Arctic Silver, Corsair TM30, Thermalright TF4, out of those what is better?

[atxcyclist]

I am putting together a 2700x machine and bought a Thermalright Assassin X120 which came with the TF4, but I have the other two pastes sitting around. Any reason not to just go with the included stuff? I’m an old fart and have been using Arctic Silver for maybe 20 years now, but I know improvements have been made to thermal compounds since then.

[LIGISTX]

10 minutes ago, atxcyclist said:

I am putting together a 2700x machine and bought a Thermalright Assassin X120 which came with the TF4, but I have the other two pastes sitting around. Any reason not to just go with the included stuff? I’m an old fart and have been using Arctic Silver for maybe 20 years now, but I know improvements have been made to thermal compounds since then.

I am also a sucker for Arctic silver, but realistically it won’t matter at all. I use thermal grizzly now for my own builds, but still have AC laying around for when I need it randomly. 

[freeagent]

AS5 is still good. I would try the TF4 it came with. Spread it nice and thin and you should be good to go 

[OhioYJ]

I also actually like Arctic Silver. I pretty much keep that and Kryonaut on hand.  I use Kryonaut on pretty much all my stuff, and anything expensive. Anything else gets Artic Silver. I know personally I get better results out of Arctic Silver than a lot of newer stuff, despite what some of the tests say. I threw out some Noctua NT-H1, as  it really was kind of poor performing comparatively, and I tried a couple times. (Again just my experience). 

[SorryBella]

56 minutes ago, atxcyclist said:

I am putting together a 2700x machine and bought a Thermalright Assassin X120 which came with the TF4, but I have the other two pastes sitting around. Any reason not to just go with the included stuff? I’m an old fart and have been using Arctic Silver for maybe 20 years now, but I know improvements have been made to thermal compounds since then.

The only reason Arctic Silver has been a bane of existence is that its conductive. It still holds up well, thermal paste tech hasnt moved massively.

[OhioYJ]

17 minutes ago, SorryClaire said:

The only reason Arctic Silver has been a bane of existence is that its conductive. 

We are all talking about Arctic Silver 5 right?

 

Artic Silver 5 Specification Page:

 

Quote

Not Electrically Conductive:

Arctic Silver 5 was formulated to conduct heat, not electricity.

(While much safer than electrically conductive silver and copper greases, Arctic Silver 5 should be kept away from electrical traces, pins, and leads. While it is not electrically conductive, the compound is very slightly capacitive and could potentially cause problems if it bridges two close-proximity electrical paths.)

 

[SorryBella]

1 minute ago, OhioYJ said:

Not Electrically Conductive:

Arctic Silver 5 was formulated to conduct heat, not electricity.

(While much safer than electrically conductive silver and copper greases, Arctic Silver 5 should be kept away from electrical traces, pins, and leads. While it is not electrically conductive, the compound is very slightly capacitive and could potentially cause problems if it bridges two close-proximity electrical paths.)

Yeah, i forgot that both of those terms are completely different thing. Conductivity is the ability for it to directly deliver elecricity while Capacity is the ability for it to store. But yeah my point still stands, it has smaller error window.

[atxcyclist]

2 hours ago, freeagent said:

AS5 is still good. I would try the TF4 it came with. Spread it nice and thin and you should be good to go 

I like the TF4, it actually spreads well with my old standard guitar pick that I have used for years. I’m actually pretty happy with this cooler too, the mounting is way better than the slew of Hyper 212 variants I’ve been using.

 

And just to spice the post up, a picture of my spread because I know people love talking about that: