Noctua announces new thermal pad for AMD chips in partnership with Carbice — product will work with processors in AM5 and AM4 sockets

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Noctua is making its debut in the thermal pad market through a new partnership with experienced manufacturer Carbice. Noctua has announced it will be the exclusive distributor of Carbice pads for the retail market, starting with the NT-CP1 AM5/4 Carbice carbon nanotube thermal pad. Noctua will be presenting the NT-CP1 at Computex starting tomorrow and will launch the product in September.

As the name suggests, the new Noctua-branded thermal pad is optimized specifically for AM5 and AM4 AMD Ryzen CPUs, featuring a surface area that perfectly matches the IHS of CPUs that fit in both sockets.

The pad is made from carbon nanotubes that are designed to improve thermal conductivity over “hundreds and thousands of thermal cycles”. The carbon nanotubes achieve this by slowly conforming to the microscopic crevices of a CPU’s IHS. The pad is reinforced with an aluminum backbone that is sandwiched between the carbon nanotubes and protected on the surface with a nanoscale polymer coating.

Shot of the aluminum backbone sandwiched between the carbon nanotubes of the NT-CP1

Similar to outgoing thermal pads, the NT-CP1 is a maintenance-free solution that will last the lifetime of the CPU it is cooling. This is optimal for PC builders who want a permanent solution, unlike thermal paste, which typically needs to be replaced every three to five years. Thermal paste loses performance as it ages because repeated thermal cycles causes the paste to dry up.

The NT-CP1 represents the first thermal pad that Carbice is bringing to the DIY market. The company actively makes thermal pads for satellites, aerospace, and pre-built PCs (through a partnership with CyberPowerPC). It also recently announced a partnership with AMD, and is supplying its Ice Thermal Pad with the re-released Ryzen 7 5800X3D. Dr. Baratunde Cola, CEO of Carbice, notes that the company chose Noctua specifically to partner with due to the company’s widespread trust in the DIY community. Noctua will also assist Carbice in developing future thermal pads, suggesting that we could see an Intel version of the NT-CP1 in the future.