Originally Posted by
HiTempguy1
Tread design has two goals, noise and clearing the tread.
A swept pattern clears the tread better, and because the pattern is always changing, the vibration from the tire is minimized.
For pure forward and braking traction, blocks are the way to go (the left).
Look at offroad race tires for clues. Essentially in soft road conditions (gravel, mud, snow) you want as many hard edges as possible perpendicular to the direction of travel. This gives you maximum mechanical grip advantage.
Compounds play a large part in ice grip, but studs are mostly superior.
I say MOSTLY, as studs are designed to create precise holes in ice. These are most effective when the ice is soft (above -20*c).
In THEORY, there is the technical possibility on pure ice, no snow, that a sufficiently soft non-studded tire could have better grip than a studded tire. The reasoning for this is as the stud punctures the very cold, brittle ice (ice gets more brittle the colder it gets), the hole that is created fractures the ice around it, so the stud no longer is penetrating a solid surface.
Edit-
Another important point to remember, I highly recommend against factory studded tires. They are garbage. To reduce noise, the manufacturers purposefully undersize the studs. Nokian is notorious for this, I actually had to laugh at one of the factory rally teams because they bought factory studded Nokians in Alberta (studded tire availability in BC is low on the coast).
When I picked them up for them, I had a chuckle. I've specialized for years in optimal stud and tire cutting techniques for our type of racing, had a lot of phone calls when the national ruleset changed because I was a vocal critic of the non-studded (and insanely expensive) winter tires others were running.
Because businesses are interested in making money, not necessarily on providing you the absolute best solution. Especially when, as a customer, all that matters is the end result meets your expectations. And businesses make claims all the time (this is my best seller) when it may not be... Or the tire sells well because the price/performance ratio is good.
OP asked for the best. The best will be the blockiest, softest tread with good siping and studs that aren't rinky dink like Nokian factory teenie studs.