PTM7950 40x80x0.2mm Phase Change GPU Thermal Pad, 8.5W/mK High Conductive CPU Silicone Grease Thermal Paste for Game Machine CPU GPU SSD Laptop

First off throw in the freezer for a couple mins.It’s very thin and gets cold fast.Once everything’s ready grab it and FIRST removed one side of the plastic all the way. Lay on a table very carefully pry use the plastic scrapper to get it to start. I used the plastic scrapper and tweezers to pull the plastic sheet off.THEN cut to the size you need and put onto CPU, GPU chip whatever. Plastic side up obviously.THEN hold your fingers on it for a good minute to heat it up so it’s “sticks” better to the component.I even would breath out onto it hard with my hot air to help heat, then gently pry the last plastic layer off it.Works WAY batter. Otherwise it just wants to stick to the plastic and break apart.Was the pain of install worth it? So far yes! Have redone my MSI laptop multiple times and this made the biggest difference by far. Was running 95C on medium graphics on helldivers, now running high graphics holding 75c average. Granted my old paste was needing redoing.

This thing in terms of appearance (the plastic protective sheets) and performance seems to be very similar to Gelid Heatphase (which for all that I know could just be rebranded Honeywell PTM7950). I tested on a 7900X w/ a Asus TUF X670e wifi ("multicore enhancement" disabled, so it draws ~130W package; room temp of 82-83F, there's a bit of a heatwave when I tested this on a test bench between different pastes) using an ID Cooling 280mm AIO. In Cinebench R23, all 3 performed similar (as expected) or ~72C average (this shouldn't be directly compared to other results outside of the 3 different thermal interface materials I've used), and this new paste was within margin of error of my Gelid Heatphase.For those of you who are wondering what this is for, it's a thermal paste replacement. It's not really a thermal pad, and should not be directly compared to something like Thermal Grizzly's Kryosheet, since unlike the Kryosheet, this does turn more "fluid" under higher temps. Phase change material (like the Honeywell PTM7950) addresses a major issues of thermal paste: dryout and pump out. A short version, dryout happens when the fluid part of thermal paste (usually silicon grease) over time, while pump out happens from the thermal expansion/contraction of the heatsink and CPU IHS causing the heatsink to warp and push paste out. Since phase change material only liquifies under higher temperatures, it performs better but lasts significantly longer than thermal paste (on paper it's not as performant as liquid metal, but it doesn't differ as much and liquid metal has other issues, such as aging and, well, conductivity). It makes more sense for a laptop (Lenovo has been using PTM7950 in their Legion laptops since 2022) or for a computer where you know the person using it won't be maintaining it a lot, but it can improve performance relative to paste. Why do I include this part? Because I also reviewed the Gelid Heatphase and some reviews really show people do not understand what this is for. In terms of how much you're getting for a 40*80mm, the cut in the sheet is slightly smaller than the non-outer-edge area of an AM5 CPU's IHS (it is enough for an AM5 CPU). You can in theory "reuse this" by scraping it off with a plastic spudger and evenly applying the bits over the new CPU/GPU, I have done this before several times with PTM7950 (because this stuff is expensive), it doesn't seem to affect performance.Included is a kit to help you apply this. You don't really need it. Unlike most of the packaging that I've seen PTM7950 come out of, the plastic sheet (just like the Heatphase) comes off very easily. The included sticker pack will help out if you have trouble removing it either with a thin spudger or your fingernails. If your room temperature is pretty hot, you can put this thing in the fridge some time before applying it, since it does harden a bit when it's cold.Overall, this thing seems to be legit, or at least, it performs like it's legit. At the time of this review it's $16 w/ a 20% discount coupon, so not bad, but heaps more expensive than paste. If you're someone new to PC building, I would suggest going with a thermal paste because it's just easier to apply and is more economical, but if you recently heard of the phase change material bandwagon, or alternatively is building a PC for someone who doesn't maintain it much, this does seem to offer legitimate performance.

If you want it to be a little easier to handle when applying, get it cold first, put it in the fridge/freezer and that makes it so much easier to deal with. Awesome stuff, it's usually either on par with good pastes or better but once you put this on you can forget about it, no squishing out over time or going bad and hardening up in a year or two, this stuff will outlast whatever you use it on.