How all does graphite thermal pads compare?

[Inception9269]

Was wondering how all those graphite thermal pads are, compared to traditional thermal compound?

 

I know Linus made a video once a long while back, but it's been a good while so not sure if things changed or whatever. Was hoping to hear from people that have tried it.

 

Also, story time bitches~

 

I ordered a ryzen 7 3700x and an MSI MPG gaming pro carbon motherboard the week it launched, the cpu showed up dead on arrival (the motherboard debug LED showing cpu as the issue), so I had it RMA'd through Newegg. I received the replacement cpu just yesterday and tried doing a system swap once more, and... wasn't working, it was then saying VGA issue. I tried using the second PCI slot but still nothing. I then came to the conclusion the motherboard was probably broken. So I drove over an hour to go to my closest Micro Center where I bought a really nice Gigabyte Aorus board (with taxes I paid over $300 for this), when I get home I swap out the MSI board for this Gigabyte board and.... still nothing. At this point I was like, what the literal fuck, does god himself not want me to switch to AMD. I was then checking things out around my pc and it turned out that the power cable for the GPU to the PSU was unplugged... I plugged it in and started my pc and it booted perfectly fine, which meant that my MSI board was working fine, so I spent over $300 for no reason.

 

This happened when I was messing around with my PSU, making sure the power cable for second CPU cable was plugged into the right slot, the GPU power cable coming out when I did that. I spent over $200 for the MSI board... I could have just returned the one I bought to Micro Center, but I didn't want to drive over an hour there, after just doing so, and this board is definitely a lot nicer than the MSI one in my opinion. So I'll probably just sell the MSI motherboard as used on ebay (even though it technically isn't used) to get as much of that cost back, at the same time though I'm probably just gonna hold onto it for a friend of mine. My buddy has been using a z97 build with an i7 4790k for about 5 years now, and was telling him that Ryzen 3rd gen is the best thing for him to upgrade to, him planning on doing so in the next few months. I owe him like a grand cause a few years ago I was unemployed for a good while and borrowed money from him, so I'd more than likely just let him have the board to help make up for what I owe him.

 

I'm also planning on selling the hardware from my previous build, an MSI x99 motherboard and an i7 6800k, that'll help me get my money back.

[Inception9269]

3 minutes ago, campy said:

From whats been talked about with it recently its not that impressive, its about the same as ye olde pinkshit thermal pads from the early 2000's performance wise, just with a new material and a higher price tag.

Theyre easier to clean up, perfectly adequate for low wattage systems, and do not degrade over time. Theyre a good option for OEMs to use for those reasons.

ah.

 

was asking cause when I was doing my AM4 build I ran out of thermal compound in the middle of it. I was able to put a little down for the cpu but I don't think it was enough, my cpu temps seem to be higher than I think they should be, but at the same time I heard that's a thing for 3rd gen Ryzen 7 cpus in general.

[manikyath]

they dont quite match paste, but offer a few advantages:

- you basicly cannot apply them wrong (you cant really "put on too much or too little thermal pad", unless you're a complete idiot)

- they do not degrade

- they are reusable

- they are very repeatable (variation of paste application is not a point)

 

in a sense, they are comparable to the 'credit card spread' thermal paste application method. you know you're not getting the best result, but it's the most repeatable and idiot proof result.

[lansing]

I just brought an IC graphite for each of my two my new Ryzen 3900x and my old 4770k machine, and the affect varies.

 

On the Ryzen 3900x that was cooled by Fractal Design Celsius S36, the CPU temperate idled between 39-50C and maxed at 87C under full load. The max temp is the same as Linus and Paul's result, so I think the thermal pad is doing good.

 

However, on my older 4770k machine which was cooled by Corsair H100i, before with the stock thermal paste that came with the pump, the cpu was idling at 33C and maxed at 55C. After I did some dust cleaning on the radiator and the fans and switched to the thermal pad, the cpu rises to between 35C to 37C on idle and 68C under full load. So for this machine the thermal pad performs significantly worse than thermal paste.

 

[Inception9269]

3 hours ago, lansing said:

I just brought an IC graphite for each of my two my new Ryzen 3900x and my old 4770k machine, and the affect varies.

 

On the Ryzen 3900x that was cooled by Fractal Design Celsius S36, the CPU temperate idled between 39-50C and maxed at 87C under full load. The max temp is the same as Linus and Paul's result, so I think the thermal pad is doing good.

 

However, on my older 4770k machine which was cooled by Corsair H100i, before with the stock thermal paste that came with the pump, the cpu was idling at 33C and maxed at 55C. After I did some dust cleaning on the radiator and the fans and switched to the thermal pad, the cpu rises to between 35C to 37C on idle and 68C under full load. So for this machine the thermal pad performs significantly worse than thermal paste.

 

With my 3700X, I was getting like 35-40c at stock, not sure what the max was at stock since I didn't test things out then.

 

I was able to OC my cpu to 4.0ghz (i didn't want to push it since from what I heard there isn't a whole lot to gain from OC'ing these new cpus, but I still wanted to beat the 3800x which was $70 more). I only had to bump up the voltage a small amount honestly, getting a stable OC that help up under Aida64. The idle temps are still around 35c, but the load (I'm also using the S36 cooler) got to around 70c