When it comes to thermal compounds we've got many choices, there was a time I remember when only one or two thermal compounds dominated the market, but now there are quite a few of them and it has become very competitive. This competition is a good thing for the end-user as it offers more choices and pushes manufacturers to create better products to beat out their competition.
Today for review I've got a newcomer to the industry, Gelid Solutions, established in 2008 as a thermal solutions provider, their first product is GC1 Thermal Compound. I received a pre-production sample for testing about a month ago actually, but yesterday their website finally went live so today I've got the review for you. How does this newcomer stand up to the competition? I've put it up against names like OCZ, Noctua and Arctic Cooling to see how the GC1 does in comparison testing.
So read on to see how it performed…
Tech Specs,Features or the Basic Info:
Features:
* Optimal Heat Conductivity
* Non-Electrical Conductive
* Low Thermal Resistance
* Non-Corrosive
* No Bleeding
* Non-Curing
Specs:
Viscosity (Poise): 2850
Specific Gravity (g/cm3): 3.96
Net Content (g): 5
INCLUDED: Spreader
About the Company:
What does GELID mean? The name "GELID" is derived from the Latin word "gelu" and means "extremely cold or icy".
GELID Solutions Ltd. is a Hong Kong based company with Swiss Management and founded in 2008 by Gebhard SCHERRER and VC TRAN. Both have worked in the PC Cooling industry for a number of years and successfully built up an IT company with their expertise. Through their formerly founded company, they established a globally recognized brand and stellar reputation in the IT industry.
GELID designs and manufactures thermal solutions, CPU coolers, fans, and other computer hardware for both gamers and silent enthusiasts. We provide computer hardware distributors, retailers and system integrators with innovative, virtually silent, high- performance and top quality thermal solutions.
Quality and innovation are key. And, being Swiss, we leave nothing to chance. That's why we provide a total solution – from bearings to thermal compound, from design to shipping, from the molding of the fan to the print on the box – with state-of-the-art machines and experienced staff.
Our Vision: Combine quality and ingenuity to set the standard in creating best- in- class products for global computer enthusiasts
As their latest venture, GELID Solutions Ltd. is a privately owned limited liability company with a registered share capital of HKD 1’000’000. Strategically based in Hong Kong, “Asia’s World City”, it enjoys an unrivaled location at the geographical and economic center of Asia. For our customers, this means easy and quick access to our vast manufacturing base in mainland China.
A Better Look at Things
:
As I mentioned in the intro I received a pre-production sample of the GC1 Thermal Compound so the product packaging I received was not the final version so I've got pictures from Gelid for you of the packaging:
but I can show you the actual compound itself:
It's your typical gray color thermal compound, but it's fairly thin, but not watery, which makes it very easy to spread. This thinner consistency also allows it to spread evenly under the pressure of your heatsink as well.
Installation, Testing and Comparison
For testing I put the Gelid GC1 Thermal Compound up against a few of the leading competitors like: OCZ Freeze, Noctua NT-H1 and Arctic Cooling MX-2 to see what kind of performance this newcomer can show us.
All testing was done with the new Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 LP low-profile CPU cooler, an ambient temperature of 19C (+/- .3C) was constant during all testing.
The CPU used for testing was a non-overclocked Intel C2D6420 (2.13Ghz) on a Gigabyte mATX GA-G33-DS2R motherboard, with two gigs of Crucial Ballistix Tracer PC2-8500.
To achieve load I used Orthos Stress Prime for several hours every day over the course of a little more than a week. The temperatures were logged using the latest stable version of CoreTemp (.98.1) and averaged out to get the results shown in the graph.
Not too bad at all for the new guy, it's competitive with the established thermal compound out there today.
Summary:
From all of my testing with the Gelid GC1 Thermal Compound it's easily as good, if not better than the leading competitors out there today. The GC1 Thermal Compound can easily be considered an excellent choice for your thermal needs, and in my opinion they've got a very decent product on their hands that should do very well.
The Gelid GC1 Thermal Compound is easy to apply, non-conductive and it requires no burn-in time so it's ready the instant you apply it to your CPU.
I can easily and honestly recommend the Gelid GC1 Thermal Compound, it might not be the top performer on the market today according to my testing but you've got to consider that most people are not going to have the exact same system as myself, so of course performance will vary.
I think from my testing though we've got a nice comparative sampling to go by and can foresee that the results will on average be very good while using the Gelid GC1 Compound.
DragonSteelMods gives the Gelid GC1 thermal Compound a 4.5 out of 5 score and our Recommended Award as well.
Pros:
-Non-curing / No burn-in time
-Non-bleeding
-Non-Conductive
-Great performance
-Long lasting (according to maker)
-Easy to apply
-Competitively priced
-Large amount of product
Cons:
-None really
I would like to thank Gelid Solutions for the chance to review the GC1 Thermal Compound and for their support of DSM.
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