Thermal paste can be critical to a cooler's performance but one of the hardest things to do properly when you fit a cooler is get the thermal paste right. Of all the coolers on test, only one, the Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro, comes with the thermal paste already applied.
While that is a positive, it's only true the first time that it's fitted. As no extra paste is supplied with the Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro, it's a bit of a Catch-22 situation.
All of the other coolers came with their own thermal paste, in various consistency and packaging, with the most popular being a small syringe.
A number of thermal pastes stood out, some for all the wrong reasons. The Silverstone NT-06 came with paste that was like concrete. It did have a nice silver effect but was hard to work with and especially hard to remove.
Contrast that with the Thermalright Ultra-120, which endeared itself to us by the large size of its syringe and the fact that there was actually a substantial amount inside.
But it was easy to pick the winner – the Zalman 9700.
A small glass jar hides one of the most forehead-slappingly simple application methods ever. The only downside is that you'll need to perfect your nail-painting technique to use it.
The thermal paste from Zalman has a liquid consistency that's easily applied using the built-in brush. It's simple and almost fool-proof, providing an ultra thin and very consistent surface for mounting any cooler.
As an added bonus it can even be purchased separately.
