Polartherm X-10 & X-8 Review – Surprisingly Good!

You probably haven’t heard of Polartherm before, and that’s because this German-based brand is very new in the scene. Well, sort of: you see, this company – which currently specializes in thermal pastes – isn’t exactly a no-name brand that popped out of nowhere; looking at the legal disclosure on its website and you’ll find two familiar names: Thermal Grizzly, and its owner, Roman Hartung (that’s ‘der8auer’ himself).

So what’s the deal with the company renowned for extreme overclocking solutions spinning off a new brand for thermal paste products? Polartherm pitches itself as “an affordable and high quality alternative” to the factory pre-applied thermal pastes of budget CPU coolers; in other words, you’re looking at the brand focusing on the mainstream market. It’s product lineup currently consists of just two products, the X-10 and the X-8, and we’re taking a look at both in this review.

Unboxing

The Polartherm X-10 and Polartherm X-8 are both very similar products, both packed into a small packaging; you have four capacities available to choose from, starting from 2g (good for 3-4 uses) to 40g (70-80 uses). Both models we have here comes in 5g capacities. For reference, the X-10 is the higher-end model, while the X-8 is the lower-end model – the company officially designates the former for CPUs over 65W TDP, while the latter is for CPUs less than that figure.

Accessories given are the same – you get the thermal paste sealed with screw caps, along with a spreader, and an alternative applicator that ensures the paste are evenly spread from the get go. Oddly, both lack the rubbing alcohol for thermal paste removal, so you’ll have to bring your own.

On the surface, both models have the same gray-colored, silicon-based viscous liquid. While the spec sheet didn’t specify the viscosity, we did observe the X-8 behaving more liquid than the X-10 in comparison.

Specifications

Click here for datasheet: Polartherm X-10, Polartherm X-8

Polartherm X-10 (5g, PT-X10-005)

Color	Gray
Operating Temperatures	-50°C to +150°C
Viscosity	Unspecified
Density	2.6g/cm³
Volume / Weight	2g 5g – As tested 10g 40g

Polartherm X-8 (5g, PT-X8-005)

Color	Gray
Operating Temperatures	-50°C to +150°C
Viscosity	Unspecified
Density	2.6g/cm³
Volume / Weight	2g 5g – As tested 10g 40g

Test System

CPU	Intel Core i9-13900K
Cooling	Cooler Master MasterLiquid PL360 Flux 30th Anniversary Edition > Polartherm X-10 > Polartherm X-8
Motherboard	ASUS ROG Maximus Z790 Apex
GPU	NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti Founders Edition
Memory	AGi UD858 DDR5 TURBOJET RGB (DDR5-6800 CL34, 2x16GB)
Storage	ADATA LEGEND 960 MAX 1TB
Power Supply	GameMax Rampage GX-1050 PRO (ATX 3.1) 1050W
Case	VECTOR Bench Case (Open-air chassis)
Operating System	Windows 11 Home 24H2

Thermals

Here’s the surprising bit: it looks like both Polartherm products ended up leading the thermal performance comparison in all of the models we’ve tested thus far, and the X-8 sees virtually no difference against the supposed more performant X-10. Both models lead the current-best, the Cooler Master MasterGel Maker, by 1°C on average.

Verdict

For that kind of performance, Polartherm isn’t even asking for a whole lot either. You can have the 5g version of the X-10 with just RM30, while the X-8 can be had for RM25; 2g versions go even cheaper, as low as just RM15. Outside of extreme overclocking that requires super low temperatures, these two thermal pastes can deal with heat transfer perfectly fine. The only downside? You’ll have to bring your own cleaning tools if you have to clean up whatever’s left from your previous paste application, but other than that – great value!

Special thanks to Polartherm local distributor Sun Cycle Sdn Bhd for providing the X-10 and X-8 thermal paste for this review.