Panasonic EYG-R (Gen.3.2021) Graphite Pad Testing

[Sentential]

First post so don't crucify me. I Recently purchased a new laptop through my perksatwork account through my employer and as usual the thermal solution provided by Lenovo while large was not giving me the results I was looking for. Initially I intended to use liquid metal but the surface area after disassembly was so uneven I seriously doubted the contact on a heatsink. 

 

Link here for reference:

http://notebookparts.com/new-genuine-lenovo-thinkpad-p15-t15g-1st-gen-cpu-cooling-fan-and-heatsink-5h40x89383/

 

So I went looking for my trusty PGS-S pads and noticed I was out and upon going to to Digikey to order more I am greeted with this headline:

 

Quote

Jan 22, 2021

....

 

An ideal Thermal Interface Material (TIM) solution, the New EYG-R Series GraphiteTIM material is designed with high compressibility characteristics to reduce contact thermal resistance between rough surfaces. The New EYG-R Series GraphiteTIM material is easy to install with a one-to-two-step process that requires much lower labor and installation costs than thermal grease.

 

Now this isn't an entirely new concept as Panasonic has constantly improved the product starting with Gen 1 (.1mm thickness) Gen 2 Soft (.2mm thickness) and now Gen 3 Improved Soft Type R (.35mm). First thing that should jump out at the veterans here is the new thickness which is now double the previous S-PGS and quadruple the original PGS sheeting used by Cool Laboratory IC Graphite. So naturally I ordered a sheet!

 

Digikey EYG-R Listings:

https://www.digikey.com/en/products/filter/thermal-pads-sheets/218?s=N4IgTCBcDaIKYE8DmBaATiAugXyA

 

It arrived last week and so far I've been blown away by it. For some reason enthusiast media outlets haven't picked up this yet so I figured I'd post my initial findings here.

 

So what does it look like? EYG-S on right EYG-R on left

 

Answer: Very VERY different. The overall feel is not at all like the foil we've seen before but more like aluminum sheet metal. Second picture below comparing thickness to a Fujipoly 1mm thermal pad:

 

Ok so the improvement on this 3rd Gen design is compressibility to make it more like traditional wax pads and thermal paste. Lets see how much better it is this time...

 

......wow. Honestly I was not expecting results like this at all. Not only with minimal pressure can you perfectly see the impression from the paper clip but also my fingerprint? At this point I immediately tore down the machine and replaced the TIM with the new pads.

 

First impression was one of panic. While I realize that the P15 has a target thermal profile of 90C* to make it more Mac like I honestly thought I hadn't plugged the fans in. Another teardown later confirmed that the fans were in fact connected and working.

 

Off to initial benchmarks starting with Cinebench R20. Initial thermal performance seemed excellent and while 100C was hit multiple times until Lenovo fixed PL1, PL2, Tau and the fan curve there isn't much I can control but good god look at PL1 and PL2 sustained wattage!

 

Scores seemed low compared to the 4k and 5k scores seen by folks using the m15R4 & M17r3 until I checked a baseline courtesy of notebookcheck.com

 

So we're seeing a nearly 500 point bump or roughly 15% above a reference stock. Additional thermal testing showed to me a solid 10-20C drop in temperatures off of my dock and as stated previously the fans almost never engage. Normally during browsing idle temps ranged high 60s - low 70s. Now I'm seeing high 40s - mid 50s and lap temperatures hovering in the low 70s with cool-and-quiet set to off and mid 30s enabled.

 

Certainly my results aren't anything I'd consider scientific but I believe this should be looked at further as it seems to have both the cooling capacity of at minimum standard TIM and quickly approaching LM territory.

[kelvinhall05]

Fascinating. I need to order some other stuff on Digikey so I'll throw one of these in with my order and try it on my X260. Following this thread and will update when I have results.

[Sentential]

13 minutes ago, kelvinhall05 said:

Fascinating. I need to order some other stuff on Digikey so I'll throw one of these in with my order and try it on my X260. Following this thread and will update when I have results.

Really looking forward to it. My laptop really isn't a good baseline test for this material due to a known firmware issue using way out of wack PL1,PL2 & TAU levels. It is at least encouraging to see boost clocks way above base at 100% load. Once the firmware is fixed I'd expect the results to be even better especially with more clock limited devices using either a mobile Xeon or i9. Also seeing normal clocks right at boost limits, with the fans completely off.

 

[kelvinhall05]

Small update: pads are arriving today. I ordered them the day I posted my original comment but for some reason it took Digikey a week to ship my order. Anyway, will test them today. Going to run both mprime for 10 mins while docked and maybe on battery too, not sure. Currently I am running very fresh Noctua NT-H1 so I think it's a solid test of a good thermal paste vs a (hopefully) good thermal pad.

[kelvinhall05]

Results are in and I am pretty disappointed. As mentioned above I was running Noctua NT-H1 paste before. With that paste I was hitting mid 80s after 10 mins of mprime with small FFTs:

Spoiler

After pulling the machine apart, cleaning paste off, and throwing a pad on (making sure it was aligned and everything, which took quite some time...) I tested again and was getting noticably higher temps. It was now up to high 80s and possibly hit 90c at some point but I wasn't monitoring the laptop the whole time and if it did it was only briefly:

Spoiler

It was also boosting noticably lower.

 

 

So yeah in conclusion I am pretty disappointed, not sure if I was doing something wrong but clearly I was getting worse temps and worse clocks compared to normal paste. Will probably switch back to that.