Arctic Cooling has just announced their new thermal paste, the Arctic MX-3, so let’s see if it can gain its crown back.
Product on Review: Arctic MX-3 Thermal PasteManufacturer and Sponsor: Arctic Cooling
MSRP: 12,90 € / US$ 18.90
Street Price: £7.99
It’s hard to get excited about a new thermal paste but when Arctic Cooling announces something new, it is reason enough for enthusiasts to prick their ears up. Today, we have it in the form of the Arctic MX-3, their new flagship thermal compound, successor to the ever popular Arctic MX-2. Promising new heights of thermal conductivity, it will be up against the likes of the Tuniq TX-3 and the Gelid GC-Extreme.
Arctic Cooling is no stranger to enthusiasts when they turn to efficient cooling products. They have an excellent foothold in the thermal paste market and are most people’s first port of call. For those who may not be familiar with them: www.arctic-cooling.com
Arctic Cooling certainly has a lot expertise in the cooling market but whether they can top nowadays best thermal compounds is another question. So let’s see what this new thermal paste brings to the table!
Features and Specifications
Features (as seen on front of the box)
•High Thermal Conductivity
•Low thermal resistance
•Electrically non-conductive
•Non-capacitive
•Non-curing
•Non-corrosive
•Non-bleeding
•8 year durability
“The Arctic MX-3 is metal-free and non-electrical conductive which eliminates any risks of causing short circuit, adding more protection to the CPU and VGA cards
Carbon Micro Particles increase the thermal conductivity significantly and thus the Arctic MX-3 guarantees unparalleled performance. The Arctic MX-3 is recommended for CPU and GPU cooling as well as all other applications which require low resistance thermal interface.”
Specifications
•Thermal conductivity: 8.2W/mK
•Viscosity: 875 poise
•Density: 2.32 g/cm3
•Net weight: 4g
The Arctic MX-3 thermal paste sports some very impressive specifications so let’s see how those translate in real life performance.
Packaging
Front view of the package
The Arctic MX-3 thermal paste tube comes nicely packaged in a tough plastic shrink wrapped cover. This is typical of most thermal paste packaging. The front is concave shaped in the middle where the tube is located and the sides are raised.
The cover remains informative whilst being eye-catching
The front contains all the features of the Arctic MX-3, which are repeated in 4 languages. Across the side is the MX-3 logo and the Arctic Cooling badge can be seen at the top. As shown on the package, Arctic Cooling provide a generous 8 year durability so one tube goes a long way.
At this point, I was finding it hard to restrain myself from just opening it and testing it
From the angled view, the concave shape of the cover can clearly be seen, adding professionalism to the finish.
As with most thermal paste packaging, Arctic list the specifications and warning at the back
On the back, the specifications are listed as well as some benchmarks comparing the Arctic MX-3 to the Arctic MX-2 and generic thermal compound. There are also words of warning written at the back to remind users that the compound is hazardous and toxic.
The tube!
The tube measure 11.8cm and has a net weight of 4g. Shown on the tube is the Arctic MX-3 logo and Arctic Cooling website. Again the tube is a fairly typical syringe like container, as used with most other manufacturers.
The paste flows very easily out of the tube when pressed, so you don’t end up wasting it by accidentally pressing too hard
The paste is of medium viscosity when applied, so it spreads very thinly and evenly when applied. Therefore, it isn’t necessary to spread the paste yourself. A small blob or line of paste can be applied on the CPU or GPU and the heatsink should press down firmly on it to allow it to spread without creating air pockets.
Test Setup
CPU – Intel Core i7 920 – 4.0ghz
RAM – 6GB (3x2GB) OCZ platinum DDR3 1333mhz
Motherboard – Biostar T-Power x58
Graphics card – Gainward 896MB GTX260 216
Power Supply – Enermax Revolution 85+ 850W
Cooling – Noctua SE 1366 NH-U12P
Hard Drive – Samsung F1 320GB
Western Digital Caviar WD3200AAKS 320GB
Drivers – ForceWare 190.40
Thermal pastes:
Tuniq TX-3
Tuniq TX-2
Noctua NT H1
Arctic MX2
Thermolab Baram paste
GELID GC-2
GELID GC-Extreme
Arctic MX-3
Program Suite:
Core Temp 0.99.5
LinX stress Test
PC Wizard
How I Tested:
Each paste was applied as recommended by the manufacturers and were test over a period of 48 hours to observe if they required any curing time. An initial test was done at stock (2.66ghz) speed and overclocked (4ghz) speed. The idle and load temperatures were measured using coretemp by looking at the minimum temperature while idling and the maximum temperature after 20 passes of LinX. This was repeated after 48 hours.
Due to varying temperatures, an average temperature was calculated and the ambient temperature was subtracted to obtain a delta value. This is presented in the graphs.
Results
The Arctic MX-3 gets off to a cracking start here. It gives not only the best idle temperature delta, but also the best load temperatures. It betters the Tuniq TX-3 by 0.75°C, which is very impressive. It is also a definite step up from Arctic MX-2.
At 4ghz, the Arctic MX-3 carries on its lead under load although the difference between itself and the Tuniq TX-3 is only slight. The improvement over the previous flagship Arctic MX-2 is quite significant though at 2.25°C, very close to what is reported at the back of the package.
After 2 days, the Arctic MX-3 still holds its newly gained performance crown. At both idle and load, it is very much unmatched apart from the Gelid GC-Extreme which still lags behind by 0.5°C under load. Arctic Cooling is really showing us that they mean business and that they won’t settle for worse than first place.
Interestingly here, the Arctic MX-3 falls behind the Tuniq TX-3 by quite a margin at idle but conversely under load, where the results matters most, the opposite is seen. The Arctic MX-3 wipes the floor clean with its very impressive results. At 4.5°C lower than the TX-3’s delta and 2.75°C less than the Arctic MX-2, the Arctic MX-3 is clearly the new King in town! The thermal conductivity of 8.2W/mK translates into real world performance gain, which is often not seen with other manufacturers.
Despite being advertised as non-curing, it is always interesting to check whether there are any effects over a certain period of time. Here, we can see that Arctic Cooling holds true to their words and no change is seen over 48 hours. So you get excellent performance as soon as it’s applied.
Under load, there is only a slight change noticed, which can be down to other factors. The Arctic MX-3 is unchallenged in its performance.
Conclusion
Over the past few weeks, we reviewed two top performing thermal compound solutions, both reaching new heights in terms of cooling. Today however, Arctic Cooling has demonstrated to us why they are the most respected name in the world of thermal pastes. They have been highly successful in the past and from this review, it can be concluded that they will remain the \\\”Top Dog\\\” for a long time to come.Looking at the results, it cannot be anymore clear the lead that the Arctic MX-3 has over its competitors and even the old Arctic MX-2. It is up to 2.75°C better than its predecessor and under load, it leads the previous Gold Award winners, the Tuniq TX-3 and the Gelid GC-Extreme. For those waiting for the new Arctic MX-3, the waiting is finally over and you will not be disappointed. It is in a league of its own!
Performance aside, the Arctic MX-3 comes nicely packaged but it does lack some of the extras that the Tuniq and Gelid paste provided, such as the small transparent meter on the TX-3 to show how much paste is remaining, or the applicator as bundled with the GC-Extreme. Those are hardly deal breakers but it would be nice if Arctic Cooling could incorporate a feature like the Tuniq TX-3 does to show how much of the Arctic MX-3 is left, especially considering that you may well end up using it on every piece of hardware you have, that requires cooling.
This is probably one of the easiest conclusion I have had the pleasure of writing and if you hadn\\\’t guessed it, the Arctic MX-3 thermal compound has deservedly earned itself the prestigious Vortez Hardware Gold Award!
I would like to graciously thank Arctic Cooling for providing this sample!
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