# ID-Cooling Frost X45

- Source: https://stierproducts.com/products/id-cooling-frost-x45
- Category board: https://stierproducts.com/categories/thermal-paste
- Placement: #2 of 15 in Thermal Paste, S tier
- Brand: ID-Cooling
- LP on this board: 880
- Last researched: 2026-09-23T18:17:59.546Z
- Method: https://stierproducts.com/methodology
- Dataset: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22062813 - every board at once, one dated snapshot per release, same licence, prices and photographs left out
- Reuse: Text, rankings, tier assignments, LP values and verdicts are free to quote and reuse with attribution to stierproducts and a link to the source URL (CC BY 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Product photographs are not covered: they belong to their respective owners and are reproduced to illustrate the product being reviewed. Do not redistribute them under this licence.

## Verdict

Tom's Hardware's hands-down best tested performer and one of the cheapest here, held back under this lens only by a young longevity record compared with the established brands.

## For

- Tom's Hardware's hands-down best-performing paste tested on their air cooling system
- One of the cheapest options in the field
- Strongest raw performance of the current test cycle
- One of the cheapest pastes in Tom's Hardware's 90-paste test
- Best-performing paste on an air-cooled system according to a 90-compound test

## Against

- Longevity record is young compared with Arctic's and Noctua's
- Multi-year degradation data is thinner than Arctic's or Noctua's

## Evidence

Consolidated from 2 independent outlets

| Outlet | Said by | Stance | Link | Link status |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Beebom | Arjun Sha | B | https://beebom.com/best-thermal-pastes/ | fetched and confirmed |
| BargnSeek | Alfi | B | https://bjkmr.com/computer-components/best-non-overclocking-processor-for-the-money/ | fetched and confirmed |

## Nearest alternatives on this board

| Rank | Product | Tier | Page |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | ARCTIC MX-6 | S | https://stierproducts.com/products/arctic-mx-6 |
| 3 | ARCTIC MX-7 | A | https://stierproducts.com/products/arctic-mx-7 |
| 4 | Thermal Grizzly Duronaut | A | https://stierproducts.com/products/thermal-grizzly-duronaut |
| 5 | Noctua NT-H2 | B | https://stierproducts.com/products/noctua-nt-h2 |
| 6 | Thermal Grizzly Phasesheet | C | https://stierproducts.com/products/thermal-grizzly-phasesheet |
| 7 | ARCTIC MX-4 | C | https://stierproducts.com/products/arctic-mx-4 |
| 12 | Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut | F | https://stierproducts.com/products/thermal-grizzly-kryonaut |
| 13 | Corsair TM30 | F | https://stierproducts.com/products/corsair-tm30 |
| 14 | Innovation Cooling Graphite Thermal Pad | F | https://stierproducts.com/products/innovation-cooling-graphite-thermal-pad |
| 15 | Thermal Grizzly Conductonaut | F | https://stierproducts.com/products/thermal-grizzly-conductonaut |

The full board is at https://stierproducts.com/categories/thermal-paste.

## What this tier means

- S: Exceptional. Finishes top run after run; capped at 3 slots per category.

## How to read this

- Each category is researched in four independent runs, one per lens (expert consensus, value, reliability, community pulse). Every run ranks a board of candidates that deliberately includes products buyers cross-shop but should avoid. Placements score on a ranked ladder (LP), and tiers are derived from LP, so no tier is ever assigned by hand.
- LP is this product's points on its own category ladder. It is comparable within a category and not across categories.
- Link status reports what our pre-publication link check found when it fetched the cited URL. It says nothing about the quality of the review.
- A citation with no usable link is listed rather than dropped, and is excluded from the counted total above.

## Image

https://stspimgdevmfyk46r5vwkay.blob.core.windows.net/images/products/id-cooling-frost-x45.webp

Product photographs are not covered: they belong to their respective owners and are reproduced to illustrate the product being reviewed. Do not redistribute them under this licence.