This is a good read for anyone that's curious of how well their TIM compares to other products on the market. If you thought your bottle of Arctic Silver 5 was going to be timeless, think again
http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=138&Itemid=1
Benchmark Reviews has seen a lot of products made for the purpose of delivering better performance. Some of these products exist for overclockers and enthusiasts, and often times help deliver performance out of otherwise tame hardware. Other products sometimes only deliver the empty marketing claim of improvements. Of all the products we have seen and tested, one particular category always stands out as the culprit for over-hyped promises: Thermal Interface Material (TIM). Of all the heatsink compounds and thermal pastes made and marketed, they must all only concentrate themselves to deliver the simple function of mating the CPU to the cooler with the highest thermal conductivity possible. Of course, some work better than others, and this is exactly what Benchmark Reviews intends to discover. Please join us for a comprehensive testing of 33 different TIM products.
Or if you are lazy and don't care to read through the article (*cough Eliot*), here's the summary of what's best:
Excellence Achievement Recipients: Benchmark Reviews Golden Tachometer Award *TIM Consultants T-C Grease 0098 Benchmark Reviews Golden Tachometer Award
*OCZ Technology FreezeTIM Consultants offers their
T-C Grease 0098 product to OEM's and end-users alike, with packages available in syringe and large container sizes. Ultimately, they proved that producing a quality product will beat a quality marketing pitch, and narrowly claimed the top position in our final test. In a market that is overrun with advertising and hype, it's nice to see the little guy come out on top for a change. (Anyone care to guess how long it takes before they get bought out now?)
T-C Grease 0098 sure doesn't roll off the tongue, but thanks to its thixotropic properties the more I spread it the more viscous it became. I can see this being a favorite among overclockers and enthusiasts, as it was very easy to work with in comparison to other TIM's.
OCZ Technology is best know for their amazingly diverse system memory product line. Very recently though, they have expanded into high-performance system building with the acquisition of Hypersonic. This puts them in a perfect position to offer full-spectrum performance on every level.
The
OCZ Freeze compound appeared to be identical to all other grey silicon-based carbon-enriched TIM's, yet somehow the lab coats managed to dope this product with all the right ingredients. I presume that this will be the most popular product of the bunch, since it can be purchased from a myriad of online stores such as NewEgg for only
$6.49.
