Should I change the thermal paste that is pre-applied to the Corsair H100i?

[Gabby2805]

I'm about to buy the Corsair H100i, its my first build and my first liquid cooling. I know it comes with thermal paste pre-applied and I'm not sure whether I should remove this and apply Arctic Cooling MX-4 instead?

Also, what is the best way to remove thermal compound and how often should you re-apply??

[bgibbz]

4 minutes ago, Gabby2805 said:

I'm about to buy the Corsair H100i, its my first build and my first liquid cooling. I know it comes with thermal paste pre-applied and I'm not sure whether I should remove this and apply Arctic Cooling MX-4 instead?

Also, what is the best way to remove thermal compound and how often should you re-apply??

it should be fine. I wouldn't change thermal paste unless your computer gets really dirty or something. 

 

Edit- if you want to remove it, cotton balls+ isopranol

[spartaman64]

probably wont make much of a difference but if you want to get a clean cloth and use isopropyl alcohol to clean off the thermal compound and probably like once every 5 years

[Uzukami]

The thermal paste on the H100i is perfectly fine you'll see no tangible gains switching it.

 

Id only ever reapply thermal paste if I started to see idle temps being unexpectedly high.

[OsuMasterz]

Just stick with the thermal paste on it if you don't have any. But you'll need to replace it later anyways, so get the thermal paste now if you want. Also, to clean thermal paste off, you need at least 90% isopropyl alcohol and a paper towel. You should replace the thermal paste at least every 9-12 months.

[Cela1]

1 minute ago, OsuMasterz said:

You should replace the thermal paste at least every 9-12 months.

Or not.

[OsuMasterz]

1 minute ago, Cela1 said:

Or not.

Well that's when my temps start to rise again....

[Cela1]

1 minute ago, OsuMasterz said:

Well that's when my temps start to rise again....

Hmmm strange.

[OsuMasterz]

1 minute ago, Cela1 said:

Hmmm strange.

Lets just hope my CPU is not frying thermal paste everyday...

[Clanscorpia]

Its fine, Someone did a compoarision and they were almost the same

[iiNNeX]

Yes you should imo, they put some cheap stuff on there as it is mass produced. GC Gelid Extreme or thermal grizzly kryonaut are the top 2 for the money unless you go Liquid Ultra but that is too much hassle.

[Suika]

22 minutes ago, iiNNeX said:

Yes you should imo, they put some cheap stuff on there as it is mass produced.

No they don't, last I read it was relatively quality stuff, a custom application would yield negligible results. The only reason to purchase thermal paste is to replace the existing application 12 months from now.

 

I personally reapply thermal paste every 6 months but because I clean my system often due to the dusty environment and my poor choice in case.

[iiNNeX]

4 minutes ago, Suika said:

No they don't, last I read it was relatively quality stuff, a custom application would yield negligible results. The only reason to purchase thermal paste is to replace it 12 months from now.

 

I personally reapply thermal paste every 6 months but because I clean my system often due to the dusty environment and my poor choice in case.

I've had a H100i, and a H110i GT along with a NZXT X61 and most recently an EK Predator 240.

 

All of them came with budget paste, especially surprising from EK. They had their: EK-TIM Ectotherm in there which is like 4 bucks per syringe. Now EK ships their CPU blocks with that paste for the low end models, then the GC Gelid Exteme which they partnered up with for the mid to high range models and then their own EK-TIM Indigo Xtreme for the Elite CPU blocks. 

 

Now I am not sure what exact paste Corsair uses for their AIOs, but I can bet you it's not going to be one of the top performers for sure as the likes of GC Gelid and the Kryonaut cost 1/6th of the unit, so that wouldn't be profitable for them. I do not remember the gains on H100i from changing paste, but I know it was a good amount as I had noise problems with the SP120s on there ramping up. The EK paste I changed from the Predator, I saw a gain of roughly 3C at full load which is a lot imo, especially if you are pushing your hadware to the limit. That gap further widened after the paste settled in after after a few weeks to around 5C.