Introduction
First of all i would like to welcome Tuniq in to UMLan and thank them for providing us with TX-3 for a review. What is TX-3? TX-3 is the newest thermal compound product by Tuniq. More information on Tuniq could be found right here. When it comes to cooling we all want the best for our video cards, motherboards, ram and cpu. Keeping components cool is the best way to prolong the life of that component. There are a number of brands out there which produce thermal paste and well to tell you the truth, they are much better than the stock cooling thermal paste you get when purchasing a cpu. Today we are going to take a look at two thermal compounds Noctua NT-H1 and Tuniq TX-3 and see if we can improve temperatures of our Intel q6600 Quad Core cpu.
About the Product
Following information is taken from the Tuniq website.
Overview
TX-3 is the highest performing thermal compound in the industry, bar-none! Both non-toxic and non-conductive, the ultra small molecular structure of TX-3 enables the thinnest possible layer of thermal compound application while filling all the gaps between the cooler and the CPU for extreme thermal conductivity.
If you are looking for the ultimate thermal compound, look no further, the TX-3 is the only choice for you, don’t take our words for it, try it and find out for your self! |
Features
Extreme performance |
High stability and
reliability
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Not electrically
conductive |
6.2W/mK Ultra-High thermal conductivity for superior heat transfer |
＊1 |
＊2
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＊3 |
RoHS compliant |
Low bleed under high pressure
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- 1: Tends to form a thinner layer between CPU and heatsink than other greases even under low pressure
- 2: 6.2W/mK Ultra-High thermal conductivity for superior heat transfer Best solution for the heatpipe direct contact or heatpipe direct touch type CPU cooler. (Ex: Sunbeam Core Contact Freezer)
- 3: Helps the low-pressure clip design of cooler to achieve better cooling performance
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Overclock Testing Results:
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Tuniq TX-3 |
Tuniq TX-2 |
Tuniq TX-1 |
standard thermal grease |
Load Temperature |
61.5 |
63.5 |
65.1 |
69.3 |
Idle Temperature |
38 |
39 |
39 |
40 |
*CPU: Intel E 4300 @ 2.7G
*Torture Software: SP2004
*Testing Cooler: Sunbeam Core-Contact Freezer 120 (Fan speed 2000RPM)
*Room Temperature: 32.0°C |
Specifications:
Appearance |
Grey |
Viscosity |
83500 cP |
Thermal conductivity |
6.2 W/mK |
Operating temperature |
-45°C ~ 200°C |
Specific Gravity |
3.011 @ 25℃ |
Volume |
1ml (3g) |
Now that we got technical information out of the way, lets take a closer look at TX-3.
Closer look
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TX-3 |
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Back of the package |
The TX-3 package doesn't look all that different from your leading thermal compound brands. Very simple design but yet every effective on the eye appeal. On the front of the package Tuniq has included some graphics and some informational bits about the TX-3. On the back of the package Tuniq included Features and Specifications of TX-3.
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Specifications |
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Our test subject |
One of the sections on the back describes some of the Overclocking Testing Results of TX-3 and its previous versions of thermal compound. Our test subject for day is going to be Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600.
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Ready to fly |
The consistency of TX-3 is rather thick. I was not expecting it to be this thick. Never less the application was smooth with a right pressure of piece of cardboard. We have applied a thin layer of TX-3 for fast heat transfer to the cpu cooler. We are going to be using Rosewill RCX-Z5 Ultra cpu cooler. For a review of Rosewill RCX-Z5 Ultra please click here.
Testing
| ASUS P5K-E LGA 775 Intel P35 ATX Intel Motherboard |
| 2 SAPPHIRE 100225L Radeon HD 3870 512MB 256-bit GDDR4 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFire |
| Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Kentsfield 2.4GHz LGA 775 Quad-Core Processor |
| 1 Western Digital Caviar SE16 500GB 7200 RPM SATA-300 Hard Drive |
| 2 OCZ Reaper HPC 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1066 (PC2 8500) Dual Channel Kit |
Today we are going to be using Prime 95 benchmarking utility to overload our CPU cores to 100%. The temperature measuring utility we are going to be using is Speed Fan 4.39.
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Idle Noctua NT-H1 (Rosewill RCX-Z5 Ultra) |
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Load Noctua NT-H1 (Rosewill RCX-Z5 Ultra) |
First test was to take reading from the Rosewill RCX-Z5 Ultra with NT-H1 in idle state. The temperature of the CPU in idle state was 31 C. Please keep in mind that the NT-H1 was already burned in for these tests. When running Prime 95 for 20 minutes we have gotten temperature of 59 C of the CPU. Pretty hot but this is expected for a quad core cpus.
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Idle Tuniq TX-3 (Rosewill RCX-Z5 Ultra) |
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Load Tuniq TX-3 (Rosewill RCX-Z5 Ultra) |
After a proper burn in of 48 hours we moved on to Tuniq TX-3 benchmarking. As always we took the reading in idle state and for my surprise got 27 C on the CPU. Whoa, a 4 C difference in idle state. Again after running Prime 95 we took readings after 20 minutes under maximum load. This time CPU temperature was 51 C which is 8 C lower than NT-H1 thermal compound.
Conclusion
I am rather surprised that Tuniq TX-3 was able to beat Noctua NT-H1. Overall performance of the TX-3 was exeptional and frankly i think i have a new favorite thermal compound. Very solid stats and very impressive performance in both idle and loaded states. As Tuniq promises "TX-3 is the highest performing thermal compound in the industry, bar-none!" it is definitely true. It gives me a great pleasure to award Tuniq TX-3 a highest UMLan rating. 10/10!! Great product and highly recommended.
Some pros we found:
Amazing performance
Low bleed and thick consistency
Some cons we found:
None
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