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Thermal paste questions

Andrew Storlie
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Ok so kinda odd question that i cant seem to find answers on ANYWHERE.... for thermal compounds what is the best, cost not a factor.

I currently use artic mx-2...

But i was looking at IC diamond, coollabratory liquid metal, gelid gc extreme...

So whats the difference, i know the coollabratory is conductive so i probably wont use that... but stuff like IC diamond i wouldnt mind using on my cpu and gpus when i water cool them

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Theres literally no difference lmao...

Good quality paste is good quality paste, brand does not matter as long as its a trusted one.

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doesnt matter who does the reviews, testing or anything.. the noctua one is always near the tops no matter what kind of testing is done. as an added bonus its just really easy to work with unlike some other funky ones. 

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the best are the liquid metal from coolaboratory

they are difficult to apply and dangerous cause it can kill your mobo/CPU

but they have a big difference compared to regular thermal pastes

 

the best "regular" thermal pastes are NT-H1 and MX-4

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If you're after the best for the CPU, Indigo Extreme is ranked number #1. The stuff isn't cheap and is like 20 dollar for 2 applications. Really not recommended unless you have a crazy water cooling set-up and want to go balls to the wall.

 

For everything else, it's really a 1-3c diff with some of the cost not being worth it. A good well applied TIM will out perform the very best if applied bad. In terms of good temps and easy to apply, the Noctua stuff is my personal fav.

 

 

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Ok so kinda odd question that i cant seem to find answers on ANYWHERE.... for thermal compounds what is the best, cost not a factor.

I currently use artic mx-2...

But i was looking at IC diamond, coollabratory liquid metal, gelid gc extreme...

So whats the difference, i know the coollabratory is conductive so i probably wont use that... but stuff like IC diamond i wouldnt mind using on my cpu and gpus when i water cool them

CLM (and all liquid metal type's) are generally much better than other pastes, if and ONLY if delidding is done to the cpu.

 

I personally would never use IC diamond because scratching the shit out of my cpu/gpu and not even getting better cooling out of it isn't cool to me.

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CLM (and all liquid metal type's) are generally much better than other pastes, if and ONLY if delidding is done to the cpu.

 

I personally would never use IC diamond because scratching the shit out of my cpu/gpu and not even getting better cooling out of it isn't cool to me.

Any kind of scratches that something like that would do would be barely noticeable...thats assuming they are even noticable with the naked eye. 

Hell the whole point of termal paste is to fill in scratches on both surfaces for better heat transfer

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Any kind of scratches that something like that would do would be barely noticeable...thats assuming they are even noticable with the naked eye. 

Hell the whole point of termal paste is to fill in scratches on both surfaces for better heat transfer

They are EXTREMELY noticeable. It obviously doesn't matter for using it again later, but visually it's insanely evident.

 

I used it once and threw it out. Not better than other cheaper ones, and seeing that damage (even if its only superficial) really grinds my gear.

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I've been using some white thermal paste for years now.

It's the kind most commonly used in electronics, but it seems to do its job pretty well on CPUs and GPUs. Wouldn't recommend using it unless you know what you're doing and you know the TIM's limits and shortcomings.

Sticking to consecrated branded TIMs is recommended since you know what you get

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Noctua NT-H1 is good and affordable (unlike other Noctua products), but pretty much everything from a reputable brand will do the job excellently, with little or no discernable difference between them.

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I just wouldn't buy those 99p ones off ebay :P May as well use blutak instead. 

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This video is a couple years old, but it might help shed some light on actual performance differences between compounds.

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This video is a couple years old, but it might help shed some light on actual performance differences between compounds.

 

I never quite understood why they were using an Intel CPU for that test, and why other thermal paste tests do the same thing. Surely the higher TDP of AMD processors makes them more ideal for this kind of test, as it would make the differences between thermal compounds easier to spot, and lessen the relative size of the margin of error...

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