Graphite Thermal Pad – Permanent Replacement for Thermal Paste/Grease (30 X 30 mm)

What's your use case? MAXMIMUM performance with a TIM that won't dry out? These may not be in your interest with caveats. Consider similar graphENE products. Graphene thermal sheets are more performant, but WAY more brittle. I can not stress just how unsubstantial they are. Those products CAN be reused, and I have - but not without loss of material. Something which can also be terribly nerve wracking as the flakes are electrically conductive. Personally, I will not use them again, even where performance is a concern. ESPECIALLY if you have a cooler that can twist on its mounts. On the other hand, are you interested in potentially swapping coolers or hardware with some degree of frequency? Do you want some sort of TIM that does not require cleaning? These graphITE pads are what you are interested in. In my experience these are sufficient to cool anything at stock clocks, even up to maximum PBO2 boosts for recent Zen processors. Though it should be noted that added efficiency could realize better power USE. Further, these graphITE pads re much more resilient. Mind, these are ALSO electrically conductive, but show FAR less tendency to flake or fall apart, making the matter less concerning. I'll be using these thermal pads in most situations going forward. Mind the dimensions. In my case AM4 platforms have a 32mmx32mm IHS (integrated Head Spread), and while it would be recommended to use 32-33m thermal sheets, Ryzen IHS are slightly concave, making these 30mm squares 'fit' somewhat better in the recessed region of the IHS. For R7 platforms, or anyone interested in undervolting, these will suffice, and hold up better without the uneven pressure from an uneven IHS. If you need to be running R9s at full capacity, consider 32+mm sheets; you can always clip them down to size, including the corners to better fit the recess.

For my last couple of builds I've used Noctua NT-H2 thermal grease... This time I decided to try Innovation Cooling's Thermal Pad. This build is a i7-9700k on a MSI Z390 Gaming Pro Carbon mobo with a Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo cooler. I have a MSI GTX980Ti, which if anything, reduces reduces the load on the CPU and it's iGPU. I'm not a massive overclocker and this rig isn't particularly high end... This review should be considered to represent just your average build for average use. I have used the 30mm x 30mm pad which is suitable for any of your LGA1151 CPU's (i3/i5/i7/i9) which measure 37.5mm x 37.5mm. If you get the 40mm x 40mm pad you may have to trim it as the Thermal Pad is electrically conductive. I built the new rig using the Noctua grease (I use the pea method for thermal compound) installed the i7, installed the OS and ran it in for a couple of days. I then ran the PC Mark 10 benchmarking software a few times (which to be fair doesn't stress the cpu to much but it does give a reasonable idea of real world usage) and then tried recoding a couple of videos to get an idea of the temps. I then popped out the cooler, cleaned off the Noctua compound, and installed the Innovative Cooling Thermal Pad, and repeated. All in all I saw very little difference using the Thermal Pad. Any variation, if anything, could be put down to normal variation in my use and testing. The real winner however is convenience! Easy to install. No mess. No more "have I done it right". And it is reusable. I give this product 5/5 for convenience and given it doesn't appear to have any cooling performance penalty (for an average user such as myself) I have no problems at all recommending this product based on convenience alone. Will this mean the end of thermal compound? Unlikely. At this price point it is slightly more expensive than a tube of good thermal compound - which is fine. However, for a REGULAR builder of NUMEROUS systems ONE tube of compound will build many systems... So those guys will definitely get their money's worth out of a tube. BUT, for an OCCASIONAL rebuilder/upgrader of a SINGLE system who finds they need to buy new thermal paste each time, because the old tube has gone off and most of the tube is wasted (Noctua claims 3 year shelf life), this is a no-brainer as the Innovative Cooling Thermal Pad can be reused - so never a need to buy thermal compound again. And did I mention the convenience? As for longevity, I am yet to see how long this product will last or whether it will degrade with use and heat and age. I guess we have to wait and see, but I don't imagine it will. I hope this helps. Cheers.

This is easily the best thermal transfer solution I have used, and if I could afford to purchase a dozen, they would sit in my PC toolbox. I have had it installed on my Ryzen 5700g and this thermal pad has outlasted all my thermal pastes, and its performance has remained consistent even under load. I wish I could use this for all my go-to thermal solutions, especially because the quality of my Arctic Cooling MX6 degrades heavily after a year to where it becomes hard and putty-like. I would trust this on even my high-performance thermal applications. The 30mm was able to fit perfectly over my Ryzen 5700g without modification. I just prep my heatsink and CPU/GPU surface, lay it evenly, and I don't have to worry about any messes should I need to readjust for any reason. It is surprisingly resilient and didn't seem to tear after placing the heatsink.

Ive been using this on the cpu (i5 11600k) for 2 weeks now, its been working good, the temp increased 3C on idle, under load it stays the same temp as thermal paste (Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut) so for the feature of reusability and not dealing with thermal paste again (cleaning it and repasting) im perfectly fine with those temps. Now for the gpu (the reason the review is 4 stars), the experience was actually bad, my gpu is an old GTX 1080 ti FE (i have it undervolted and limited on temp at 80C) my temps on idle with the kryonaut paste are around 37~42C and under load with a heavy game stays mostly at 80C sometimes spiking at 82~84C. When i installed the graphite thermal pad idle temps were the same around 37~42C but under load if it wasnt for the temp limit and the undervolt on msi afterburner easily the gpu would reach 90C or worse. I only used for 3 days and playing not so heavy graphics games like rocket league waiting for a miracle on that graphite pad but it didnt cool down the gpu so i went back to the kryonaut paste. The reason i decided to try this graphite pad on the gpu mainly was because the kryonaut paste i got it doesnt have long lasting durability, on the gpu after 2 months the temps slowly rise 2~3C after 6 months the temps are at the limit 80C and the paste is dry by that time.

I do a little bit of computer building now and then, and whether you build your own computers or not, the thermal paste that conducts heat from the CPU to the cooler will wear out over time. This is especially true with some companies, actually, some of the most expensive computers on the market (and I will leave names out here) which inexplicably use some truly poor quality thermal paste, and which tends to wear out over time. Why does this matter? Over time, the heating and cooling cycles of a CPU as you turn the computer on and off, and as you stress the CPU with normal processing tasks, will eventually make the thermal paste run and become uneven between the CPU and the adjacent cooler designed to pull the heat away from the processor. Over time, this means that heat transference from the CPU to the cooling system can become greatly reduced. Most computers have built-in thermal monitoring systems, which is a good thing, but as the system senses that the CPU is not staying as cool as it should, throttles back the CPU cycle speed to keep the heat down, resulting in decreased CPU performance. And that means your computer runs slower. If you have a computer that you’ve been using for more than three, four, or five years, there is a good chance that this phenomenon is occurring with your system. If that be the case, it’s time to pull the cooler off the CPU, clean off all the thermal paste as carefully as possible leaving as on both the CPU and the cooler in her face and then place new thermal paste, preferably of a much higher quality, on the CPU and remount the cooler. If people would do just that, just that alone would be a tremendous advance. The thing that makes this particular item unique is that it is not a liquid thermal paste, but is a single, solid piece of thermal conductor made using a knowledge of the thermal conductivity of particular materials to provide excellent thermal transmission without using liquid paste. I must confess I was a little skeptical at first, but I had a relatively high performance Intel processor that was beginning to report some overheating through my software monitoring system, and I thought I would give this new approach a try. After popping off the cooling fan and the cooling unit itself, I used at first soft paper towels to carefully remove the worst of the old thermal paste which had run and also had entire gaps just as might be expected (and anywhere there is a gap, little thermal transference is occurring). I then followed up with a clean microfiber cloth and cleaned both the CPU and the cooler interface until they were perfectly clean. At this point, I would normally carefully open up my new thermal paste, carefully distribute it on the surfaces, and try to spread it out as well as possible and remount the cooler. But with this product, all I had to do was drop the little square thermal pad on top of the CPU, ensure that the alignment was correct, and then remount the CPU cooler. It literally took 1/3 of the time (we’re talking about five minutes here) and there was no mess whatsoever at the end that needed to be cleaned up afterward as usual. Now for the big test. I powered up the machine and wondered what I would see. Would my system report overheating, perhaps even worse than before? Big surprise, my system temperature fell significantly, and even below to some extent what it might normally be, and I was delighted. Moreover, here is another really cool thing. If you’re into system building, or have any plans to change CPUs at any time, because of the design of this thermal square, you just remove the cooler unit and lift the square off again, it’s ready for reuse on a new system. (The square does not use any type of sticky adhesive: it is simply held in place by the force of the cooler tightened up against the CPU.) I do not know what the absolute lifecycle of this unit might be, but it is very clearly advertised as reusable, and this has enormous benefits. I am absolutely delighted with this purchase, I am very glad I found out about it, and impressed that it is at such a reasonable price. Highly recommended.

I have an i9 11900 and I game very hard on this cpu and with this graphite pad it never overheats. I run it with a Corsair H100i. Easy as can be to mount with perfect size I didn’t have to cut anything. I recommend this for anyone who wants to mount new coolers and not have to deal with paste ever again

Built a system for my Mother using my prior systems parts and don't want to worry about thermal paste drying or thermal pumping out. This appears to be a permanent solution and testing has verified that it performs much more than adequate.. 4960x (yes....old) lapped to near mirror polished Thermalright Peerless Assasin 120 (how can something be this cheap AND this good?) EVGA RTX 2070 XC Ultra Gaming - Because Mom loves killing zombies! Uhh..no. CPU has no iGPU 32GB RAM, ASUS MB, Fractal Design Pop Air case Anyway....installation is super easy once you put tiny dabs of thermal compound on the processor corners to hold this pad in place. Without the thermal compound - it moves, period - tried 3 times and it just wouldn't stay in place no matter how careful I was. Being as this pad is the same size as the heat spreader of the CPU - had to be perfect - so...TC on the corners - done. All fans set on manual with minimum duty cycles in BIOS. Idle temperature average is 26C for all cores with a low temp of 24C - so very consistent and even. Now, when I hammer it - prime95 AND MSI Kombustor at the same time - I get CPU temps maxing at 74C - no thermal throttling, CPU at full speed at all times. Not bad at all for a marginal airflow case. Is it as cold as kryonaut extreme - no. Runs about 3-6C hotter under load - but that was also in a case that had more airflow....sooooo...? Will I have to repaste it in a year or two? NO!!! I don't see why this won't last essentially forever. This likely isn't for extreme overclockers looking for the last degree. For me though - building a system that will work without issue and I won't have to fix it (I live 1000 miles away) it's ideal.

There’s no adhesion so 1 Star. —UPADTE—>4 stars for 30x30 pad. 2 stars for 40x40 pad. Somewhat easy to install 4 star. If you get it to stay in one place then it’s very easy. It looks a lot nicer than thermal paste and seems to work about the same. 5 star. The only big difference is it won’t fill any micro holes/dips like thermal paste would. I will be ordering more and taking off all thermal paste to do a few tests using just these pads. Currently it’s only on my cpu but passes the cpu specific test on Intel XTU application under 80c. Currently benchmarks over 1700 Marks @4.1ghz (I’m still learning about this stuff). On CinebenchR20 it did thermal throttle the whole time with current settings for multi core with a score of 2953pts. Single core no throttling at all with a score of 414pts 7.14x (which doesn’t look that good to me but I have no idea, I need to research this more). Overall the pads might be something I completely switch to. I need to do more research and learn about these scores and settings better. No mess and easier to install/replace. Aorus X7 DT V8 8th Gen Intel Coffee Lake i7 8850h (currently at 4.1ghz) NVIDIA GTX 1080 8Gb 2x16Gb Corsair Vengeance Ram ——UPDATE—— I ordered another 30x30 pad and is working pretty comparable to the MX-4 paste I was using. Both are good products. I think a non-conductive thermal paste applied properly would be quick and mostly easy. No worries about getting it on the board hence non-conductive. But if you have some patience using these pads are less messy and can be reused several times. I ordered a 40x40 pad and it came a bit junky looking. I did a quick trim around the edges because I was worried some of that conductive material would fall off and destroy my pc. For that particular pad I give a 2 stars.

Very great buy. The best purchase i ever made so far. Works very similar to thermal paste. Managed to bring down my CPU temp 20 degrees celsius when gaming.

The graphite thermal cooling strip works and does lower measured CPU temperatures. It is as good as all the positive reviews online and superior to thermal paste. It should be a standard part of all PCs instead of paste I reckon.

este producto realmente funciona y demuestra lo que promete en su calidad y eficiensia, al uso que se necesite para el equipo en el que desea instalar, resolvio mi problema de enfriamiento de mi ps4 al 100% lo recomiendo totalmente.

Amazing thermal pad. Works better than thermal paste... 100% recommended

Oggetto sicuramente innovativo e adatto a chi vuole cambiare spesso il processore del suo PC (infatti è riutilizzabile). Devo dire che fa il suo lavoro in maniera eccellente, anche se non è efficace come la pasta termica. Considerato il costo e la riusabilità, l'oggetto vale sicuramente la pena di provarlo. La mia perplessità nasce dal fatto che la pasta termica, essendo molle e non rigida, riesce ad eliminare eventuali micro bolle d'aria che si creano (anche solo per una leggera imperfezione del dissipatore e della protezione della CPU o GPU da raffreddare) rendendo la dissipazione più sicura. Per il resto, le temperature sono ottime e il prodotto svolge bene la sua mansione. Arrivato con Prime in ritardo (Amazon sta usando corrieri proprietari non affidabili) ma comunque senza problemi. Consigliatissimo.