(Picture: Computerbase.de boards)A debate that may seemingly by no means be settled within the PC world is which thermal paste is the perfect. On high of that, no person will ever agree on probably the most optimum utility sample. Some argue a drop of Arctic Silver is right, whereas others say you want an X-shaped utility of liquid metallic. Some swear by thermal pads. Nevertheless, one factor we will all agree on is that one thing is healthier than nothing. New thermal paste exams from Germany bolster this conclusion by including a couple of new supplies to the paste roster, together with toothpaste, a potato slice, cheese, and even ketchup. As anticipated, none of them are nearly as good as thermal paste, however ketchup carried out impressively.

The exams had been run by a member of the Computerbase.de forums and flagged by TechSpot. The enterprising tester tried quite a lot of thermal paste varieties on a Radeon R7 240 GPU, an entry-level, 30W GPU that’s passively cooled. Nevertheless, for the exams, they added a fan to attempt to forestall throttling. The GPU runs at a gentle 780MHz however can nonetheless generate sufficient warmth to saturate a non-optimal cooling answer.

To search out out which paste was greatest, they used a large pattern together with the aforementioned condiments. Every take a look at consisted of a five-minute run of Furmark, which is a torture take a look at for GPUs. They famous the GPU goes by three phases of thermal throttling when it hits 105C. The third stage lowers the clocks to 300MHz, but when it nonetheless hits its max temperature it shuts off the system.

In a surprising flip of occasions, a slice of potato can not cool a GPU very nicely. (Picture: Computerbase.de)

Among the many non-standard sorts of paste examined, ketchup was the standout materials. Though it allowed the GPU to stand up to 71C, it didn’t throttle in any respect. That was not the case for the slice of potato (above), which went to throttle stage three and hit 105C. The PC didn’t shut down, although, so it’s theoretically attainable to maintain utilizing it. A slice of cheese carried out barely higher than the potato. It ended up hitting 105C too, however solely acquired to the primary stage of throttling. Toothpaste additionally carried out admirably compared, hitting 90C with no throttling. [I can’t believe I’m reading this right now. -Ed.]

Along with the weird supplies, the particular person additionally examined customary pastes and pads. The highest performers had been Arctic MX4 and Corsair’s TM30 paste. They let the GPU stand up to 49C and 54C, respectively. General, they declared the Arctic TP3 thermal pad the winner regardless of its max temp of 61C. We’re guessing that’s simply because it’s simpler to make use of than paste, and could be reused again and again. If you wish to peruse the images and benchmarks, they fortunately uploaded all of them to Google Drive.

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