Cooler Master's TIM application is a work of art — firm paints CPU's IHS with a gamut of six CryoFuze 5 thermal paste colors

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It's beautiful, though cooling practicality is a bit questionable.

Cooler Master's gamut of CryoFuze Thermal Paste options in the form of an on-CPU painting.
Cooler Master's gamut of CryoFuze Thermal Paste options in the form of an on-CPU painting. (Image credit: Cooler Master)

Yesterday on X, Cooler Master opted to show off its latest CryoFuze 5 thermal paste series by using all six available colors to plant a landscape on an existing 13th Gen Intel CPU and Gigabyte Z790 Aorus Master motherboard.

There was some controversy around a machine error translation that made people think the product was named "Cooler Master CryoFuze 5 AI thermal paste" when, in fact, the original text was saying the nano-diamond thermal paste should be good enough for high-power CPUs with onboard NPUs.

The six colors used to create the painting above can also be pictured below in more reasonable pea-shaped sizes. These colors are red, blue, yellow, white, green, and black. And, of course, neither the thermal paste configuration recorded above nor the one pictured below should be considered a practical use case for a single CPU—colored thermal paste, in general, is just a tiny frill on an otherwise standard, near-invisible part of everyday PC building.

(Image credit: Cooler Master)

While both of the thermal paste configurations highlighted by Cooler Master for its CryoFuze 5 thermal paste are fairly cool-looking (no pun intended), we want to take a moment to remind users of the proper way how to apply thermal paste to your CPU. 

Typically, the proper way to do this is to squeeze out an amount akin to a pea on most CPUs or even multiple "grains of rice" in a grid formation on larger processors. While you need thermal paste or other TIM (thermal interface material) to cover the whole CPU, you also want it to be evenly distributed and a thin layer that transfers heat as directly as possible. Too much or unevenly applied paste can cause thermal issues with your CPU.

Even so, it's still pretty amusing to see Cooler Master take its super high-performance CryoFuze 5 thermal paste and different coloring variations this far. On paper, the thermal paste has what it takes to rival the best thermal pastes on the market, though, of course, it doesn't compare to something like liquid metal TIM (though using that comes with much heavier risks than standard thermal paste).

Christopher Harper
Christopher Harper
Contributing Writer

Christopher Harper has been a successful freelance tech writer specializing in PC hardware and gaming since 2015, and ghostwrote for various B2B clients in High School before that. Outside of work, Christopher is best known to friends and rivals as an active competitive player in various eSports (particularly fighting games and arena shooters) and a purveyor of music ranging from Jimi Hendrix to Killer Mike to the Sonic Adventure 2 soundtrack.

5 Comments Comment from the forums
  • Amdlova
    This is so nice. Now put the heat sink on that socket and will have a meteor lake. The socket will bulge for your thermal madness
    Reply
  • Eximo
    I like that they are trying to keep this in the media because sales are presumably non-existent. Still don't understand what they were thinking.
    Reply
  • 8086
    Happy Little CPUs.
    BOB ROSS Approved.
    Reply
  • vanadiel007
    I am not sure if I understand the importance of the coloring, as the CPU heat sink will cover up the view 100%.

    Or is this a scheme to increases pricing on the non-colored TIM's and sell the colored ones at the same price, giving you the choice between color or no color at no extra cost?
    Reply
  • Eximo
    vanadiel007 said:
    I am not sure if I understand the importance of the coloring, as the CPU heat sink will cover up the view 100%.

    Or is this a scheme to increases pricing on the non-colored TIM's and sell the colored ones at the same price, giving you the choice between color or no color at no extra cost?

    It remains a mystery.

    My only thought is they are trying to cater to people who create marketing and stock images. There are thousands of stock images of thermal paste application, 99% with grey paste.
    Reply