Carbice boasts 'Ice Pad replaces outdated thermal paste' - and it's now in CyberPowerPC rigs

If you're fed up with thermal paste when it comes to CPU cooling (and who isn't?), there's an intriguing new alternative - a carbon nanotube-based pad, and it's now available, but the catch is you can't buy it in standalone form.

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We reported on the launch of Carbice's Ice Pad yesterday, and PC Gamer noticed the pads are now available - but only as part of a prebuilt system from CyberPowerPC.

So, this is just a partnership with that vendor at this stage, but hopefully it indicates that a fuller level of availability isn't too far off. Note that the Ice Pads don't come as stock for any given PC build from CyberPowerPC, but rather they are a 'premium upgrade' option.

Carbice explains its invention as follows:

"Engineered with vertically aligned carbon nanotubes, the Ice Pad replaces outdated thermal paste, offering a first-of-its-kind thermal material that was previously unavailable to PC builders. Used in satellites and supercomputers, the Ice Pad is a mess-free, maintenance-free replacement, providing gamers, creators, and enthusiasts with long-term thermal reliability, even under sustained CPU loads or overclocked conditions."

So, those are the main selling points. Rather than the messy business of applying thermal paste - which can be unpredictable in its coverage, or even disastrous (you don't want to go too light on the paste) - you've got a simple pad that slots in (well, in theory).

We're told it provides a far more consistent level of heat transfer than paste, and the Ice Pad also has "no degradation under pressure".

This sounds like a compelling solution, then, and as mentioned, hopefully it won't be too long before Carbice is more widely distributing these pads (maybe TweakTown will even get a review sample).

There are already thermal pads around for CPU (or GPU) cooling duties which are graphene-based - and their performance looks impressive too, but they're pricey. Equally the Carbice Ice Pad isn't going to be cheap, of course, certainly not compared to thermal paste.

Hopefully the Ice Pads can be reused, which would take some of the sting out of the cost of the product - after all, that's the case with the Thermal Grizzly KryoSheet graphene-based pad, for example.