Thermal Paste TIER LIST?

[Nicklordzero]

Hello LTT Dwellers,

 

I was wondering if we have a list of the best thermal pastes out there? I've seen that we have a power supply tier list, but we never had any other tier listing before! Could we make one please?

[Zando_]

Unless you have someone who is an actual expert and a reasonable person at the same time, tier lists usually end up a clusterfuck. 

Just look at reviews of the different pastes, there's usually group reviews every few years from peeps like Tom's Hardware. It's usually only a few C difference though. Arctic Silver 5 is on the meh end of the spectrum and it's still fine, should have no issues with it. MX-4 is dependable, as is Noctua NT-H1 and H2. Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut is the best paste out that I know of, unless someone has made one better it'll still be on top. 

At the end of the day, so long as you've got decent paste from a reliable manufacturer you're fine. Specific paste choice is only an issue for extreme overclockers or people repasting laptops where even 2-3C gains are needed. 

[Nicklordzero]

2 minutes ago, Zando Bob said:

Unless you have someone who is an actual expert and a reasonable person at the same time, tier lists usually end up a clusterfuck. 

Just look at reviews of the different pastes, there's usually group reviews every few years from peeps like Tom's Hardware. It's usually only a few C difference though. Arctic Silver 5 is on the meh end of the spectrum and it's still fine, should have no issues with it. MX-4 is dependable, as is Noctua NT-H1 and H2. Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut is the best paste out that I know of, unless someone has made one better it'll still be on top. 

At the end of the day, so long as you've got decent paste from a reliable manufacturer you're fine. Specific paste choice is only an issue for extreme overclockers or people repasting laptops where even 2-3C gains are needed. 

Yeah i will never use Arctic Silver 5. That's like a really crappy paste these days yet i see people use it all the time. I just want to know whats best cause theirs so many new pastes on the market.

[Zando_]

Just now, Nicklordzero said:

Yeah i will never use Arctic Silver 5. That's like a really crappy paste these days yet i see people use it all the time. I just want to know whats best cause theirs so many new pastes on the market.

I mean, it works fine. It's an older paste but it lasts for ages and is really cheap. The difference between the top pastes and the shittiest ones is like 6C (Arctic Silver 5 is only 2.4C worse than Kryonaut):

The difference between Kryonaut and literal toothpaste is only 14C. If your CPU runs at 60C with kryonaut, fucking toothpaste will keep it at 74-75C, which is still plenty cool and won't harm the CPU at all. 

Full test with more mounting pressures and some GPU benches, as well as an explanation of thermal paste and all that:
https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/thermal-paste-comparison,5108.html

[PlayStation 2]

Most thermal pastes are within 5C of each other in temperatures. Unless you're at the full mercy of your CPU's temp limits, there's not much reason to be vastly concerned about your thermal paste selection.

[Nicklordzero]

On 9/4/2019 at 3:35 PM, Dan Castellaneta said:

Most thermal pastes are within 5C of each other in temperatures. Unless you're at the full mercy of your CPU's temp limits, there's not much reason to be vastly concerned about your thermal paste selection.

Nah, I just have my CPU Delid'd and using a EK Waterblock on my CPU & GPU. Was thinking about using KPX from Kingpin but it seems that their not the best on the list.