Thermal paste

[IKNOWIMBOSS]

Should I use the thermal paste I bought (Arctic silver 5) or the paste that I got with my NH-D15 (NT-H1).

[GreezyJeezy]

artic 

[W-L]

5 minutes ago, IKNOWIMBOSS said:

Should I use the thermal paste I bought (Arctic silver 5) or the paste that I got with my NH-D15 (NT-H1).

Both are good thermal pastes personally I would go for the Noctua stuff as the Arctic Silver 5 does have a 200 hour cure time until optimal qualities. 

[Guest]

Isn't the artic semi conductive or whatever? 

[W-L]

1 minute ago, CaptainGunny said:

Isn't the artic semi conductive or whatever? 

No it's non conductive even though it does contain silver content:

http://www.arcticsilver.com/as5.htm

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.)

 

[-rascal-]

I would go with the NT-H1 out of the two.

 

I have been a sworn Arctic Silver 5 user for years; it was only until recently I have switched.

AS5 is old, tried and trued thermal paste, but it's old...the newer thermal pastes comes with improved technology, and performs a bit better. Plus, there is no "cure time" with a majority of the new pastes.

 

(I have moved over to Antec Formula 7, and Arctic Cooling MX-4 since moving away from AS5)

[Vivilacqua1]

18 minutes ago, -rascal- said:

I would go with the NT-H1 out of the two.

 

I have been a sworn Arctic Silver 5 user for years; it was only until recently I have switched.

AS5 is old, tried and trued thermal paste, but it's old...the newer thermal pastes comes with improved technology, and performs a bit better. Plus, there is no "cure time" with a majority of the new pastes.

 

(I have moved over to Antec Formula 7, and Arctic Cooling MX-4 since moving away from AS5)

Whoo, Antec Formula 7 pal.

 

its all they sell at my local Bestbuy

[CtrlAltELITE]

Ive been using NT-H1 on my last couple of builds and it is great. Personally I just couldnt risk AS5 on my laptop as I had read that it was semi-conductive (although a previous post appears to disagree) & the curing time really wouldnt suit my application which already has extremely bad thermals.

 

As for the performance of the NT-H1. My only benchmark would be my stock clock i3 which I changed from Arctic MX-4 to NT-H1 when I recased it. Noticed no difference in temps. Also my laptop where it replaced the cat piss that gigabyte uses, I noticed a good ~10% improvement in thermals. Imo any of the high end brands will do a pretty much identical job unless you are on the extreme end of cooling requiring sub-room temp thermals where more specialised pastes are required.

[-rascal-]

12 minutes ago, Vivilacqua1 said:

Whoo, Antec Formula 7 pal.

 

its all they sell at my local Bestbuy

The stuff is THICK thermal paste, but performs quite well.

The MX-4 is nearly neck-to-neck with it in performance, but easier to apply...

[givegomezthegun]

The difference between most thermal pastes is a degree or 2... and often within any error margin.  You'll see a significant difference between the absolute best and the absolute worst.. but otherwise it's nothing that's going to make or break your cooling setup.. and if it is, you might need to look into better cooling

[Lays]

NTH-1 is better IMHO, use that.

 

5 hours ago, givegomezthegun said:

The difference between most thermal pastes is a degree or 2... and often within any error margin.  You'll see a significant difference between the absolute best and the absolute worst.. but otherwise it's nothing that's going to make or break your cooling setup.. and if it is, you might need to look into better cooling

It depends on the use case scenario for pastes though, some are better for certain use cases, although those cases do not apply to this thread. (Subzero temperature use, some pastes will freeze up and have problems at certain temperatures, while others won't.)

[givegomezthegun]

14 hours ago, Lays said:

NTH-1 is better IMHO, use that.

 

It depends on the use case scenario for pastes though, some are better for certain use cases, although those cases do not apply to this thread. (Subzero temperature use, some pastes will freeze up and have problems at certain temperatures, while others won't.)

Maybe, but somebody facing a scenario like that wouldn't be asking about which one to use(I would hope anyway)...