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Reviewed by: Jason Hambly |
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Thermal grease has got to be the number one topic on everyone’s mind. Day in and day out everyone is always chatting about thermal grease. Well maybe that is not entirely correct, it is probably one of the least talked about items that goes into a PC, yet can be one of the most important. You won’t find very many enthusiasts using the stock thermal pad that comes attached to your stock heatsink. Most of us have a favorite grease that we use religiously on all of our builds; others will just use whatever is close by. Tuniq has sent us a sample of their newest high performance thermal grease called TX-2 for us to try out. We’ll try it out in two machines and compare it to another brands’ popular offering.
Specifications and Features:
Appearance – Grey
Viscosity – 285000 cP
Thermal conductivity – 4.5W/mK
Operating temperature – -45°C ~ 200°C
Specific Gravity – 3.96 @ 25°C
Volume – 3.5g
- Low thermal resistance for superior heat transfer, 4.5W/mK
– Small molecular size makes a better contact between the heatsink and heatsource.
– Thin bond line for hi-efficiency conductivity
– Low bleed under high pressure
– Spreads easy – clean consistency
– Help the low-pressure clip design of cooler to achieve better cooling performance.
– RoHS compliant
– Not electrically conductive
Overview:
Tuniq ships TX-2 in a plastic bag type packaging with a fold up flap at the bottom. This package is all set to be hung on a peg rack at your local computer shop. The TX-2 itself comes in a syringe like tube similar to most other thermal grease products. This allows it to be easily applied to your CPU. There is a cap included so that the tube can be resealed after use to prevent the product from drying out or becoming contaminated with dust.
Performance:
Tuniq’s TX-2 was easy to apply to the CPU, it is not too thick and it isn’t runny. The syringe made it easy to apply just the right amount. Two different systems were used to see how it would perform in different situations. First up is a water cooled Intel Core 2 Duo E6700, followed up with an AMD X2 5200+ with a stock AM2 cooler. Both systems were run at their stock speeds of 2.67 GHz and 2.6 GHz respectively. Each system had fresh grease applied and then loaded up and allowed to cool half a dozen times to allow it to setup before the tests were run. To load the CPUs SP2004 was run for 30 minutes on each core to ensure the CPU was fully loaded up. Each system was then allowed to idle for 15 minutes to get an idle temp. All CPU throttling options were disabled to ensure that the CPUs were still at full speed when idling.
As you can see from those charts, TX-2 compares very closely to Arctic Silver 5. Individual results may vary slightly. My basement is by no means a perfect testing environment. All tests were run as close together as possible but the room temperature did fluctuate slightly. I am not sure why the 2nd core on the AMD runs so much cooler then the other, several different monitors all reported a big difference in temperatures with that core, however temperature changes from load to idle remained consistent between the two cores.
Price/Warranty:
Tuniq has a suggested retail price of $5.99 on the TX-2 making it affordable to anyone. A single tube should last you a long time.
Conclusion:
Many people will swear to you that AS5 is the greatest grease ever but other companies are now offering very competitive products such as Tuniq with TX-2. Computer enthusiasts now have a choice as to which thermal grease they wish to use and not have to worry about a huge performance hit. Tuniq TX-2 is a great product and easy to work with. I highly recommend it to anyone looking for a new tube of thermal greasee.
Acknowledgements:
We would like to thank Tuniq for sending us this product for review.
Tuniq TX-2 receives our Best on the Planet Award
