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33 TIM's compared

Results and conclusion seem a little odd. Nice to see some obscure products tested, but cmon, AS5 isn't going to outperform MX-2, G751, x23, or a whole slew of other stuff it beat in their test. Also their methodology seems a bit strange.

Plus they used an old version of x23 for some reason. Not sure why.
 
There's another TIM roundup here .

Looking back over the results, we see that the usual suspects, like Arctic Silver 5, Tuniq TX-2, Arctic Cooling MX-2, IC Diamond 7, and a relative newcomer, OCZ FreeZe stand out ... With newer compounds offering zero cure time and being non electrically conductive, it's hard to recommend Arctic Silver 5 (this isn't to say AS5 isn't a great product).
Click to expand...

wrt the OP, the best was : TIM Consultants T-C Grease 0098.

Link

What is it? Where did it come from?
Well it?s the new paste from the man that gave the world ShinEtsu. It?s a lot better than it?s ever been and his secret formula came with him when he left and its only got better.
Click to expand...
 
Hmm. That T-C Grease 0098 looks like it might be a serious contender, though I have to wonder what Shin Etsu product it is that the creator of TC-Grease 0098 supposedly created? Did he make G751, X23, or one of the products they ship on AMD's stock HSFs?
 
right, so again we confirm that paying more for the more expensive TIMs isn't going to net you much at all. Not much reason to upgrade the big tube of AS5 I already have, and it looks like there won't be much reason to switch to anything else should I run out considering how AS5 is generally cheaper than any of the other top performers.
 
man I love this review!!! thanks for puttng it up! OCZ looks good might get a tube now.

EDIT: I emailed the guy who is the inventor behind TIM Consultants T-C Grease 0098 from their web site, he said no problem for personal order.
Prices are: 2.5g = $4, 50g = $15
shipping is only $2.
No brainer got 50g bottle. Sent me a paypal invoice for $17 10 minutes post my email. This guy is pretty fast.

Now I got Diamond 7k, AS5 and this TC 0908. When I get around testing this. I'll post some results on my other rig with a E2160@3Ghz using ACF7 pro.
 
Originally posted by: nyker96
man I love this review!!! thanks for puttng it up! OCZ looks good might get a tube now.

EDIT: I emailed the guy who is the inventor behind TIM Consultants T-C Grease 0098 from their web site, he said no problem for personal order.
Prices are: 2.5g = $4, 50g = $15
shipping is only $2.
No brainer got 50g bottle. Sent me a paypal invoice for $17 10 minutes post my email. This guy is pretty fast.

Now I got Diamond 7k, AS5 and this TC 0908. When I get around testing this. I'll post some results on my other rig with a E2160@3Ghz using ACF7 pro.
Click to expand...

You got any TX-2 to test w/the others?
I look forward to reading your results. 🙂
 
Sadly, the article looks to me like another severely flawed thermal material review: they didn't (a) make sure each different compound was applied in the same thickness or measure that thickness and (b) didn't do multiple tests of the same compound, but with different people doing the application, to see how much typical user variation there is. Since the TIM is the "bottleneck" in the heat transfer between CPU and heat sink, layer thickness is critical to performance (doubling the layer thickness doubles the thermal resistance). The lappers have shown how polishing the surfaces smooth allows just a bare minimum of TIM to fill any voids and results in exceptional heat transfer.
 
Two great links to reviews here!

:thumbsup:

I wish i could get that Diamond stuff here easily, but doesn't appear so.
 
Just wanted to introduce myself and answer any questions - my name is David Dalesandro and I created the TC Grease 0098.

A couple of notes: My grease is not based on any Shin-Etsu grease. I used to work for Shin-Etsu, as a Sales Manager in their Phoenix, AZ facility. All grease production was done in Japan. Typical Japanese company, they were very secretive of their formula and I was never privy to any secretive information including formulas. If you compare my grease side to side with Shin-Etsu's, theirs is very smooth while mine is more thixotropic. Plus, as per Benchmark's test, mine performs better.

The TC 0098 is your typical Aluminum / ZnO matrix. This is the first iteration of thermal grease that I created. I am looking forward to spending time to create newer, better performing materials with different fillers.



 
That is too cool Mr. (or Dr.?) Dalesandro. Your product will definitely catch on through word of mouth if it really does outperform all of these better known products. A couple of good places to do business with are Jab-tech and SVC for getting it out there in volume.

A few questions I would pose are:

[*]Is it electrically conductive because of the aluminum?
[*]Does it eat any materials like the gallium in the Coollabs TIM?
[*]What is the estimated life of an application?
[*]How long does a container effectively last, say at room temp or in a refrigerator?

And welcome to the forum :beer:
 
Hi All,
It is definitely Mr.

To answer some of your questions:

My material is not electrically conductive. The Aluminum has a small oxide layer that insulates the entire material. Furthermore, it is not filled too highly with Al, rather ZnO. The dielectric strength of my material is between 4-5 KV/mm (100 - 125 volt / mil). At the worst case, 1 mil of material may float around in your system - well you will need at least 100 volts to cause a short. I had one customer take an earlier version of this material, wipe the whole motherboard with it, and it caused no short.

Whoa - I know a guy at AMD that almost got fired for specifying a TIM that contained Gallium. My material is Silicone, Al, and ZnO based - that's it. Nothing in there will etch aluminum (or copper).

Inside a CPU / Heat sink package, my material should last 5 years no problem without performance degredation.

I have some container aging tests in process that are still good after 1 year. Actually, the longer my material is around, the better the performance. As a double blind experiment, I had a large CPU manufacturer test the same material after one year. The performance went up significantly. Therefore, when I manufacture my material, it takes about a month before I will sell it. No need for refrigeration, although I have heard that works better, I keep my material at room temperature.

Thanks for the welcome - it is Miller time!



 
Thanks for taking the time to answer these questions, this is great practical info. Impressive property of its shelf-life. Good to hear that it won't short anything. Though there is probably some absent minded fellow out there who will achieve it some day *sigh* 😛 A couple more questions popped in my head, first how about optimal application? Does it differ with surface area? More specifically bare dies are smaller than heat spreaders and the general consensus applying most TIM is to use the dollop method on heat spreaders and spreading a thin layer on bare die. Second question is if there are any special requirements for settling the compound or how long before a final reading should be taken for comparison. A third one I just thought up is if it's possible to mix it with the Arctic Alumina adhesive epoxy to improve the thermal conductivity. I normally use a mixture of equal parts with Ceramique (non-adhesive) but if your compound can further help, that'd be desirable 😀 A specially formulated epoxy would be even better. I would prefer a bit less bond strength than full strength Alumina adhesive though.

Next round's on me :beer:
 
Thanks for the questions:

To apply, I prefer the method of screen printing the material. Basically, I take a square template, about 3 mils thick, and run the grease across that template directly on the heat sink (a template can be four pieces of tape, placed in a square). The template will vary in size depending on whether or not the cpu has an integrated heat spreader (IHS) or if it is bare die. However, to be frank, I have not seen a significant difference in performance when applying it via screen printing or the dollup method.

I have no recommendation for setting the material - however, I have found that my material performs better over time. For example, at a third party cpu manufacturer, my material performed at 0.116 oC/W day one, and 0.092 oC/W day 250.

I would love to spend time cross linking this material to see what I get. I just don't have the time right now due to my current "day job." If you would like to try it, shoot me a private email and I will get some samples out to you.

:thumbsup:
 
That sounds interesting, first I've heard of screen printing the compound 🙂 How about laying a line of compound across the heat spreader above the twin die of Intel's Quad chips? I've read of it improving temps over the dollop but alas I am quad-less to test this.

Ages like fine wine, sounds good to me!

I can definitely understand that, I appreciate the offer and will probably take you up on it when I get some time of my own and a good project for comparison 😀 It'll give me a good reason to acquire a better thermal probe as well.

It is most impressive that your compound beat out the ones containing silver and diamonds, but above and beyond that is your sharing this input. Thanks again!
 
Good to know your compound isn't as crazy as that Liquid Pro stuff, Mr. Dalesandro.

Have you compared your paste to X23-7783D?
 
This is some great information and I will certainly use your product! Thanks for the questions "pliotronx"! and thanks Mr. Dalesandro for the creation of the TIM and your answers to those questions.
 
There is now a website www.tim-consultants.com Link, however, he is now value pricing this material due to additional popularity. Compared to what a poster provided above that amount (50G) is now $75 instead of $15 (500% increase in price). No thanks at that price.
 
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