Other Review / Test: Honeywell PTM 7950 Phase Change Pad vs. Thermalright TFX Paste

[REVOCCASES]

Improving thermals / lowering noise is always a challenge for us SFF enthusiasts and using a good TIM on our CPU- and GPU- coolers is almost crucial to get the best out of our small rigs...



I heard a lot of good things about Honeywell PTM 7950 Phase Change Pads and LTT said in one of his videos, it would perform almost as good as liquid metal... well, I wanted to see myself and did a few tests against my favorite thermal paste, the TFX from Thermalright

Test setup: Laptop PC, direct die application on I5-12450H and RTX 4060, fans set to MAX, 18C ambient

Test Results:

Honeywell PTM 7950, CPU thermals, 30 min. Cinebench



Honeywell PTM 7950, GPU thermals, 30 min. Timespy




Thermalright TFX, CPU thermals, 30 min. Cinebench




Thermalright TFX, GPU thermals, 30 min.Timespy




Things to consider:

• PTM 7950 costs about EUR 15 ~ 20 for one application, a good paste costs EUR 10 ~ 15 for several applications
• PTM 7950 pads are very fragile and you need to be very careful during application, paste is easier to apply as it is more forgiving
• PTM 7950 is supposed to have better long term performance (I haven't tested), paste should be replaced after some time
• PTM 7950 performs not any better than a good paste like Thermalright TFX, at least according to my own tests

Hope you found this quick test useful...

 

[riba2233]

imho this stuff is only good for big gpu bare dies where you want to avoid pump out.

 

[HydrAxx747]

Hi, thank you for the comparative review but I have a question: have you encountered any difficulties applying Thermalright TFX? Because personally I had ordered some a year ago in order to replace mine which was starting to get old and seriously it was impossible for me to spread with a spatula or even to put dots or lines because the dough had not strictly no adhesion to the IHS of my Ryzen 9 5950X at the time or even trying to apply it to the contact surface of the water block itself, this is the first time I saw of all the themed pastes that I was able to try, and therefore disappointed because it was totally unusable for me, afterwards I said to myself maybe it was a bad batch? So I opted for the Thermalright TF9 which had just been released and it is the best thermal paste that I have tried (in 25 years of experience), it is officially announced with a thermal conductivity of 14 W /m-k (the TFX being announced 14.3 W/m-k, so the difference in performance should be practically identical I think).

However, I just saw that they have just released a new thermal paste: the TF8 "EX" (certainly for "extreme") which is also indicated at 14 W/m-k like the "TF9" that I use but this model having been released more recently than all the others, so I might try to test it. But for the moment, I found some Alphacool APEX thermal paste certified at 17 W/m-k, I have some doubts about the veracity of this value but hey I'll see...

 

[REVOCCASES]

imho this stuff is only good for big gpu bare dies where you want to avoid pump out.

right, it's mostly used for direct die application / on GPUs... IgorsLab tested it a while ago on a desktop CPU and the results were even worse than in my test.

Hi, thank you for the comparative review but I have a question: have you encountered any difficulties applying Thermalright TFX? Because personally I had ordered some a year ago in order to replace mine which was starting to get old and seriously it was impossible for me to spread with a spatula or even to put dots or lines because the dough had not strictly no adhesion to the IHS of my Ryzen 9 5950X at the time or even trying to apply it to the contact surface of the water block itself, this is the first time I saw of all the themed pastes that I was able to try, and therefore disappointed because it was totally unusable for me, afterwards I said to myself maybe it was a bad batch? So I opted for the Thermalright TF9 which had just been released and it is the best thermal paste that I have tried (in 25 years of experience), it is officially announced with a thermal conductivity of 14 W /m-k (the TFX being announced 14.3 W/m-k, so the difference in performance should be practically identical I think).

Oh, I forgot to mention, TFX is my favorite for direct die application where you don't need to spread it due to the dough like texture, it's impossible to spread, so don't even bother... the advantage of that thick texture is, that it stays where it should and deals better with small dents and scratches often found on GPU/Laptop heatsinks/coldplates. On desktop CPUs I also normally use TF8. Recently I also tested BS-139 paste from Amazon. It performs more or less the same like TF8. But thanks for the tip with TF9, I haven't tried it yet.