thermal limiting problems. So bought in some thermal grizzly paste and that was 15 degree C better.
Gotta point out that the company name is not "IC Diamond". "IC" stands for "Innovation Cooling", the actual company name, and "IC Diamond" is a brand name for their line of thermal paste. Calling it the "IC Diamond thermal pad" or referring to the pad as "IC Diamond's solution" (repeatedly in the video, title, description, and comments) is akin to saying "Corsair Vengeance's Fans" or "AMD Radeon's CPU".
Thanks, yeah. Something we knew, but we've seen "IC Diamond" together so much now that it morphed into that habit. You're right on that and we'll make the semantics changes next to. E.
@@GamersNexus No, I get it. It sounds so natural now, it easily slips by everyone's ears. I didn't even notice until a few minutes in. But hey, a great man once said, "Being technically correct is the best kind of correct". 😛
Having watched this, for 90% of PC builds I'm going with a Carbonaut pad from now on. Easy, no mess, shave a couple of minutes and some stress off build times. For 45 and 65 watts CPUs in a media pc it's not worth bothering with paste for the sake of 1 degree delta, they'll never get above 70 anyway. I'll probably start putting them in workstation builds too, since so many of those get shoved under a desk and never maintained, ever. Thanks GN.
For my new built i finally went with the Carbonaut Pad for the first time after decades of thermals paste and i will probably never go back. The 2-3 C° difference comapred to top tier thermal paste don't really matter to me and it still outperforms most pastes out there or is at least on par., but the great thing is that you never have to worry about cleaning when chaning CPU/cooler or if you are using too much or too little etc.
first considering the nature of pads i'm actually impressed,i thought they would of been much worse than they actually are,2nd "when you buy a new cooler every few years" i don't buy a new cooler that often,shit i still have the original cm hyper 212 here that i gave to my younger brother,i myself have a noctua D9L (i have a case that has a cooler limit of 130mm) and i highly doubt i'll be swapping it any time soon. pads would be good if you don't trust/expect the person to be able to re apply the paste over time themselves (like your mum or grandparents etc)anyways appreciate the in depth review.
Still using my 212 EVO. It's been through 1 AM2+ MoBo and CPU, a hybrid AM2+/AM3 MoBo with 2 different CPU's, and my current FX 8350 + Asus M5a99x MoBo. Will probably be buying the AM4 bracket and continue using it when i finally upgrade to Ryzen and AM4. It's a frigging workhorse.
It would be nice if you could run an extended test at the higher wattage (say... weeks) to dry out the thermal paste to show how its performance can degrade over time--where the pads should remain relatively consistent.
Finally a tech channel that come to their senses and uses actual hot plates with a defined, measured Wattage. So many others use benchmarks, in-game FPS and other stuff that is ALSO affected by a bazillion other variables and isn't fluctuating enough within one second, on one system, without any other changes. Not with a normal CPU or GPU that self-regulates its thermal output and runs three hundred computation threads that will never line up the same way after repeating the test. Especially not when the previous test, overclocking, undervolting led to a system crash - nobody knows if the system works properly after that or if it not behaves differently for whatever change the software did in response to the crash. A synthetic heat transfer test is the only thing that can finally put all the speculation to rest about what interface material is better. Test results need to be validated on real CPUs with real PCs of course, but only after we know what the results should look like on bare metal. Actual metal.
Would be nice to see a comparison to Prolimatech pastes, and liquid metal. It would be the first time they would all get tested in a purely synthetic environment, rather than exclusively on an actual CPU.
Great content, as always. Asking the absolutely most ridiculous question - would thermal pads perform better if you lapped the CPU/Heatsink? Granted, at that point we're already talking an extreme enthusiast who would likely want something better; but now my curiosity is piqued if they'd provide better thermal transfer on a perfectly flat, polished surface. Any chance you might try that out for science?
I highly recommend this. Twelve thread %100 bench load while making a profile for a new game on steam for 15 minutes on my 5 3600, factory clock ,and it never went over 60 degrees. It started to performance throttle closer to 70 degrees when I played a RUclips video during the test. Great product.
Recently moved to Kryonaut from using an IC pad for the last two years. My 8700k is OC'd to 5.2 GHz at 1.36v. While using the pad temps would hit the mid 80s. After switching to Kryonaut I ran CBr20 for two straight hours. Temps shot up to 79c initially and settled down at 74c after my Celcius S24 was saturated. Currently have a PC-o11 Dynamic with the s24 mounted for exhaust at the top with three 120mm fans for intake on the side. All fans are FD X2 dynamic PWM fans all running at a static 1000 RPMs.
I just wish graphics card makers would stop relying on thick pads to take up massive tolerances between heatsinks and chips. Some carbon based sheet would be ideal.
Thank you Gamers Nexus and also thanks to Beve Sturke for your awesome Videos. I dont know any other channel exept of igorsLAB that puts so much effort in his Videos and testing. Great video like always.
I had one of those low mounting pressure situations with an Intel Xeon D-15xx high-integration processor in an embedded device with a passive aluminum heat sink that used stiff springs wrapped onto screws to apply the mounting pressure. In that situation, I measured a very slight advantage for IC Graphite of slightly less than 1C over Carbonaut. During the testing, I found Carbonaut to be quite fragile while simultaneously being finicky requiring more retouching. The stiffness of the IC Graphite allows for easy repositioning by nudging any edge, while the flimsiness of the Carbonaut sometimes required multiple touches to remove wrinkles induced during repositioning. However the Carbonaut did tend to remain where it was placed much better than the seemingly slick waxy surfaces of the IC Graphite which caused it to unexpected slip out of position. I did not try any "wetting' work-arounds to temporarily increase adhesion. I tried the LTT thermal conductivity test of a thin sliver of IC Graphite by holding one end while bringing the other end into a flame. In a fraction of a second it conducts the heat to the other end forcing one to drop it. Interestingly, the flame didn't noticeably damage the flame end, though I know that end is probably not quite the same anymore. Given the wild X/Y axis thermal conductivity, I suspect that small imperfections such as creases are largely swamped by the surrounding material absorbing the extra heat along the imperfection, though a full tear might have a meaningful effect due to an actual gap in the material. I suspect that would largely depend upon thermal any involved heat spreaders.
Pet peeve: The company name is not "IC Diamond" and the product is not the "IC Diamond Graphite Cooling Pad." It's Innovation Cooling (IC) and "diamond" doesn't appear in the product name. The "diamond" just comes from their IC Diamond thermal paste.
The graphite pads are best in a factory production line, if the provide *sufficient* thermal transfer. Thermal paste is a process control PITA. It's difficult to work with and easy to screw up. It also tends to wind up all over everything as the product gets assembled. The dry, inert, thermal pads are much preferred, since they are very consistent, easier to place in production, and they don't migrate around all over the place in handling and assembly.
I'm surprised he didn't mention the usecase of thermal pads for servers which may easily run for a decade or more without ever having the TIM replaced.
Mounting and remounting many part's like technicians do they would have access to cheap decent paste volume purchases that would likely come out cheaper than any of those pads. Also with those pads being conductive and someone working under time pressure its just easier to squirt some paste without having to worry about anything shorting out, especially after we have seen time and time again that to much paste doesn't matter anyway.
About use IC Graphite\TG Carbonaut in Laptops. I use GraphiteTIM from Panasonic (basicly it's IC Graphite) and i can say next: 1. Keep in mind, that USUALLY processor in laptops are "bare die", so it's don't have IHS. This mean that heat is concentrated on SMALL AREA; 2. You can use IC Diamond\TG Carbonaut sheet bigger then die size, BUT it's edges will not contact with heatsink and It will not transfer heat (it will transfer it in air). So, heat will stay in SMALL AREA again. Solution of this problem - Graphite with adhesive layer (Panasonic have got it in their catalog); 3. IC Graphite\TG Carbonaut are CONDUCTIVE! It's edges MUST NOT touch other elements. I covered area around CPU & GPU die with Kapton tape; 4. If you removed IC Graphite\TG Carbonaut sheet and see it is damaged and don't have small part of it - YOU MUST FIND THIS PART!; 5. If you laptop never use high workload (Cinebench, Prime, LinPack), just Browser, RUclips, Twitch - you can install IC Graphite\TG Carbonaut once and forget about it FOREVER (maybe repalce dead fan). P.S. Laptop Lenovo Y500 + Panasonic GraphiteTIM. CPU: i7-3820QM (2,7@3,7GHz; 3.5GHz all cores 45W TDP) CB_R15 Temps: Min: 83 degree by C, Max: 88 degree by C. CB_R20 Temps: Min: 88 degree by C, Max: 92 degree by C. Graphite was "cut to die" size.
Can you redo this with your new pressure imaging/mapping? But, can you use this indefinitely as opposed to the paste? If so, this might be better for pre-builts/off the shelf. *ah you covered this.
There are two cooling tests I've always wanted to see. 1) Run thermal paste vs thermal pad on a same heat source for a long period of time at a higher temp. Basically trying to see if either solution is better or worse over a length of time. 2) Run an AIO/water cooler vs high-end air cooler over a long period of time to prove if dust has any impact on cooling performance. I have a theory that AIOs eventually are technically more efficient because they seem to collect less dust on the rad fins.
I just switched to the pad. My pc had paste for 3 years. I wanted to change the CPU Cooler. The cooler was stuck on to the CPU. I had tried to be as gentle as I could but I still ended up pulling CPU with the cooler. Luckily pins and everything was fine. The paste had become like glue on the cooler and CPU. After this, I switched to IC Pad so to never have this heart attack again. I can live with 3 Celcius higher to know I will never lose a cpu like this.
I'd love to see an additional follow up using some sort of hot-spot test, to see if the IC Diamond provides some bonus with it's horizontally aligned carbon. Another niche use for the pads might be fanless cases that clamp heat pipes to the walls of the case. Those often need a ton of paste, and dripping/mess could be a major issue
what these are good for is building a pc for a friend or family who has no computer knowlagde. Trying to let them know they should regurly change the thermal paste goes through one ear and out the next. With the IC-pad and carbonaut you can install and forget. even 10+ years down the line they never have to think about anything. On the same hand if you are person who build your system and are not planning to upgrade or change it out for many years to come and don't wanna deal with thermal paste or the crappy pre-pasted that are on many coolers. they are easy to install and forget about. If you prefer quality of life over performance. then these pads are worth it.
I'm super curious about thermal pads from the electronics space. Thermal pads exist with thermal conductivity around 1600W/(m*K) compared to 35 of this pad. Could you maybe check these out. A part number you could find at DigiKey would be EYG-S091203DP. I'm thinking this might have a shot compared to paste.
For beginners, techs, long term use, and interestingly SFF/MFF where clearances are at a premium and constantly changing with new better CPU coolers, larger GPUs, and smaller cases, I would absolutely recommend these. Great for test fitting but they should really not be swapped around if they have been really mounted down for any long time. For maintenance as long as its the same cooler, its in one piece and you're careful I would put it back no worries. Theurr cheap enough to replace with a shiny new part like cooler or cpu. They cool great even with (reasonably) uneven heat pipes on otherwise strong coolers and should do so indefinitely. 4.5/5 I was building my first diy and never done paste before. I went with a smaller matx case with 2 side fan slots. Wasn't sure about the cpu cooler/side fan clearance and went too tall. Also wasn't sure the pc would even work first try but I got lucky with no doa parts or install errors. All this and this video lead me to the TG Carbonaut. I had to swap to a shorter cpu cooler when I could a few months later. I probably overtightened it but it was only a ryzen 1400 at 3.6 ghz. Later I upgraded to a 5700x and got a new one and tightened it less, we will see when I swap the mobo from b450 to b550 eventually how that pressure is. And then I will leave it forever unless i upgrade to AM5 in the same case but I'm gpu size limited in my current case. I put the older pad on the 1400 stock cooler equivalent it had originally since the paste was only on the cooler, it was apart for over a year just hanging in the old case, and it was from 2017 in a pre-built. If it ever needs work or I put my tall cooler on it, I should probably replace it but its still just a 1400. The edges on the am4 recommended 38x38mm stick out around the ryzen 1000-5000 and if you tighten it too much it will pinch or even start to cut it. Try to not tighten it that far but if it does go ahead and take off the edges because it is electrically conductive. It will stick after mounted down and heat cycled, with luck and skill you can keep it on the cooler side and this is better as that will be the side with uneven heat pipes.
This has really made up my mind for me. I'm using a laptop that is starting to run at 99 C after 2 years. I've never applied thermal paste before, so I think I'll be going with the paste-but not a metal based one. I'll save that for when I have a better idea about what's going on :D
I like LAIRD TPCM 585. It's a phase change material, basically wax with thermally conductive filler particles. It flows at about 50°C, and it doesn't pump out. It appears to me to be the best of both worlds - it flows to fill in imperfections and minimizes the gap thickness, yet it lasts forever. Only downside is that you have to heat it up to separate the cooler from the CPU. I'd *LOVE* it if you could through Laird TPCM 585 into your mix of thermal interface solutions!
Watch our IC Diamond Graphite Thermal Pad Review for more information on how we do this testing: ruclips.net/video/niAQs8dZohE/видео.html
Our CPU cooler review methodology is here: ruclips.net/video/fmTOJP4KOyk/видео.html
Or written form here: www.gamersnexus.net/guides/3561-cpu-cooler-testing-methodology-most-tests-are-flawed
Support GamersNexus directly via the store! We have PC building modmats, PC component mouse mats that are desk length, X570 chipset posters in the design of a metro, and more. All store purchases go straight toward supporting our research: store.gamersnexus.net/
what about testing a pure indium foil? personally I'd like to think that a CPU at full load would have enough heat to partially melt the foil/pad filling gaps while also having better conductivity then impure liquid metal "galinstan" mixes. with the added benefit of not leaving a stain due to the lack of gallium. but I could be wrong.
Can you use alluminiun foil"tinfoil" as TIM???
why do you use hydronaut rather than Kryonaut @Gamers Nexus ?
is this you? steve? ruclips.net/video/QTahVLSJz_k/видео.html
@@UKgamer87 have you used one on an Xbox 360? Do you know what size pad you would need for that?
You're supposed to use 2 slices of pad with thermal paste in between to create a Grilled Carbonaut sandwich. Then place more thermal paste as needed.
Run prime 95 for 1h and it's ready to serve
I thought you were looking familiar🤪. You also recommended using a big dot of thermal paste for every processing core. If you ever do a Threadripper 3990X build, please use one of these pads🤣.
What do you need to do all that? A table, a Swiss army knife hopefully with a tool that you can use. What else?
@excelsior ink You probably should recognise the OP as a meme and their comment as a joke. I don't believe paste with thermal pads is a good idea at all. But i am curious whether shim (and paste) or carbon pads behaved better for you.
It's just good PC building practice.
That intro B roll shows the typical CPU ritual done before testing :D
This is actually a GN secret to get the most accurate testing.
@@GamersNexus you didn't let it complete. OCD 9000
Roman probably does it every time before deliding. :D
I thought it was the next step to checking out of the box thermals. You put it out of the box, onto the table, apply thermal paste and check temps.
🤣🤣🤣🤣
Commenter: "Omg thats so much paste, don't do that"
GN: "makes a ring of thermal paste around a cpu just for some b roll"
Pretty much!
Ice the cake baby
It's a common practice to summon the PC gods! (source: probably the Verge) 😂
The Verge: "You would usually have 1 tube of thermal paste, but usually it's not quite enough. You need a second. Smear with confidence"
at least Steve isn't putting it in CPU Sockets anymore 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
I was recommended this channel when I asked for info about how to build a new PC. And WOW, this is *monumentally* detailed info! I had no idea anyone even cared about this level of detail for thermal paste and competitors. I am fascinated!
Welcome to Tech Jesus 👌😁
You have now been sucked into the world of always trying to improve. I am addicted to making my PC run cooler and faster.
More importantly they take great care into their testing methodology. It's fine to watch reviews from Linus and Jay but GN is great for tests that compare competing hardware head to head for many different use cases. This is especially useful when putting together a parts list for your new PC. A PC you mainly use to play Fortnite has different requirements than one used for video editing.
Though a channel that can be recommended if you're on an extremely tight budget is LowSpecGamer. He has the best tips and tricks to run demanding games at an acceptable frame rate on very low end hardware like a dual core Athlon APU using integrated graphics. Don't expect games to look pretty though. That kind of hardware actually isn't often worth buying if you live in a western country but can be very useful in countries where the average income is relatively low and PC hardware is relatively expensive without an abundant 2nd hand market (like Brazil for example).
I watch other tech channels when I want to be entertained. I watch Gamers Nexus when I want data, and no punches pulled information. HAIL TECH-JESUS
U were lucky u didnt discover Verge first...
@ 0:02 That's not how to apply thermal paste! You need to drill a hole in the IHS, and inject the paste in there with the syringe till it won't hold any more!
Pentiums used to have the hole pre-drilled for you. Talk about service!
Wait, why does it actually sounds like a half decent idea?
@@StevenZephyc because you don't have a clue probably
I want someone to benchmark that...
@@StevenZephyc It would be for Intel Coffee Lake. The original TIM between the die and the IHS was crap (they were good processors though).
Unbelieveable. Tech jesus actually mentioned my previous comment about thermal pad for laptop. What an honour!
I made a comment about half on Intel's Core series being 14nm, and they mentioned it. Best feeling ever.
@@DrearierSpider1 Same here. Thank you tech jesus for making my day.
🙌
Congratulations, we are all proud of you guys 👏.
As an atheist who chooses to believe in facts and proof I believe in tech jesus
One of the things about the pads is that you don't have to wonder if you put too much or too little grease on. They are basically always consistent with the "dosage".
Yes as someone who never put thermal paste on and was putting together a new pc for the first time, this is why I went with it. I was sure I would have to take it right back apart to troubleshoot, so doing thermal paste 3 times didn't sound fun. Luckily it ran fine first assembly but I didn't test parts so the new mobo could have been doa. Long term under pressure it gets rough and I wouldn't really put it from one cooler to another, but for straight reassembly I think it's fine. I might have tightened it too much and I did the second one less when I upgraded my cpu. We will see in another few years if it's right. If I remember correctly thermals went down when I tightened it more but it stopped at a point and I went a little further for testing so when you see it stop improving I would leave it there.
Oh I had to swap the cpu cooler for one 20mm shorter a few weeks/months into the first assembly to fit side fans. I wasn't sure about the clearance, got the tall one and had to wait a while to get the second one when I could. A weird use case for "reusability" but SFF is getting big right now and chasing every mm of clearance when new parts come out. Mine was an old matx mini tower case with side fans above the gpu and cpu and the 155mm I got first left me 7mm not even enough for the slimmest 12mm fan so cpu cooler had to change.
just spread the paste, no way to mess it up
I love how Steve explained the nanomaterial aspects for both products (especially in the pad).
It's like a cpu blanket, tuck it up all warm & cosy! 😂
But you could slather it in hydronaut and have your wicked way with it!
Emphasis on warm lol
@Optical Claritystill won't be as good as just using the paste, bigger gap less heat transfer. \also you would combine both disadvantages, bigger gap, and having a paste that needs renewing.
@@Machistmo we know. :D
@@user-yv2cz8oj1k Don't be so cheap... Kryonaut is where it's at
I've used IC's pads over thermal paste for most of my PC builds for the last five years. I am very happy with their performance, which is so close to optimal paste, while also reducing the chance of screwing things up with a bad application, that I feel it's the best option overall.
I can definitely see these being useful in things like iMacs, where they’re basically glued shut. So you don’t want to open the damn thing more than once or twice. So just adding a “fire and forget” pad and not needing to worry about thermal paste is seriously damn cool.
That’s a great point actually!!
And if the user launches old minecraft in java we have a nuclear meltdown.
Until you have to dust it out....
@@bam6693 True
To me, the best use case for Carbonaut is consoles, where you really don't want to open them up and repaste them, and their longevity is typically longer than a standard PC. Console users generally would have no idea about repasting.
I recently had to open up and clean out a Phat PS4. I certainly agree with this comment. It would be a perfect application for one of these thermal pads.
I never had to repaste in my PC and its 8 years old now. Still same temperatures.
Xirpzy but consoles use cheap paste which is notorious for drying out. This has been something ongoing with consoles for a long time
Still would use paste.
@@Xirpzy Same here, using a generic cooler master paste from my 212 evo cooler on a 10 year old I7 860, the paste is 7 years old still runs cool even if the paste is most likely to be dried out and crusty.
0:00 I can’t believe how much paste you waste! Don’t you know there are starving chips in Xboxes!
Engineer: Boss, we have imperfections on the cut process
Boss: No one will notice them
Steve: So we grabbed the microscope...
Edit: Image credit to Johanness Whener
Johannes Wehner took those photos! Make sure he gets credit, not us!
@@GamersNexus edit done.
Great content btw, keep up the good work.
@@ijustsawthat The joke was still very much appreciated! And thanks!
I’ve used paste, liquid metal, and those graphite pads. Paste is messy. Liquid metal cleanup is even worse. I went to thermal pads and will never go back. You also forgot to say pads are good for getting rid of the “you put the thermal paste on wrong” comments. Thermal pads FTW!
I been trying to decide on Carbonaut vs Cryptonaut Extreme for about an hour now and this is the best review I came across. Also, having it 'mapped' with chapters is a very, very nice touch. Loved the presentation and the scientific approach. Didn't get into unnecessary detail and didn't try to any obnoxious humour. Well done!
ah, it's like a cloth then, I was curious what kind of structure it has, interesting
I would say its like very thin silk since i have one.
@@TheNewCrap is it fragile? If so, how much?
@@internetexplorer6824 Can´t say for sure but I wouldn´t try ripping it. I handle it with two fingers only since I didn´t want to damage it by mistake.
Here's a possible fun test case for your new high precision CPU heater that I've been curious about for a few years:
*Tinting* ... I remember a few years back I *actually* read the instructions that came with a tube of Arctic Silver (for some reason).
It suggested "Tinting" the IHS and cold plate by applying a tiny amount of paste to them then buffing it back off.
At first I thought it was just a clever way to get people to use more paste, but as I thought about it, it started to make sense.
By buffing in a microscopic layer of paste, you can apply more direct pressure to the surfaces, filling in the tiny imperfections with more force than just the mounting pressure of the cooler, so when you apply the paste to like usual, and mount the cooler, you'd theoretically get better contact.
There would be no way to detect any improvement by using a real CPU, but your test rig may actually have the resolution to check this.
Just a thought.
what is that intro b roll lol
It's a waste
I want to see a base test of no material, see how bad the cooling is just from the heat sink by itself.
It will just shut down. Maybe you can get in the bios, but after some minutes cpu will be too hot.
@@simoSLJ89 The beauty of a dummy heater is that it doesn't have BIOS and won't shut down.
@@GamersNexus But Steve! How can you overclock it then? Awww!
@@conza1989 just plug it into a 220V outlet and watch it glow with power
Could get flat and smooth enough surfaces to eliminate the paste?
Dont know if you cover this, and i dont want to forget, but I've noticed that carbonaught gets 'gummy' when hot, you have to let it cool completely off before removing the cooler or it might tear, or tear when pulled from the IHS
Also, i want these pre-installed in OEM desktops and servers, i dont like having to re-paste hundreds of machines
Thermal pads would be excellent for servers. I bought a used server off eBay, and the thermal paste on the two CPUs was easily over a decade old, and it was hard, dry, and flaked off. The thermal performance was terrible. On the upside, I put some Kryonaut on there, and the improvement was drastic. Even the noise went way down because the fans weren't having to work so hard.
Waiting for the Elmer's Glue brand Thermal Pad. Likely will be a sponsor in The Verge's next PC build.
Great, now all I want is for Steve to test Elmer's paste/white glue as a thermal interface
WABBIT season
@@sopcannon Duck season
@@dikbozo Wabbit season
Right down to the electron microscopic details. I love this channel.
I'd be interested in knowing if gold leaf (you can get thicker varieties), being relatively soft yet solid.
Also, I'm curious to see the hotspots of different CPUs (Ryzens being wonky) and hot much the IHS actually spreads the heat. Take Ryzen again, CPUs with only CCS have the bulk of the heat on one corner. That must have an impact on heatpipes? Maybe embed a series temperature probs in the surface of a heatsink or waterblock that you can rotate 90 degrees to map wear the heat is located. I think a thermal camera would be a great idea if you can find a way to read the source not the reflection.
Can't wait for a comparison/ review of all the TIMs on the market. 😉
(Or just the popular ones.)
YES! I've been curious about using gold as a TIM as well!
I've kind of let my imagination go crazy with ideas of lapping the IHS and cold plate down to a perfectly leveled surface, then plating them each with gold, then wring them together to cold weld the surfaces together. A lot of work, but more of a thought experiment.
the top 5 best conductors are 1Diamond, 2Silver, 3Copper, 4Gold, 5Aluminum
Silver leaf would be a real interesting experiment.
@@BRUXXUS the issue is that the level of "flatness" required to cold weld something of that size isn't likely attainable at home, and it needs to be done in a vac chamber. The possibility of getting a full weld on the entire surface with no free space isn't that good. Though gold leaf as a TIM is something to test.
Would be an interesting test for sure. While at it, they should also test an indium sheet as well
At last the Thermal Grizzly Carbonaut review that I'm looking for haha
u wont a get a review like this from the person who made the pad
Dear GN team, can you test also the usual amazon "go to" inexpensive stuff since 90% will buy them ?
Thanks ... nice job !
Agreed, I have been in the PC industry nearly 20 years and cheap or bundled pastes have always been suspect.
@@Knirin cheap stuff will be used in the workshop, office pc etc ... I'm talking about MX-4, Cooler Master and others (I know there are many versions). there are also the same priced items with really low W / (mK) and don't trust Worty. From experience, ultra-cheap paste is only good for the office: after 70w it is horrible
P.Š. sorry now native speakers
@@ElettroStef92 I've been using the same thermal compound bundled with my Hyper 212 from 2011 and it always worked flawlessly, especially considering the price.
@Advocatus Diaboli Also it's not conductive or capacitive
@@Knirin With bundled paste it does depend on the cooler manufacturer. Using the included Noctua TIM is fine.
So guys, first of all I love your videos. I've been here for some time now, and I am really thankful to know a tech reviewer with such strong believes in testing methodologies, wanting to deliver simply quality content, pointing out how things are. For me personally, I was always most impressed by your statements and philosophy regarding bias, and how to properly deal with it.
Now, to be really clear: I do NOT believe your reviews to be biased in general - and I think this one here neither. But... you guys know how, especially in this area, it is often difficult to keep things apart. You said some time ago, that for this exact reason you don't like to take techy sponsoring deals and prefer those mostly unrelated to your content. With all that in mind: How did you forget to mention, that alot of your other videos are sponsored by Thermal Grizzly, a company founded by Roman aka der8auer who is actually (for all I know) a friend of yours? I mean he even gave you an early sample of the Carbonaut thermal pad personally. I can remember that; I was actually really looking forward to your review, because I do believe that you can keep things apart, despite all odds. And I still think of it that way, otherwise I wouldn't even be botherd to write this comment. So why didn't you mention this at all, although your audience could benefit from this information?
I guess one could argue that probably most of your audience knows about these facts - your friendship with Roman isn't exactly a secret, neither is your sponsoring deal.
But that definetly won't be the case for all of your viewers, and even some of your subs and supporters might not be aware.
I think to briefly mention this fact at the beginning, to inform your audience of possible bias, would have actually benefitted your content. And surely it would've earned you a lot of additional trust within the community. Now I don't really know how to feel about this.
Maybe I'm just overreactig on this, maybe I'm all wrong here - but I really wanted to point this out.
Nonetheless, great video as always - and I'm looking forward to (maybe?) more thermal compound reviews! Thanks for listening
This carbon sheet looks like a perfect laptop and phone solution, where you are unlikely to open it up to replace the paste and they do deteriorate using paste.
Now that you have such a good setup, could you maybe have a page/chart with every single thermal paste you can get your hands on? That would be an invaluable resource.
There was this old TIM that was basically a sheet of some Gallium alloy that melts around 70C, you installed it and then unplugged your CPU fan and let the processor idle the whole thermal solution up to around 70-75, then plug the fan back in and you've basically soldered the CPU to the heatsink. Worked damn well and was pretty easy to remove afterward, not reusable and very expensive though. It was one of those "I'm building a whole PC anyway I'll try the $20 shiny" purchases. I don't remember what it was called and can't find it now though, sadly...
Steve, his team and his associates are the bane of lazy engineers everywhere. The moment a flaw is overlooked, they jump on it and rip it apart.
That's why I love this channel. Who else goes that in depth into their reviews and testing?
I just got a Carbonaut pad for my 3400G build that lives behind my TV. I probably won't replace or upgrade it for a decade if Windows doesn't end up needing far higher end hardware, I just use it to play very light old games it stream from my main machine. Main machine and servers get paste, and that gets replaced every few years if the machine isn't being upgraded. I got the Carbonaut because I didn't want to have to worry about the graphite pad potentially breaking and having conductive flakes get somewhere on the board.
But yeah, for my 3400G with a Noctua NH-L9a, the temps of MX-4 vs. the pad were very nearly identical, although the Carbonaut pad seemed to heat up faster...
I think it has to be said that although these pads are not as good as one of the market leading pastes, it's still very impressive to what we had a few years ago (nothing) and can be done very quickly. Plus looking at the benchmarks the pads clearly beat medium and low end pastes.
And it's much harder to screw things up with a pad.
I'm satisfied with seeing "uploaded 46 seconds ago."
That's strange, mine says 19 minutes.
I'm satisfied with seeing "uploaded 46 minutes ago", huh
Thanks GN! I learned about the thermal pads from you. I did some research and replaced the thermal pads on my 2012 i7 Laptop. I used TG minus pad 8, Arctic cooling mx4 paste for CPU and GPU, removed the dust carpet from behind the radiator, soft brushed the cooler and the results are amazing!!! From constant throttling with 80-100 Centigrade, down to 60-70 Centigrade! My SSD is safe now....
As someone who loves playing around with retro PCs, I absolutely love my IC Graphite Pads. They save so much time and effort, and flipping CPUs back and forth takes only seconds.
Glad to see there's more development in this space, gonna have to try the Carbonaut next time. :)
Good video, thanks guys!
I've used both, and I much prefer the IC Diamond pad. The Carbonaut part tears very, very easily. One time handling it a tiny bit too much and it tears. And that happens easily when taking the pad off a CPU, or when it's stuck to a cooler cold plate which happens quite a lot. Also, I often have lower quality coolers with sharp edges and/or old coolers with a fairly small cold plate. I feel the Carbonaut pad performs somewhat better though, seems I was correct at that.
Funny how they say now that u really shouldn’t reuse it and it’s notoriously easy to break because it’s graphene.
I LOVE the way you guys test, its not just put it on and take it off and done. You guys look at almost every scenario. GOOD JOB!
Last time I was this early the Pentium was a premium brand.
GN team, in this test you are using the Intel block that has all the heat in the center with an AIO cooler that prioritizes the dead center spot. Paste is expected to win here. Can you test a chiplet design with the same aio and then add a good aircooler that has multiple heatpipes to understand how the horizontal properties of the different cooling interfaces affects overall cooling? Depending on the results it could either make it non-relevant for future tests or expose specific combinations where performance differs.
Lastly, in my N=1 testing, I used both paste and ic thermal pad on my 3900x. Both performed similar for me so I decided to use both at the same time. I did three super tiny dots over the chiplet locations and then placed the pad on it. My noctua 12s performance was significantly better (like 5C) compared to paste alone or pad alone.
Edit: also, great work building the testing rig!
Paste wins in both.
@@GamersNexus Video or it didn't happen. Also, in my crazy case of using both, I was using 1.3V 4.25GHz static overclock.
I want to propose a use case with low mounting pressure:
Retro PCs. Any high clocked 486, 586, 686, or the K6 line of CPUs. They all use clamps to mount the cooler, and these can be very loose. Also the engravings on those CPUs are extremely deep compared to modern IHS's.
Having a slightly lower thermal conductivity won't hurt at all in such cases, and the potentially better longevity is very welcome.
Phil's Computer Lab seems to really like the IC Diamond Pad. I wonder if he accidentally stumbled upon the mounting pressure anomaly that GN discovered. Could be why he was so impressed, he might have seen issues with Carbonaut if he ever tried it.
Those CPU's didn't produce much heat though but could improve the noise production if you'd solder a resistor in the fan wire.
Damn it Steve, I was just about to go to bed! Oh well, guess I’ll watch it (2:31 EDT as of this comment).
Okay, now bedtime. Good night, and I learned a little more about these types of thermal pads :)
For CEST its perfect. :D
Aluminium oxidizes naturally, it's just that we're used to seeing the oxidized version of it. Unlike steel, it self seals and the oxidation layer prevents further oxidation beneath it, so it's corrosive effects make it more akin to a layer of paint than something that will further degrade the material. Maybe a useless piece of info, and the factory might chemically speed the oxidation process up, but thought I'd mention it.
They do use chemicals to affect the process, yes.
Id like to see a big Review with the best Thermal Paste at the Market benching with Ryzen CPU`s. KIngpin, Artic, Grizzly etc...Would be interesting since not many RUclipsr do that. Specially not big channels
Already done ...
i love these pads, adding it to a pc or laptop for a non technical family / friend is great, wont have to worry about it after
Amazing guys, appreciate the work to build this testing method, awesome video and thanks for the information as always!
0:02 OK, so thermal grease is running circles around carbon pads; got it! Tldr - great job 😁
"Technically superior" needs to be on GN merch
It's been awhile since someone did a serious review of how Lipstick, Mustard, Mayo and toothpaste perform. Your channel now seems uniquely positioned to do this accurately if you ever find yourself with too much time on your hands. Keep up the great reporting, thanks!
serious review- it sucks don't do it
I appreciate the thoughtfulness behind your testing methodology. The logic is sound, you mention potential pitfalls, and it's never dumbed down.
15:50 Was someone playing with the fonts on this chart? Nice to see times new Roman on screen.
Steve, you're an environment conscious guy. I wonder how paste stacks up against the pads in that regard?
You're right about that. My view is pretty simple: Paste probably comes with your cooler anyway, so buying something extra just produces more waste. That said, if you're swapping stuff all day and constantly applying/cleaning paste (e.g. at a repair shop), I'd think it's less wasteful to use a pad ~20+ times. But if you're buying a pad instead of using some paste that came with an aftermarket cooler, that's just doubling-up on waste.
@@GamersNexus I agree with you, but I am also wondering how say 1 pad compares to a tube of paste, is paste degradable, how is the toxicity?. if my coffee starving brain is not malfunctioning, the pads components should be almost completely inert in that regard. The packaging for the Carbonaut looks to be using no plastics as well? I guess it's a minor issue compared to all the other plastic packaging out there but every bit helps.
Edit: Oh, and while paste is indeed included with coolers, nothing is preventing cooler manufacturers from switching. :) Except for willingness to do so... But hey, if paste is actually safe then I don't really care.
@@GamersNexus Hi Steve, love your work! Have you considered the "consistency" of pads between tests and re-tests? Like, testing the thermals between uses of a single pad, or between multiple samples of the same kind of pad. And then compare it to multiple appliances of the same thermal paste.
@@Machistmo you have intimate knowledge of my driving habits (or non driving habits...) I see. I assume that you were addressing me since I started this thread and you didn't mention anyone else. Seems like I got a stalker, and an incompetent one at that.
I've used IC Graphite thermal pad for 6 years in a gaming desktop computer, it's awesome, no need to apply paste anymore. Just bought Carbon thermal pad this time, will install it in a custom DIY NAS that will run for a very long time.
0:04 So that's how you apply thermal paste properly, i've done it wrong my whole life . Thanks for the tip
Id try this with an older CPU but theres no way Im trying these things with an i9 or something. But anyway. The amount of editing, attention to detail, the animations.. EVERYTHING in this video is just top of the line. You guys have earned my trust 100 times over at this point. If you tell guys me to jump, Im gonna ask how high.
As an electronics engineer I quite often use silicon grease to mount transistors. So I tried it on my 14600k. I quickly ran into thermal limiting problems. So bought in some thermal grizzly paste and that was 15 degree C better.
Gamer’s Nexus - The leader is hardware testing.
There’s no doubt if there were still Tech TV channels they would air your videos.
Gotta point out that the company name is not "IC Diamond". "IC" stands for "Innovation Cooling", the actual company name, and "IC Diamond" is a brand name for their line of thermal paste. Calling it the "IC Diamond thermal pad" or referring to the pad as "IC Diamond's solution" (repeatedly in the video, title, description, and comments) is akin to saying "Corsair Vengeance's Fans" or "AMD Radeon's CPU".
Thanks, yeah. Something we knew, but we've seen "IC Diamond" together so much now that it morphed into that habit. You're right on that and we'll make the semantics changes next to. E.
@@GamersNexus No, I get it. It sounds so natural now, it easily slips by everyone's ears. I didn't even notice until a few minutes in. But hey, a great man once said, "Being technically correct is the best kind of correct". 😛
Pizza delivery for... I.C Wiener? Oh crud... I always thought at this point in my life i'd be the one making the prank calls
Having watched this, for 90% of PC builds I'm going with a Carbonaut pad from now on. Easy, no mess, shave a couple of minutes and some stress off build times. For 45 and 65 watts CPUs in a media pc it's not worth bothering with paste for the sake of 1 degree delta, they'll never get above 70 anyway. I'll probably start putting them in workstation builds too, since so many of those get shoved under a desk and never maintained, ever. Thanks GN.
Your level of analysis here is off the charts. ;) Awesome work folks.
For my new built i finally went with the Carbonaut Pad for the first time after decades of thermals paste and i will probably never go back.
The 2-3 C° difference comapred to top tier thermal paste don't really matter to me and it still outperforms most pastes out there or is at least on par., but the great thing is that you never have to worry about cleaning when chaning CPU/cooler or if you are using too much or too little etc.
first considering the nature of pads i'm actually impressed,i thought they would of been much worse than they actually are,2nd "when you buy a new cooler every few years" i don't buy a new cooler that often,shit i still have the original cm hyper 212 here that i gave to my younger brother,i myself have a noctua D9L (i have a case that has a cooler limit of 130mm) and i highly doubt i'll be swapping it any time soon.
pads would be good if you don't trust/expect the person to be able to re apply the paste over time themselves (like your mum or grandparents etc)anyways appreciate the in depth review.
Still using my 212 EVO. It's been through 1 AM2+ MoBo and CPU, a hybrid AM2+/AM3 MoBo with 2 different CPU's, and my current FX 8350 + Asus M5a99x MoBo.
Will probably be buying the AM4 bracket and continue using it when i finally upgrade to Ryzen and AM4.
It's a frigging workhorse.
It would be nice if you could run an extended test at the higher wattage (say... weeks) to dry out the thermal paste to show how its performance can degrade over time--where the pads should remain relatively consistent.
Finally a tech channel that come to their senses and uses actual hot plates with a defined, measured Wattage. So many others use benchmarks, in-game FPS and other stuff that is ALSO affected by a bazillion other variables and isn't fluctuating enough within one second, on one system, without any other changes. Not with a normal CPU or GPU that self-regulates its thermal output and runs three hundred computation threads that will never line up the same way after repeating the test. Especially not when the previous test, overclocking, undervolting led to a system crash - nobody knows if the system works properly after that or if it not behaves differently for whatever change the software did in response to the crash. A synthetic heat transfer test is the only thing that can finally put all the speculation to rest about what interface material is better. Test results need to be validated on real CPUs with real PCs of course, but only after we know what the results should look like on bare metal. Actual metal.
thanks for doing the work. Once I discovered it can conduct electricity I swapped back to paste. I keep it as a backup for emergencies.
Would be nice to see a comparison to Prolimatech pastes, and liquid metal. It would be the first time they would all get tested in a purely synthetic environment, rather than exclusively on an actual CPU.
Great content, as always. Asking the absolutely most ridiculous question - would thermal pads perform better if you lapped the CPU/Heatsink? Granted, at that point we're already talking an extreme enthusiast who would likely want something better; but now my curiosity is piqued if they'd provide better thermal transfer on a perfectly flat, polished surface. Any chance you might try that out for science?
I highly recommend this. Twelve thread %100 bench load while making a profile for a new game on steam for 15 minutes on my 5 3600, factory clock ,and it never went over 60 degrees. It started to performance throttle closer to 70 degrees when I played a RUclips video during the test. Great product.
They even sell it in a size that fits the 5 3600 perfectly
You're tearing me apart, Corsair! 🤓
I did not rip her, i did naaawt
Oh hi benchmark!
Even though I hate this, why do I feel so hot?
Recently moved to Kryonaut from using an IC pad for the last two years. My 8700k is OC'd to 5.2 GHz at 1.36v. While using the pad temps would hit the mid 80s. After switching to Kryonaut I ran CBr20 for two straight hours. Temps shot up to 79c initially and settled down at 74c after my Celcius S24 was saturated. Currently have a PC-o11 Dynamic with the s24 mounted for exhaust at the top with three 120mm fans for intake on the side. All fans are FD X2 dynamic PWM fans all running at a static 1000 RPMs.
those electron microscopy images are fascinating
Comprehensive, clear and easy to understand. Hallmarks of Gamers Nexus at this point. Love it!
Excellent review and side-by-side comparisons. Thanks so much.
I wish they made a thicker Carbonaut variants with 0.5mm and 1mm thickness so I could use it on memory...
I just wish graphics card makers would stop relying on thick pads to take up massive tolerances between heatsinks and chips. Some carbon based sheet would be ideal.
Or lapping the dies lol
Really useful, next time I have to redo the paste on my One X, I'll be renewing the surrounding heat pads...
Thank you Gamers Nexus and also thanks to Beve Sturke for your awesome Videos.
I dont know any other channel exept of igorsLAB that puts so much effort in his Videos and testing.
Great video like always.
I had one of those low mounting pressure situations with an Intel Xeon D-15xx high-integration processor in an embedded device with a passive aluminum heat sink that used stiff springs wrapped onto screws to apply the mounting pressure. In that situation, I measured a very slight advantage for IC Graphite of slightly less than 1C over Carbonaut.
During the testing, I found Carbonaut to be quite fragile while simultaneously being finicky requiring more retouching. The stiffness of the IC Graphite allows for easy repositioning by nudging any edge, while the flimsiness of the Carbonaut sometimes required multiple touches to remove wrinkles induced during repositioning. However the Carbonaut did tend to remain where it was placed much better than the seemingly slick waxy surfaces of the IC Graphite which caused it to unexpected slip out of position. I did not try any "wetting' work-arounds to temporarily increase adhesion.
I tried the LTT thermal conductivity test of a thin sliver of IC Graphite by holding one end while bringing the other end into a flame. In a fraction of a second it conducts the heat to the other end forcing one to drop it. Interestingly, the flame didn't noticeably damage the flame end, though I know that end is probably not quite the same anymore. Given the wild X/Y axis thermal conductivity, I suspect that small imperfections such as creases are largely swamped by the surrounding material absorbing the extra heat along the imperfection, though a full tear might have a meaningful effect due to an actual gap in the material. I suspect that would largely depend upon thermal any involved heat spreaders.
Pet peeve: The company name is not "IC Diamond" and the product is not the "IC Diamond Graphite Cooling Pad." It's Innovation Cooling (IC) and "diamond" doesn't appear in the product name. The "diamond" just comes from their IC Diamond thermal paste.
Correct
The graphite pads are best in a factory production line, if the provide *sufficient* thermal transfer. Thermal paste is a process control PITA. It's difficult to work with and easy to screw up. It also tends to wind up all over everything as the product gets assembled. The dry, inert, thermal pads are much preferred, since they are very consistent, easier to place in production, and they don't migrate around all over the place in handling and assembly.
I'm surprised he didn't mention the usecase of thermal pads for servers which may easily run for a decade or more without ever having the TIM replaced.
You are sir, what I would call an actual reviewer ! As always, awesome video. Precise and concise yet detailed where it matters !
Mounting and remounting many part's like technicians do they would have access to cheap decent paste volume purchases that would likely come out cheaper than any of those pads. Also with those pads being conductive and someone working under time pressure its just easier to squirt some paste without having to worry about anything shorting out, especially after we have seen time and time again that to much paste doesn't matter anyway.
About use IC Graphite\TG Carbonaut in Laptops. I use GraphiteTIM from Panasonic (basicly it's IC Graphite) and i can say next:
1. Keep in mind, that USUALLY processor in laptops are "bare die", so it's don't have IHS. This mean that heat is concentrated on SMALL AREA;
2. You can use IC Diamond\TG Carbonaut sheet bigger then die size, BUT it's edges will not contact with heatsink and It will not transfer heat (it will transfer it in air). So, heat will stay in SMALL AREA again. Solution of this problem - Graphite with adhesive layer (Panasonic have got it in their catalog);
3. IC Graphite\TG Carbonaut are CONDUCTIVE! It's edges MUST NOT touch other elements. I covered area around CPU & GPU die with Kapton tape;
4. If you removed IC Graphite\TG Carbonaut sheet and see it is damaged and don't have small part of it - YOU MUST FIND THIS PART!;
5. If you laptop never use high workload (Cinebench, Prime, LinPack), just Browser, RUclips, Twitch - you can install IC Graphite\TG Carbonaut once and forget about it FOREVER (maybe repalce dead fan).
P.S. Laptop Lenovo Y500 + Panasonic GraphiteTIM. CPU: i7-3820QM (2,7@3,7GHz; 3.5GHz all cores 45W TDP) CB_R15 Temps: Min: 83 degree by C, Max: 88 degree by C. CB_R20 Temps: Min: 88 degree by C, Max: 92 degree by C. Graphite was "cut to die" size.
Been looking for a comparison of these pads, good review!
Can you redo this with your new pressure imaging/mapping?
But, can you use this indefinitely as opposed to the paste? If so, this might be better for pre-builts/off the shelf.
*ah you covered this.
Now we need a review like this for those blue and pink and other color thermal pads used on GPU memory chips, power MOSFETs on motherboards, and etc.
There are two cooling tests I've always wanted to see. 1) Run thermal paste vs thermal pad on a same heat source for a long period of time at a higher temp. Basically trying to see if either solution is better or worse over a length of time. 2) Run an AIO/water cooler vs high-end air cooler over a long period of time to prove if dust has any impact on cooling performance. I have a theory that AIOs eventually are technically more efficient because they seem to collect less dust on the rad fins.
I just switched to the pad. My pc had paste for 3 years. I wanted to change the CPU Cooler. The cooler was stuck on to the CPU. I had tried to be as gentle as I could but I still ended up pulling CPU with the cooler. Luckily pins and everything was fine. The paste had become like glue on the cooler and CPU. After this, I switched to IC Pad so to never have this heart attack again. I can live with 3 Celcius higher to know I will never lose a cpu like this.
What paste where u using? I used noctua paste and even after 4 years the cooler just came of nicely
@@thealien_ali3382 not excatly sure, I think it was noctua, but I forgot at this point
I'd love to see an additional follow up using some sort of hot-spot test, to see if the IC Diamond provides some bonus with it's horizontally aligned carbon.
Another niche use for the pads might be fanless cases that clamp heat pipes to the walls of the case. Those often need a ton of paste, and dripping/mess could be a major issue
with the new bench i'd die to see a retest of some common pastes like cryonaut, mx2, mx4 and liquid metals
If I have to travel to Alaska for work, where there is no technical service, I would definitely install the Carbonaut.
what these are good for is building a pc for a friend or family who has no computer knowlagde.
Trying to let them know they should regurly change the thermal paste goes through one ear and out the next.
With the IC-pad and carbonaut you can install and forget. even 10+ years down the line they never have to think about anything.
On the same hand if you are person who build your system and are not planning to upgrade or change it out for many years to come and don't wanna deal with thermal paste or the crappy pre-pasted that are on many coolers. they are easy to install and forget about.
If you prefer quality of life over performance. then these pads are worth it.
QOL FTW
I'm super curious about thermal pads from the electronics space. Thermal pads exist with thermal conductivity around 1600W/(m*K) compared to 35 of this pad. Could you maybe check these out. A part number you could find at DigiKey would be EYG-S091203DP. I'm thinking this might have a shot compared to paste.
www.ebay.de/itm/Panasonic-PGS-Graphit-W-rmeleitpad-40x40mm-1600W-mK-I-ThermalPad-CPU-GPU/114072739704?item=114072739704&pageci=eb2e4307-766d-4837-b75f-0f977d5b3c4a
The vertical conductivity is just 15w :)
Genuinely blown away by the complete consistency and quality from this channel. GN belongs on Discovery channel with their own show, not RUclips.
Bro ur awesome, you've giving me so much advice on topics that I didn't even know I needed help with. Thank you dude
For beginners, techs, long term use, and interestingly SFF/MFF where clearances are at a premium and constantly changing with new better CPU coolers, larger GPUs, and smaller cases, I would absolutely recommend these. Great for test fitting but they should really not be swapped around if they have been really mounted down for any long time. For maintenance as long as its the same cooler, its in one piece and you're careful I would put it back no worries. Theurr cheap enough to replace with a shiny new part like cooler or cpu. They cool great even with (reasonably) uneven heat pipes on otherwise strong coolers and should do so indefinitely. 4.5/5
I was building my first diy and never done paste before. I went with a smaller matx case with 2 side fan slots. Wasn't sure about the cpu cooler/side fan clearance and went too tall. Also wasn't sure the pc would even work first try but I got lucky with no doa parts or install errors. All this and this video lead me to the TG Carbonaut. I had to swap to a shorter cpu cooler when I could a few months later. I probably overtightened it but it was only a ryzen 1400 at 3.6 ghz. Later I upgraded to a 5700x and got a new one and tightened it less, we will see when I swap the mobo from b450 to b550 eventually how that pressure is. And then I will leave it forever unless i upgrade to AM5 in the same case but I'm gpu size limited in my current case. I put the older pad on the 1400 stock cooler equivalent it had originally since the paste was only on the cooler, it was apart for over a year just hanging in the old case, and it was from 2017 in a pre-built. If it ever needs work or I put my tall cooler on it, I should probably replace it but its still just a 1400. The edges on the am4 recommended 38x38mm stick out around the ryzen 1000-5000 and if you tighten it too much it will pinch or even start to cut it. Try to not tighten it that far but if it does go ahead and take off the edges because it is electrically conductive. It will stick after mounted down and heat cycled, with luck and skill you can keep it on the cooler side and this is better as that will be the side with uneven heat pipes.
This has really made up my mind for me. I'm using a laptop that is starting to run at 99 C after 2 years. I've never applied thermal paste before, so I think I'll be going with the paste-but not a metal based one. I'll save that for when I have a better idea about what's going on :D
I like LAIRD TPCM 585. It's a phase change material, basically wax with thermally conductive filler particles. It flows at about 50°C, and it doesn't pump out. It appears to me to be the best of both worlds - it flows to fill in imperfections and minimizes the gap thickness, yet it lasts forever.
Only downside is that you have to heat it up to separate the cooler from the CPU.
I'd *LOVE* it if you could through Laird TPCM 585 into your mix of thermal interface solutions!