Which thermal paste to buy?

[Kaiiid]

I need one which isn't too expensive.

[UrbanFreestyle]

I wouldnt worry too much about brand as most are within a degree or two of eachother.

Personally i use ARCTIC MX-4.

[Tadej Danev]

Are you in hurry?  MX-2/MX-4

 

If not, cheap and very good this: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32967354006.html?spm=a2g0s.9042311.0.0.7d074c4dUCFdJ8

 

 

[Necrovarius]

To this day I still Use Arctic Silver 5. Like 6 bucks for a small tube.

[shaz2sxy]

Arctic MX4

[porina]

Another vote for MX-4 here. Using it as my main paste for a long time. It also comes in bigger tubes that work out much better value if you do a lot of systems or reapplications.

[UrbanFreestyle]

I bought one syringe of the 2019 version and did 3 GPU and 2 applications on CPU with some spare

 

[SPARTAN VI]

IC Diamond 24ct or Gelid GC-Extreme. IIRC, these two usually lead the pack before you start getting into liquid metal territory. I'd have to acknowledge the value of the Gelid kit because they include a spatula to help spead out the paste, though I think IC Diamond 24ct often edges it out. I have both in my kit, along with Arctic Silver 5. In reality, they're all so close to each other that I wouldn't be surprised if the margin-of-error reshuffled the stack: 

 

[Mooshi]

Honestly anything above mayo is decent these days. When you buy a decent cooler, you're not getting any big gains with aftermarket if it isn't liquid metal. 

 

For standard paste, Noctuas stuff has been the easiest to work with for me.

[Nine Tailed Fox]

IC Graphite thermal pad

 

[RejZoR]

I personally like CoolerMaster Maker Nano. I got great results and it's really nice to apply (I'm using a cover whole chip or IHS with the paste method). MX4 is still relatively good even after all these years of existence as temperature differences are like within 1-2°C until you come to liquid metals where it's 4°C. But I wasn't impressed with liquid metals at all. It stained all my copper bits in a really horrible way, stained the IHS in a really horrible way and temps weren't really that great compared to Maker Nano. And I had issues with GPU for some reason which were gone when I applied regular paste. And I'm 1000% sure I wasn't shorting anything with it because I protected all the bits with regular thermal paste for this very reason.

[Automobili3XF]

I have 3 that i use quite regularly on builds.

1- Cooler Master Mastergel Maker Nano (my favorite)

2- Arctic Silver 5

3- Arctic MX-4