Maximum PC

Excellent, I shall try this ASAP.

I also, just realized that I got a tube of ICD24 and not ICD7 as I was expecting. I looked for a results thread for ICD24 but couldn't find anything. Are results for ICD24 required?

Thanks in Advance!

its the same stuff
just a bigger tube

changed out the stock compound for ICD7/24 today on my 3650 video card.

same PC as the CPU tests, P4C HT Northwood @ 3.2. card was a Visiontek AGP 1GB 3650. fan on card is always 100%, HS is 2 slots in height.

ran furmark 20 mins for each test. ambient: 25 via stand alone themal probe in front of intake fan. GPU temp was via GPU-Z 0.3.4, load was reported at 99%

stock: 52
ICD7: 48

the stock compound seemed fairly decent in constancy and appearance, it wasnt a thermal pad, it was actual compound of some sort.

also, I pulled the HSF of the CPU from the original test rig. after 6 months the ICD7 had the same appearence and constancy as the day I put it on. no drying out.

Im thinking of putting ICD7 in my Karman Kardon receiver

I redid my laptop's CPU with ICD24, so I figured that I'd share the findings.

I had some Zalman STG1 on here before.

Zalman: 54 degrees celsius at idle, 64 degrees celsius at load.

ICD24: 55 degrees celsius at idle, 62 degrees at load.

I don't get why the zalman paste is cooler at idle.


Update: It's now showing 48 degrees as idle.

its been my experience so far with the icd7 that it takes about a week for it to fully hit its mark. Dont know why, but after a week its been cooler for me, and a bit cooler after a month.

Rite now I have folding at home running on my vmware running 100% on my core 2 duo and holding steady at 44 C on both cores

The video card data is great stuff thanks for posting it I will be adding some charts on that.

I have some time to finalize the results. it involves several graphs and the final results will be edited over the next day.but should be more or less finished by tomorrow.

This is the final report for MaximumPC IC Diamond Test results.

The group as a whole averaged a little higher than the overall averages but the sample size of 18 here is below the 30 - 40 where results usually smooth out and only change +/- a couple of 10th's of a degree C from then on out.

I appreciate the effort involved in remounting sinks and the time involved in testing and reporting results. The great feed back from the people on the tests has helped us to improve our marketing message and to refine application and trouble shooting feed back to our customers.

Special commendations***** to Chumly for his efforts clarifying application with the use of glass slides demonstrating compound spread.

And also probably one of the best comparison demos of compound dry out I have seen.

Chumly take a bow

Which brings up a point I like to reemphasize, more appreciated by the white box guys and SI's is the long term reliability aspects of IC Diamond. This is what I call a quality issue, I have a system in my office pushing 3 years with no change in temperature along with reports from other users who have run 1.5 years with no decay in performance. Users should not have to reapply compound every few hundred hours to maintain performance.....

This thread is not closed, any and all updates, new results are appreciated

Thanks to all that participated and thanks to MACIMUMPC staff for the opportunity.


Andrew














NOTE ON COMPARISONS

When comparing results more credence should be given to larger sample sizes, smaller less so.

1-5 samples 1 or two tests can flip results either way so usually get thrown onto the miscellaneous group.

6-10 samples may start to indicate trends but can be heavily influenced by outliers and so are lightly weighted other than a general trend indicator

11-20 samples - Starting to develop more of a confidence in the trend direction.

20-30 samples - Confidence level improves.

30+ Samples - High degree of confidence
















Bell Curve Notes

About half the data is reported in round numbers and approximately 50% of the total numbers were fractional numbers, so to include all numbers in the set I rounded the fractional numbers to the nearest ½ degree. This had a minimum impact on the overall numbers, for instance the mean dropped less than 2/100th’s of a degree.

Notes: IC Sampling Vs. Individual Tests

Innovation Cooling elected to use this more or less unique method to introduce our products as the review cycle runs like molasses for thermal compounds, 10 -12 for ICD in the last 2 years with many comparisons already obsoleted due to new product cycles.

Hardware reviews serve an important function along with observations of user experiences allow individual users to either consciously or unconsciously mentally benchmark results. Our problem was there were not enough reviews to to make comparisons on as compound comparisons are notoriously tedious vs. heat sink or other hardware.

Single tests , individual or even those done by Innovation Cooling are anecdotal in nature subject to limitations of methodology. While most pursue the most rigorous test procedure possible they still encounter fluctuations of several degrees C between tests/reviews.

Why does every test come to a different conclusion? The problem is that their sample size = 1.

Even collecting multiple readings the cluster size is = 1. An individual can collect all the data readings off one system, and will still have almost no statistical power (In statistics this is known as "Intra-Sample Cluster Correlation")because the test set up is dominated by methodology. This is a problem not only in paste reviews, but in other hardware reviews, heat sinks, etc. as well.

In the final analysis methodology ends up defining the final placement of all compounds- All test methodologies fail to take into account things that have a major impact on paste performance. For example the mounting system along with mechanical contact between IHS and sink as evidenced with our independent contact/pressure testing. Variability was very high on the contact results with perhaps 1 in 10 having any thing near what you might call full contact, even on those with lapped components.

In considering pressure related to mounting hardware some pastes perform relatively better under poor mounting, others perform relatively better under good mounting (viscous ones such as ICD). Considering ICD - people that had poor results with ICD had very poor mounting. Once they improved that mounting, ICD did considerably better. Of course, so did their old paste. But ICD improvement >> old paste improvement. Generally, this resulted in ICD>old.

In summary, sample size = 1 tells little. . Sample size matters!

ICD has been extensively tested by 391 independent users in 11 forum groups data that is compiled with real world, real users test results


Final

Sorry that it took a while but I ended up getting a new cooler (Zalman 9900) and took my time installing the thing. It was well worth it though! Room Temp is 70-72F (Air conditioned).

I really dig these results. And this is all done on air coolers as well? Very impressive.

Testing is always relative, you can compare thermal compounds one on one which is commonly done or you can test against absolute limits for a reference point. So thought this might be another viewpoint that some might be interested in



Notes On The Limits Of Thermal Grease Performance

The best possible performance for any thermal grease would be 100% heat transfer from the CPU to the heatsink – which is impossible. We have measured thermal performance for the best possible case – directly soldering the CPU to the heatsink. In this extreme case using a solder joint, the difference between the CPU and the heatsink was 0.5 degrees C.

Based on test results from 391 users among 11 PC Forums and IC tests, IC Diamond Thermal Compound showed 0.8 – 0.9 C difference between the CPU and heatsink – a difference of only 0.4 C compared to the solder joint.

User results showed other thermal compounds ranging from 1.1 C to 4.7 C difference less performance than IC Diamond, as shown on the performance graph, a difference due to the ingredients in the thermal compound used. Twenty years of thermal compound development have reduced the difference between using a solder joint to about 0.4 C. Further development may reduce this difference by a few tenths of a degree.



In our final market analysis before we launched ICD to market, IC tested the most competitive retail compounds and performed the solder test. These tests gave us the confidence to incorporate the giveaway's for forum testing/market introduction as we were confident ICD would transition well into real world user testing and that at best a competitor may match our performance but will never definitively outperform ICD. IC Diamond and has since been proved out so far with 400+ independent tests on 11 forums with experienced users nationally, internationally in a comprehensive sampling of hardware, software and environmental conditions.

I'd also like to add that the media for the heatsink used, be it air or water, doesn't affect the interface between the CPU (heat source) and the sink itself.

It's just filler between two surfaces. What it does AFTER that, is up to the cooler, and weighed and judged accordingly. If you use air, if you use water; neither air nor water have anything to do with the CPU interface directly. It's still just IHS to a block of some sort, and that's what the testing has shown to hold true.

Water is good because it picks it up from the block and moves it to the air much more efficiently, and also holds more than air. But underneath this, is still a block that needs an interface material to keep the heat movement from the IHS to it as seamless as possible. No TIM can promise it corrects heatsink/water block engineering flaws.

I had to scan back a bit to find this one but I must say the amount of work folks put into this just blows my mind. I suppose with the proper setup it goes a bit faster... but nonetheless- the detail is astonishing.

I'd like to thank you guys all for contributing so much to this thread so that those of us who don't know too much can make a more informed decision on whether or not the more expensive product is worth it. The shop I bought my comp components only carried AC5 (had run out of freeze) but I'd seen this thread around before and in the back of my mind REALLY wanted to grab some of this stuff.

I can see quite clearly through the exhaustive efforts of so many that this is the right way to go.

Once again to all of you- bravo.

eno

We have incorporated a new label design on our syringes -tried to add on some racing stripes but they didn't fit

lol, very nice!

Since this tryout I have been using your product on my GPUs too. Bloody fantastic stuff! Thanks again to you and your company for the opportunity to test your thermal compound. If I see people in other forums ask about what kind of cmpound to get, I always say ICD!

Looks nicer than the one I just picked up at Micro Center.
Truly wonderful stuff. Keeps up with anything I throw at it. I used to use almost exclusively Tuniq TX-2, but ICD7 definitely beats it.

Is this due to it's availability over ICD7? I figure that if it were available at newegg or locally like the North's MicroCenters, it'd sell like hotcakes. As it is now I have to make my regular order at one place, and then venture off into some hole-in-the-wall to grab some ICD7.

Thanks, starting some specific testing or small scale targeted testing on GPU's also have a giveaway going on at toms hardware.

Because newegg doesn't sell ICD7 is why. Also, I have been using TX-2 for longer than ICD7 has existed. but a Micro Center was just built here in STL that carries it, so that's now the easiest and best paste to get.

Haven't visited here in awhile have to get a new project going here.


Updating my charts this weekend and hit the 500+ user tests milestone. Raw data chart, haven't broken out he individual competition compounds yet, getting a little crowded

Lots of notebook people on the re-paste track these days


http://forum.notebookreview.com/asus-gaming-notebook-forum/511600-my-repaste-experience-pics-success-2.html