OCZ Ultra II Thermal Paste

Reviews: Cooling

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Kurtis Kronk
Brian
OCZ
Jun. 10, 2003

Whee - Ba - De - Badi - Boh...

You may be wondering what is up with the title to this section, and I can sum it up in two words: I'm crazy! Anyways, as usual I will start off with the box, I just didn't feel like titling this section The Box because that gets old right? When I got this thermal paste from OCZ, they sent it in a rather large Fedex box with lots of bubble wrap. I wasn't aware that thermal paste was fragile, but it is good to see that it is packed well just in case. OCZ sent me two tubes of paste, and the tubes are quite a bit larger than most competitors. Let's talk a little bit about what exactly thermal paste is.

Thermal Paste

Thermal paste is that wonderful goop that goes between your processor and heatsink. It is also used on graphics card GPUs, etc. in the same way. So why do you need thermal paste? No processor is completely flat, especially on the microscopic level, nor is any heatsink. Without the paste to fill in the gaps, there will not be total contact between the processor and the heatsink. Paste transfers the heat between the gaps so that you have full contact with the processor and heatsink. The transfer is not 100% efficient with paste, bbut it is the best solution out there, and new technologies constantly advance the effectiveness of paste. Let's test this stuff...

Testing

For testing, I decided to compare the OCZ Ultra II with Arctic Silver's Ceramique. Testing was done in the same conditions for both pastes, using a Thermaltake Volcano 11 and Coolermaster's Aero 7+. In all tests, the ambient in my house was recorded at 73°F, and case ambient at 31.5°C. Processor temperatures were taken using HMonitor, and temps were only taken after thermal paste was allowed to set for at least 48 hours. Temps were taken under both Idle and Load conditions with (Volcano11 & Aero 7+) fan speed set on low and on high for each. To put the processor under Load I used Prime95's Torture Test for 1 hour. Something to keep in mind when looking at the test results is that I tested with an AthlonXP2100+ Palomino, which run hotter than the newer ThoroughBred AthlonXP processors. Below are the test rig specs:

AMD AthlonXP 2100+ Palomino
Biostar M7VIG Motherboard
512MB Samsung PC2100
GF4 TI4200
Creative SB Live! 5.1
Seagate Barracuda IV 80gb 2mb
CenDyne 52x CDRW

Volcano 11 Temps
(Show All Graphs)

Load High

Load Low

Idle High

Idle Low

OCZ Ultra II

AS Ceramique

51.5

Temperature ( °C )

100

Load High

Load Low

Idle High

Idle Low

OCZ Ultra II

AS Ceramique

Temperature ( °C )

100

Load High

Load Low

Idle High

Idle Low

OCZ Ultra II

AS Ceramique

46.5

48.5

Temperature ( °C )

100

Load High

Load Low

Idle High

Idle Low

OCZ Ultra II

AS Ceramique

Temperature ( °C )

100

Aero 7+ Temps
(Show All Graphs)

Load High

Load Low

Idle High

Idle Low

OCZ Ultra II

AS Ceramique

50.5

51.5

Temperature ( °C )

100

Load High

Load Low

Idle High

Idle Low

OCZ Ultra II

AS Ceramique

Temperature ( °C )

100

Load High

Load Low

Idle High

Idle Low

OCZ Ultra II

AS Ceramique

45.5

47.5

Temperature ( °C )

100

Load High

Load Low

Idle High

Idle Low

OCZ Ultra II

AS Ceramique

Temperature ( °C )

100

Conclusion

As you can see from the testing results, OCZ has successfully entered the thermal paste game. With an average temp of 1°C cooler than Ceramique, OCZ Ultra II is a great thermal paste. This paste is not electrically conductive and gives 1°C cooler temperatures than a leading competitor (AS Ceramique). I absolutely recommend this thermal paste to anyone who knows how to use it.

Pros

Not conductive
Big tube should last for many, many applications
Kicks Ceramique's arse! (by 1°C)

Cons

Tastes funny

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7 User Comments

1 - Posted by handrail on June 10, 2003 - 1:08 pm

haahaa, tastes funny :lol:

try adding a little cinnamon, i find that a little cinnamon makes everything taste better.

2 - Posted by Brian on June 10, 2003 - 1:12 pm

Yes but the spice would take away from the thermal conductivity of the paste, thus rendering it only useful for eatting.

Can't have both, can ya?

Oh well, I'm off to go pick up the Swiftech water cooling kit that we will be reviewing in the future. BWAHAHAHAHAHA. Yes. Bwa ha ha ha. ehhhhh.........

3 - Posted by Kurtis on June 10, 2003 - 1:39 pm

Hehehe, swiftech is my daddy. :P

4 - Posted by rabidFan on June 11, 2003 - 10:34 am

if you're docking a point for the taste, I had darn well better see a taste comparison for ceramique and some of the noname brand thermal pastes.

5 - Posted by Kurtis on June 11, 2003 - 10:52 am

lmfao. I didn't dock a point for taste. That was just to get a laugh. I just didn't want to give it a perfect score and then get some thermal paste in a month that kicks its ass or something :P a 1c diff between it and ceramique is good but nothing amazing

6 - Posted by rabidFan on June 11, 2003 - 11:02 am

or perhaps did you not give it a perfect score because you were worried that in a month that a thermal paste will come along that tastes way better?

7 - Posted by Kurtis on June 11, 2003 - 11:06 am

lol yes. I hear there is a chocolate flavored one about to hit the market. Supposedly it melts all over the proc and ruins it, but hey it tastes yummy so 9.5/10! :P

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