The Basics:
Below we see the 4.8 ml syringe of Chill Factor paste. 4.8 ml doesn't sound like much, but it really is a decent volume of paste and should be adequate for a dozen or so installations.
The below left image shows some of
Thermalright's new Chill Factor paste (upper left) and some generic white paste (lower right) squeezed out on to the base of the
Thermalright Ultra-120 CPU Cooler. They look identical except for the fact that the Chill Factor paste came out a bit watery at first, something like an unshaken bottle of ketchup or mustard.
The paste spreads very easily (above right image), and is quite smooth under the weight of the plastic blade I use to spread paste with. It is very easy to create a consistent, and extremely thin, layer of paste on your cooler's surface. While most pastes (generic or premium) may feel a bit gooey while being spread, this stuff is much easier to work with, and it must be related to the "miniscule" particle size. Smaller particles in the paste will feel smoother, and more importantly they will fill all the voids and air pockets that might exist otherwise.
Another indication of the particle size came after testing when I went to clean up the cooler's base. After a few wipes with a soft cloth, a good deal of paste remained on the cooler in the form of a fine haze. The smaller particles were most likely in all of the voids that the naked eye can't pick up, and some more aggressive cleaning with rubbing alcohol was necessary to get the shine back to the base.
Performance:
Testing the Theramlright Chill Factor Thermal Paste consisted of monitoring an Intel D840 processor's thermal output while at idle and under a full load, while using a
Thermalright Ultra-120 cooler coupled with a 120mm silent LED fan from Cooler Master. Idle conditions were established by allowing the test system to sit at the CentOS 4 desktop for a period of no less than one hour. The load conditions were generated by running two instances of Folding@Home (configured to take full advantage of both CPU cores) for a period of no less than 24 hours. The head-to-head competition for the Chill Factor paste was provided by the generic paste, shown on the base of the Ultra-120 previously.
An external, digital thermal probe was used to monitor the processor and ambient temperatures, while the System Monitor in CentOS was used to confirm that both cores were either at idle or at full load. Idle conditions saw the cores bounce between 0 and 2% activity, while load conditions saw both cores bounce between 99 and 100%. The graph below details the results.
By just switching thermal pastes the load temperatures dropped 3.5 degrees Celsius, which translates to an improvement of just a bit over 8%! Definitely a nice boost condering the minimal effort involved. Computer enthusiasts and overclockers may be willing to take extreme measures to get their processor temperature as low as possible, and if a thermal paste can help the cause it is worth the investment (we'll cover the price of the Chill Factor paste in the conclusion of the review, but the word "investment" may be overkill considering the low price).
The fan used for the review is a low speed, "silent" solution that does not push as much air as many other units on the market. The original review of the Ultra-120 cooler showed that a higher speed Delta fan could cool about 10% better than the silent Cooler Master fan, so coupling the new Chill Factor paste with a higher performance fan could really lead to great things!
