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Evercool Cruise Missile Thermal Compound


Date
: 10/4/09 – 06:56:17 AM

Author
:

Category
: Cooling

Page 1 : Index

Manufacturer
: Evercool

Evercool continues to pump out top-notch, innovative products, and as reviewers keep reviewing them, consumers keep purchasing them. The end result is a satisfied customer with a well designed product that exceeds the standards of excellence, performance, and quality. Here is how Evercool says it:

• Innovative Research and Development;
  
  
• Insist on The Best Quality;
• Equipment Integrity;
• Cost Competition;
• Delivery on Time

Evercool just recently released their newest thermal compound, the Cruise Missile. Evercool has produced a small number of thermal compounds in the past, and while they perform decently, it is hard to say what Evercool has learned from their past experiences. Let us read on to find out!

Page 2 : Package and Contents

Contained within a relatively small cardboard box, we see the plastic syringe nestled in an insert behind a transparent plastic window. With ‘Cruise Missile/High Performance Thermal Compound’ gracing the left side of the boxes face, the model name and a brief description are displayed on the right. The description goes as so: ‘Excellent Performance Cruise Missile (STC-03) with extremely low thermal resistance for superior thermal performance. With a high Thermal Compound of 2.89 W/mH.’

Turning the packaging over, the first thing we see is a graph showing off the cooling performance of the Cruise Missile versus the Original Cooler Grease. Unfortunately, this graph gives the appearance that the Original Cooler Grease runs approximately 2.5 times hotter, when in fact it only approximately 1.1 times hotter.

Flipping the top flap open, I pull the containing cardboard out. Nestled within the two sides, we see the syringe containing 3g of thermal compound sitting there, awaiting heavy usage from the ‘Professional User’, as Evercool puts it. On the left side, we see an included spreader. I greatly appreciate this, as now I won't have to use a folded up hunk of paper for this application.

Slipping the two pieces out and laying them out side by side, we can get a closer look.

The paper wrap that encircles the body of the syringe simply states the company name and the model number on a green backdrop.

Let's go check out the features and specifications now.

Page 3 : Features and Specifications

According to the Tuniq website, these are the exact specifications:

These features are found on the rear of the packaging, as well as here.

• Cruise Missile (STC-03) with extremely low thermal resistance for superior thermal performance;
  
  
• Cruise Missile (STC-03) remain workable for easy spreading, screen printing and dispensing even after storage and exposure to air;
• High reliability and stability under adverse conditions such as thermal cycling, high humidity and high-temperature aging;
• Application to CPU/VGA/Chipset and other PC components

The two key things that I deem special in thermal compounds is their ability to be electrically non-conductive and non-curing. Sadly, the Cruise Missile does not have either of these two inclusions. Other than that, there is nothing special to mention here, so let's apply this compound and see how she performs!

Page 4 : Installation, Testing, and Performance

To install the Cruise Missile is like any other thermal compound application. The only difference is that the user gets to use the included spreader. Spreading the compound was a simple task – It wasn't overly thick, or too thin. It went where I wanted it to go and held its consistency at the same time.

The following system configuration will be used to test the TX-3's cooling capabilities:

• XFX nForce 780i SLI
  
  
• Cooler Master Cosmos 1000
• Coolit Pure Liquid Cooling System
• Intel Core2Quad 6600 @ 2.4GHz
• Buffalo Firestix Pyro DDR2-1066 (4x1GB)
• FSP Everest 800
• MSI Twin Frozr GTX275
• Seagate Barracuda 250GB
• Windows Vista Home Premium SP2

For the test, I will allow each thermal paste to cure for 24 hours. Then I will let the CPU idle for 2 hours, and once the two hours are done, I will record the temperatures of the CPU core. I will then stress the CPU with four instances of SP2004 for two hours. Temperatures will be recorded again. The Cruise Missile will be tested against the following competitors:

• Tuniq TX-3
  
  
• Startech Heatgrease 10
• Arctic Cooling MX-2

The ambient room temperature is 28 degrees Celsius.

Here are the results:

Testing the Cruise Missile has proved some interesting results. While idling one degree cooler than the other two leading champions, it feel behind by one mere degree against the TX-3 under full load. The difference between a quality high performance thermal paste and a mainstream budget production is qutie evident as seen in the weak performance of the Heatgrease 10, it falls behind by 7 degrees when under full load.

Page 5 : Conclusion

Evercool has learned something here. To perform up in the charts with Arctic Cooling and Tuniq is truly impressive feat. While it didn't necessarily out perform its top competitors, it did with no doubt run stride for stride.

What Evercool lacks in special features, such as being electrically non-conductive and non-curing, they make up for it in performance. I could not find any retailers to find an approximate price to determine its value, but I am assuming it will be around the same price as all other compounds that offer similar performance, which is about $10 to $15 CAD. Let's weigh it out:

Advantages

• Impressive performance
  
  
• Simplistic packaging
• Included spreader

Disadvantages

• Electrically conductive
  
  
• Not non-curing

A special thanks to Evercool for making this review possible.