Testing

When it comes to testing a thermal interface material, the goal is very similar to cooler reviews where the idea is to determine how cool the processor stays under stress. With this concept in mind, I will be thrashing out an Intel based setup to see just how well this compound works.

Before we delve into the number though, let's take a quick look at the test box.

Intel E6600 Processor @ 2.4GHz

GIGABYTE GA-965P-DS4 (Supplied by GIGABYTE)

2GB Corsair PC8500C5 DDR2 Memory (Supplied by Corsair)

GeCube X1900XTX Video Board (Supplied by GeCube)

In the past, we have made it a habit to look at temperatures at both idle and at load. In this test session, I will be monitoring a bit differently than before. Idle temperatures are more important when realizing the cooling potential of heatsinks, so I will be aiming at testing load temperatures.

Our test methodology consists of running a load test of the processor for approx 26 minutes. After noting the maximum temperature, I went through the temperature logs and figured an average temperature throughout the test cycle.

As noted above, the processor is running at default speed and it has the stock Intel OEM heatsink mounted for our testing. All system voltages are also set to default values so that everything will be on an even keel and we can give all compounds we evaluate the same test bed as the others. Ambient temperature was a constant 23C and relative humidity was less than 25% during all test phases.

After thrashing the processor at 100% load throughout the testing, we find that the OCZ Freeze compound is running right in the same arena as the other newcomers. It has a maximum load temperature of 51C and averages just a bit higher than the other products, all of which still manage to beat out the Arctic Silver. If you are still using the AS goop, it really is time to change.