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Thermal Paste Comparison: Noctua NT-H1 vs. OCZ Freeze

Posted by NickS | Published in Cooling | [-no comments-]

The importance of thermal paste is often overlooked by many when building PC’s. This is especially true when talking about first time builders. I myself overlooked the importance of thermal paste when I built my first PC. The truth is, a change in thermal paste can lower your temps almost as much as a heatsink upgrade, depending on the paste you’re currently using and the paste you want to purchase.

Today we’ll be comparing OCZ’s “Freeze” thermal compound to Noctua’s “NT-H1″ compound.

Both packages are pretty colorful and descriptive for being thermal paste. The Noctua one is especially large. On the back of each package are detailed specifications for each paste.

OCZ “Freeze” Specifications

Noctua “NT-H1″ Specifications

Both manufacturers claim there is no curing time, which means the paste doesn’t need to be ran through cycles of heating and cooling to properly set to get maximum performance. Instead, you’ll get the best performance from the minute you apply it. You’ll also notice that Noctua rates their paste all the way down to -40ºC. This makes the NT-H1 paste a good idea when running some phase change units.

The Noctua NT-H1 thermal paste is noticeably thicker, while the OCZ Freeze is a bit more “watery.” The NT-H1 is also very complicated to get out of the syringe itself, while the OCZ flows freely. The thickness of the NT-H1 also makes it extremely tricky to apply. It almost seems dried out, but it is indeed still very moist. Overall, it’d be easier to get good contact with the OCZ Freeze the first time around because it’s so easy to spread. The NT-H1 on the other hand would be ideal for things with small, exposed die cores like chipsets, de-lidded CPU’s and graphics cards without a heatspreader, just because it won’t run all over.

To test these two pastes, I thoroughly cleaned the core of my eVGA 8800GTS 640MB video card and the base of my D-Tek Fuzion GFX waterblock with isopropyl alcohol (rubbing alcohol). Then I applied a large, near pea sized blob of paste to the middle of my GTS’ core and spread evenly with a credit card. Then I mounted the block and fired up the PC. I measured the temperatures with Riva Tuner. Idle was measured after 10 minutes of idling at desktop. Load was measured after 10 minutes of RTHDRIBL at full screen with 16x Multi-Sampling. Ambient temperature of the room remained at a solid 69.4ºF throughout testing.

The results are rather surprising. I expected the Noctua paste to exceed the performance of the OCZ paste but it was the other way around! The OCZ Freeze beat the Noctua NT-H1 by a whole 3ºC under load. At idle, the OCZ Freeze was again superior with a 2ºC advantage. To make sure a bad mount wasn’t the cause of this, I remounted the block again with each paste and found similar results. The OCZ Freeze yet again took the lead with the lowest temps for both idle and load.

Comments / Suggestions
The only solid suggestion I can make is to OCZ. Change the packaging for the Freeze thermal paste. It’s the biggest pain ever to get open! Other than that, there isn’t much else to recommend.
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Noctua NT-H1

Pros:
Nice packaging
Guaranteed to work with sub-zero temps (a la phase change, TEC’s)
Good amount of paste included (large syringe)

Cons:
Didn’t perform to expectations
Hard to spread/apply
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OCZ Freeze

Pros:
Performed very well
Attractive packaging
Easy to spread/apply

Cons:
Not as much paste included (very small syringe)
Packaging a pain to open
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Awards

Noctua NT-H1