Intel stock cooler cleaning and repasting (thermal grizzly paste or not?)

[tautvydas]

ever since i got my pc (prebuilt) i never bothered to change thermal paste, and it seems i cant really avoid it anymore.

watched a few videos and it seems pretty straight forward how to remove the cpu heat-sink (intel stock) on my i5-4690 unless anyone has any tips from experience that could be useful and are not shown in the videos ? but cant just figure out what thermal paste i should go for. Since i watch gamersnexus i kinda got engraved thermal grizzly thermal pastes in my mind (from some quick googling they seem to be delivering), and was wondering if the 1g tube of it is worth it, or is there a decent alternative for it, like i saw mentions of Arctic MX-4, while the price diffrence is like few euros (though 4g vs 1g packages). And i'm hoping for one time replacement untill i get my new setup (god i wonder how many years that will take because of the crazy prices), meaning how is longevity of the thermal grizzly pastes (anyone from experience of 3-5 years in use)? aeronaut is the only one with "long lasting" marketing on its page, while hydro and kryo seem to perfrom better

[Demonic Donut]

You likely won't notice a difference between any decent thermal paste. Noctua NH-2, kryonaut, hydronaut, MX-4 or MX-5 etc. Just get a name brand one.

 

How are your temps? A $20 aftermarket cooler would be a good upgrade considering they usually come with pre applied paste and will outperform the stock cooler if temps or noise are a concern.

 

Just don't use Conductonaut because your cooler is aluminum.

 

*Edit* most pastes last years. I had NH-1 on my old it 3570 for 4 ish years and it never degraded. If you don't remove the cooler it should be fine. I only repaste when I deep clean my systems every year or two and actually remove the coolers and wash them etc. I like to wash them because I've noticed build up of oils etc on tth coolers from (I'm assuming) pet dander.

 

[tautvydas]

5 minutes ago, Demonic Donut said:

You likely won't notice a difference between any decent thermal paste. Noctua NH-2, kryonaut, hydronaut, MX-4 or MX-5 etc. Just get a name brand one.

 

How are your temps? A $20 aftermarket cooler would be a good upgrade considering they usually come with pre applied paste and will outperform the stock cooler if temps or noise are a concern.

 

Just don't use Conductonaut because your cooler is aluminum.

 

*Edit* most pastes last years. I had NH-1 on my old it 3570 for 4 ish years and it never degraded. If you don't remove the cooler it should be fine. I only repaste when I deep clean my systems every year or two and actually remove the coolers and wash them etc. I like to wash them because I've noticed build up of oils etc on tth coolers from (I'm assuming) pet dander.

 

my temps are getting worse over time, and thermal paste is the only thing i can think of that i haven't kinda changed. used to be that i would just dust my pc once a year maybe even less, but with the years going dusting seems to be helping less and less and they becoming more frequent.

case didn't had a case fan when i bought it, installing one helped for a bit but its not that effective again. for a while now i artificially limited my cpu performance using windows power plan, setting my CPU at 80% 75% (in summer) to reduce heat, learned to do that when i noticed when random spikes to turbo boost when browsing so that 99% limiter to disable boost slowly turned into 80%. well for my use cases it has no affect so i dont really care that much (gpu is the biggest drawback in the system anyway)

still for now i think re-pasting is all that i will stick with since case is small and cant fit 212 or sytche coolers that i was eyeballing for new build. oh and temps are hitting 70's if push it, while it might be "within spec" i dont like it getting there, 65 is what i aim for since that's what i used to hit with new system with turbo enabled.

[maremp]

18 minutes ago, tautvydas said:

Since i watch gamersnexus i kinda got engraved thermal grizzly thermal pastes in my mind (from some quick googling they seem to be delivering)

Sure they are delivering, but that only matters when you already have a top notch cooler. It's just marketing.

 

1% improvement with a crap cooler doesn't mean anything. It's like putting sports tyres on a old car to make it go faster; it won't.

 

You're better of putting in the money towards a better cooler, most come with the paste in the box and that will do the job just fine. A decent $20 cooler like @Demonic Donut suggested will handle anything that i5-4690 can throw at it, even with the shittiest paste. 

 

Don't spend time pondering over the 1% improvements.

[Demonic Donut]

What cooler height can you fit?

[tautvydas]

3 hours ago, Demonic Donut said:

What cooler height can you fit?

no clue, case in the prebuilt was a case PSU combo (whitch died literaly 3 days after ita warranty period). its  havana something that had no real info on its product page, and now i cant even find that anymore.

[Demonic Donut]

6 hours ago, tautvydas said:

no clue, case in the prebuilt was a case PSU combo (whitch died literaly 3 days after ita warranty period). its  havana something that had no real info on its product page, and now i cant even find that anymore.

You can measure from the CPU to the edge of the case and find the rough height you could use. There aren't as many good, cheap options for small form factor though. You're looking at closer to $40 for something good.

[WoodenMarker]

On 1/30/2022 at 1:51 PM, tautvydas said:

still for now i think re-pasting is all that i will stick with since case is small and cant fit 212 or sytche coolers that i was eyeballing for new build. oh and temps are hitting 70's if push it, while it might be "within spec" i dont like it getting there, 65 is what i aim for since that's what i used to hit with new system with turbo enabled.

Below 80c at load is already good and lowering temps any further has little to no practical benefit.