River sand has generally used for the backfill material of underground power cables. The thermal resistivity of it has $150^{circ}C$-cm/Watt in wet condition and more than double in dry condition. The final goal of this study is to find the backfill material which has a small change in thermal resistivity with various water contents, for example thermal resistivity is $50^{circ}C$-cm/Watt and $100^{circ}C$-cm/Watt in wet and dry conditions respectively. In this study it is presented that the comparison of thermal resistivity using stone powder, crush rock, weathered granite soil and Jumunjin sand as well as river sand in the needle method regarding water content, dry unit weight and particle size distribution. As a result, the thermal resistivity of a material is minimized when they have maximum dry unit weight at optimum moisture content and maximum density by appropriately mixing materials for particle size distribution. Therefore thermal resistivity characteristics should be considered two factors: one is the difference between natural dry condition and dry state after optimum moisture content, and the other is the difference between unit weight of raw material and maximum dry density.