Performance with Arctic Cooling MX-2

Arctic Cooling MX-2 is probably the most popular thermal compound today, and for good reason.  It’s inexpensive, readily available, and a really solid performer.  In terms of using it as a testing TIM it’s also pretty good because it has a minimal cure (small enough that it shouldn’t induce massive error if used the same way every time) and it responds to contact moderately well.  Our tests with utilizing MX-2 are our core tests.  MX-2 will be the TIM used to determine which injection plate or nozzle should be used (where applicable); MX-2 will be used for orientation testing (where applicable); and MX-2 is our base of comparison, we feel that how a block performs relative to other blocks with MX-2 will be most indicative of what an end user can expect.

Typical Mount Performance

Medium High Pump Setting:

Well this is interesting: there’s a performance drop from rev2 to rev3.  Looks like EK erred on the side of compatibility instead of maximizing performance with the Easy Mount system.

Temperature vs. Flowrate with MX-2:

It’s important to note that all flowrate/pump setting/hydraulic power spectrum tests are done with Indigo Xtreme (has zero performance change over time, unlike any thermal paste) and then justified to the blocks’ MX-2 performance.

The EK Supreme HF Full-Nickel rev3 seems to have moderate response to flowrate, falling further behind the CPU-370 at high flowrates/pump setting/hydraulic power, but closing the gap and even passing the CPU-370, depending on the graph, at very low flow/pump/power.  For those wondering about how the rev2 performs, the rev2 line would be .53c lower than the rev3 at all points on all curves.