Corsair Releases Its First Thermal Paste Solution: The TM30

[Raevenlord]

Corsair has released their first own-branded thermal paste solution, which joins the already dozens of products on the market. Thermal paste (or any sort of TIM - Thermal Interface Material) essentially serves to increase thermal conductivity between two surfaces, such as your CPU and your cooler's heatsink.

Corsair says the TM30 thermal paste they've released features low viscosity (needed to fully penetrate microscopic abrasions in the interfaced materials and pushing low-conductivity air out), and is based on a zinc-oxide compound. Corsair say TM30 offers up to 6º of cooler operation compared to the admittedly ambiguous "common thermal paste". Corsair also said that TM30 can and will last for years without drying, cracking, or change in consistency, thus ensuring a long lifespan in the best thermal conductivity conditions possible. Corsair's TM30 is available for €6.90 / $7.98 per syringe. Sadly, quantities aren't mentioned.



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[dj-electric]

Corsair, you can't make a "thermal paste for enthusiasts" without telling us how much is in there, and what are its thermal characteristics.
Please

 

[GlacierNine]

Corsair TM30 -
Thermal Conductivity: 3.8 W/(m*K)
Thermal Impedance: 0.01°C -in2/W
Viscosity: 2300K cPs
Specific Gravity: 2.5g/cm3

Information taken from Newegg, corroborated by eBuyer and Overclockers UK.

For comparison, Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut is specced as follows:

Specification:
- Thermal Conductivity: 12.5 W/(m*K)
- Viscosity: 130-170 Pas
- Spec. Weight: 3.7 g / cm3
- Thermal Resistance: 0.0032 K/W

And old standby, Arctic Silver 5 is 9.0 W/(m*K)

Hopefully the specs are wrong, otherwise this product is simply overpriced and underperforming.

Edit: Also, trying to figure out the relative viscosities, I found this:

Poise (symbol: P) Even in relation to high-viscosity fluids, this unit is most usually encountered as the centipoise (cP), which is 0.01 poise.

Pascal-second (symbol: Pa·s) This is the SI unit of viscosity, equivalent to newton-second per square metre (N·s m–2). It is sometimes referred to as the “poiseuille” (Pl). One poise is exactly 0.1 Pa·s.

 

[dj-electric]

I really hope that these specs are wrong on the TM30. That's disastrous.

 

[Hokum]

The first CPU insulator?

 

[damric]

No RGB?

 

[Athlonite]

Thermal Conductivity: 3.8 W/(m*K)

So around the same as shitty white silicone thermal paste that you find splattered on Audio/Power transistors OK maybe a little better but not by much

 

[Vayra86]

True Muck 30?

 

[Upgrayedd]

this product is simply overpriced and underperforming.

Welcome to Corsair, although their cases seem alright.

 

[pat-roner]

Who uses Common thermal paste these days.

The ones willing to change paste will either go with Noctua, Thermalgrizzly or something in the same park.
I only go by price between the reputable brands

 

[Air]

You cant judge performance based only on thermal conductivity alone. They market it as a low viscosity paste, which means that it may be able to better fill imperfections and form a thinner layer than materials with higher viscosity, both of which increases performance.

 

[Kapone33]

Once I found Noctua NT-H1 I have been using that as my go to thermal paste . It even does a great job on GPUs. This seems like another meh overpriced product from Corsair.

 

[GlacierNine]

You cant judge performance based only on thermal conductivity alone. They market it as a low viscosity paste, which means that it may be able to better fill imperfections and form a thinner layer than materials with higher viscosity, both of which increases performance.

Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut = 170 pascal second = 170,000 centipoise
TM30 = "2300K cPs"

Your guess is as good as mine as to what the fuck that K is for. If it's being used in the same way as SI units then it means 2,300,000 centipoise, which is just ridiculous, as it would make Corsair's paste about as thick as "Lard or Crisco Shortening" according to google, and only half as thick as caulking compound.

If you assume a fuckup and ditch a zero to get a more reasonable number, then Kryonaut is still lower viscosity, at 170,000 to 230,000 centipoise.

If you assume all the specs are wrong and retailers are just completely making shit up, I think you're more likely to approach some kind of the truth.

 

[Ubersonic]

Thermal Conductivity: 3.8 W/(m*K)

So around the same as shitty white silicone thermal paste that you find splattered on Audio/Power transistors OK maybe a little better but not by much

AKA the thermal paste Corsair test against in their chart xD

I think I still have a tube left over from the Pentium IV days

 

[Air]

Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut = 170 pascal second = 170,000 centipoise
TM30 = "2300K cPs"

Your guess is as good as mine as to what the fuck that K is for. If it's being used in the same way as SI units then it means 2,300,000 centipoise, which is just ridiculous, as it would make Corsair's paste about as thick as "Lard or Crisco Shortening" according to google, and only half as thick as caulking compound.

If you assume a fuckup and ditch a zero to get a more reasonable number, then Kryonaut is still lower viscosity, at 170,000 to 230,000 centipoise.

If you assume all the specs are wrong and retailers are just completely making shit up, I think you're more likely to approach some kind of the truth.

At first i though that viscosity number was wrong because of their marketing saying its "low viscosity". You cant market something as low viscosity when its actually viscous as fuck.

But if your specs are correct, its a rebrand of this.

I'm a bit confused. I'll look for some more about subject later. It looks like to be some regular paste...

 

[FreedomEclipse]

Is this an off season April fools joke? lol

MX-3/Mx-4 has 8.5 W/mK. If it truly is 3.8 W/mK then people might as well just spread peanut butter on their CPUs. it will probably perform better too!

 

[VSG]

You guys would be surprised how inflated many of the rated thermal conductivity values are. If that is a legit 3.8 W/mK, it is actually fairly decent if it can spread well enough.

 

[Prima.Vera]

This is a ZIITEK rebranded paste (TIG 780-38 I think), which you can buy by galons from the Chinese manufacturer.

 

[Athlonite]

You guys would be surprised how inflated many of the rated thermal conductivity values are. If that is a legit 3.8 W/mK, it is actually fairly decent if it can spread well enough.

No no we wouldn't be and no it's not decent it's practically the same as the shitty old white silicon crap we all used to use 25 years ago because that's all we had or could get

 

[Tsukiyomi91]

Corsair should stick with making good cases, fans, keyboards, mouses & other RGB oriented stuffs. =w=

 

[stimpy88]

Great stuff, compared to using nothing but a sweaty fingerprint...

 

[Shadowoxide]

I joined specifically to post on this thread since I was looking for reasons why my liquid cooler (H100i v2 240mm) wasn't doing so well in its new case (Corsair 780t to a Lian Li pc0-11 dynamic, kept all fans -1x120mm intake directly into the gpu, radiator fans have their own pull-through fresh air intake, 2x140mm exhaust out the top of the case). Going from Arctic Silver 5 (50-55C full load), I am sitting at 60-65C full load with the only major change being the thermal compound switch to TM30 (all fans are at 100% whereas the 780t didn't have them cranked so high in an effort to troubleshoot the issue, new case has great air flow). Even my idle is 5C higher than normal. Switching to a better paste to see how much temps drop. NOT happy with TM30. Picked it up on a Best Buy run for another SSD when the case came in and it was time to swap, didn't read the reviews first like a moron.

Setup:
Lian Li PC-011 Dynamic (Black)
MSI Gaming 7 Z97, 20gb ddr3
i7 4790k @ stock clocks w/ H100i v2 240mm liquid cooler
EVGA GTX1080 SC
250gb 970 Evo nvme, 250gb SanDisk Plus, 1tb 860 Evo

 

[hat]

Heh, so I guess it is crap. Not sure what they were doing here. Rebranding garbage with a Corsair sticker, hoping people would buy and make a quick buck off the TIM market? The way I see it, the TIM market is very niche already and almost nobody cares about thermal paste. Even many of us here just stick with tried and true paste like MX-4, or even ancient Arctic Silver 5.

The last remarkable paste I remember finding out about was MX-2. It outperformed AC5 by a margin without being electrically conductive. TG Kryonaut is a close second, but MX-2 (or MX-4) these days still dominates much of the market, along with AS5 diehards.

 

[VSG]

Again, there is no non-conductive thermal paste design that is 5 °C worse than a similar one before, that difference may well be from other factors.

 

[ArbitraryAffection]

Just use mayo, it's probably cheaper per Gram and tastes better, too.

I'll stick with Kryonaut tho.^^~