Introduction

When we think of thermal paste, one product immediately pops into mind, Arctic Silver 5. This paste has always been the leader of the market, but now, many companies are competing with this paste to take throne. One such company striving to take the crown is Coolink with their Chillaramic paste. Read on to see if it lives up to the daddy of thermal pastes…

About Coolink

Coolink is a brand of the Kolink International Corporation and stands for an effective conjunction of no-frills performance, excellent quality and attractive pricing. Coolink – the direct link to affordable high-end cooling!

Features

• Ceramic nano-particles for high thermal conductivity
• Not electrically conductive
• No longer burn-in time
• Easy to apply, easy to clean off
• Suitable for compressor cooling
• Big 10g tube for more than 30 applications

Specifications

Volume	10g (for more than 30 applications)
Specific Gravity	3.2g/cm³
Color	White
Recommended Operating Temperature	-35°C to +85°C
Peak Operating Temperature	-45°C to +105°C
RRP	€ 6,90

Packaging

Like most Coolink products, the packaging which the Coolink arrives in is very unique and looks to be very well styled.

The box is small, but will easily grab the attention of wondering eyes with its loudly themed box. The front of the box simply has a transparent section allowing you to see the syringe of paste and a boastful comment in the top right corner, “Ceramic Nano-Particles”.

The back of the box is much more informative with three short persuasive paragraphs and the product’s features neatly bullet pointed.

The Coolink Chillaramic

The paste arrives in a fairly chunky syringe measuring in at ~5” in length. This is a little bigger than most TIM (Thermal Interface Material) syringes. Inside the syringe is 10g of paste, dur… enough for over 30 applications.

Sized up with its competitors, the Chillaramic is larger in both length and girth. Size wise, this product really is the daddy. This is an odd size for a syringe of thermal paste, but it ideal for many applications.

Wrapped around the syringe is a label – styled similarly to the packaging. On this label a few obvious warnings are made clear:

• Do not ingest. Seek medical advice immediately if ingested.
• Keep away from children and pets.
• Avoid skin or eye contact

These are exactly the same warnings which were on the Noctua NT-H1’s label which indicates that they may well have the same design team.

Alike the Noctua HT-H1 thermal paste, this compound doesn’t need a 200 hour ‘burn-in time’ for optimal performance. This is good for overclockers or enthusiasts who regularly change their CPU Coolers for better overclocking results.

As the paste is not electrically conductive, you could also apply this paste to chipset blocks without the fear of short circuiting your motherboard. Always nice to know, heh.

The paste is white in colour and unlike the Arctic Silver and Noctua thermal pastes, it’s not very thick. This will make spreading the paste across your CPU IHS much easier enabling a better thermal dissipation with your cooler.

Application

The first step to applying the paste was removing my current paste with Akasa’s TIM clean which is basically a nice smelling version of Isopropyl Alcohol.

To apply the paste I squeezed out a small blob (4 – 5mm) on the centre of my Intel e8400’s IHS (Integrated Heat Spreader). After this, I rotated my stock Intel cooler a bit to spread the paste evenly over the CPU IHS (Integrated Heat Spreader). This technique will be used on all the other pastes which are also being tested for a valid comparison.

Testing

Processor	Intel C2D E8400 @ 3.6GHz
Motherboard	Asus P5K Premium
Memory	Crucial Ballistix 4GB (2x 2GB)
Hard Disk Drive	Western Digital SE16 500GB
Power Supply	Kingwin Mach 1 10000W
Graphics Card	Vivikoo 9600GT
Case	Antec Twelve Hundred
CPU Cooler	Stock Intel (copper version)

We’ll be using Intel’s stock cooler (copper base version) for all the testing. The temperatures will be recorded using SpeedFan which uses the CPU’s own diode for accurate readings. For idle testing, we’ll leave the computer standing for 30 minutes straight after a reboot and then we’ll record the average temperature from three temperature recordings at 10 second intervals. For load results, we’ll run two processes of CPU Burn-In to maximise the CPU usage on both cores.

Ambient temperature was 25C.

We’ll be comparing the CPU temps at both idle and load with four other thermal pastes – all of which will be applied in the same way with the same amount of paste. These other thermal pastes are:

• Noctua NT-H1
• Tuniq TX-2
• Arctic Silver 5
• Thermaltake A2014

All of these compounds have been highly praised by the media, so they’re a tough competition for the Chillaramic.

Results

	Idle	Load
Arctic Silver 5	37	50
Coolink Chillaramic	36	48
Thermaltake A2014	37	51
Tuniq TX-2	35	47
Noctua NT-H1	36	45

Okay, so the Coolink isn’t the best performer out of all the pastes, but it does manage to outperform the Arctic Silver 5 and Thermaltake varieties.

Cost

At ~£5 the Coolink is hardly a pocket burner. For 30 applications, this is very good value for money.

Conclusion

Although this thermal paste may not be the very best, it comes in a great quantity at a very low price. This makes it the ideal buy for any average enthusiast who regularly changes their CPU cooler / CPU. But for those hardcore guys and girls, you’re better off going for Noctua’s paste.

That said the Chillaramic is a good mid-range thermal paste which certainly offers the most ‘bang for the buck’.