Post delid compound choice

[porina]

I delidded a 6700k in November, which had very different core temps before that. I applied Noctua compound in place of the stuff Intel had, put it back together and temps were improved. All was well. Tonight I was switching from a lower stress compute application to a higher one, and it rebooted. On checking temps, I saw 24C difference between coolest and hottest cores. The old problem had come back. Took it apart again, and the compound pattern seemed ok. Any ideas? I'm thinking if a thicker one might hold better?

 

I should add, I'm only looking at ordinary non-conductive compounds. I'm not considering liquid metal ones.

[ARikozuM]

Kryonaut. Getting the best TIM is important for delids.

[tomaatvk]

When you say the compound pattern seemed ok, do you mean that the whole, and I mean the whole, die is covered in thermalpaste or that it is kinda spread over it. If not every mm² of the die is covered in thermalpaste you are asking for problems.

 

If I were you I would actually consider the coollaboratory liquid ultra. I know you said that you aren't considering them, but it has quite a bit of difference vs thermalpaste like arctic mx-4. I tried both on my old 3770k@4.9GHz and I noticed a 5(!!!)°C difference just by getting a different thermalpaste and the spread on the arctic mx-4 was good. You could ofcourse go for stuff like kryonaut as suggested above or the classics like arctic mx-4 (which worked perfectly druing the time I used it, it just couldn't compete with a specialty product and I really wanted the best) or arctic silver 5 (don't have experience with this one though).

[porina]

3 minutes ago, tomaatvk said:

When you say the compound pattern seemed ok, do you mean that the whole, and I mean the whole, die is covered in thermalpaste or that it is kinda spread over it. If not every mm² of the die is covered in thermalpaste you are asking for problems.

Yes, the entire die was covered. I usually apply to excess and it could be seen where the excess had gone. 

 

I went with the Noctua compound as one I had around already, and in comparisons it might not be the highest performer but it was in the upper ranks.

 

Also I should add, I'm not a hard core overclocker. With this particular sample I had excessive core variation leading to instability I don't see with my other two running at same speed and voltage. The first delid did resolve that, but it seems long term stability wasn't there as it was only about 2 months ago.

[Doramius]

I tend to use ceramic ones.  They are usually thicker and non-conductive.  My temps come in pretty low, too.  Some are priced pretty good, while some can get expensive.  Arctic Silver Ceramique is priced pretty good, but haven't compared temps in a long time to some of the other ones on the market.

[tomaatvk]

2 minutes ago, porina said:

Yes, the entire die was covered. I usually apply to excess and it could be seen where the excess had gone. 

 

I went with the Noctua compound as one I had around already, and in comparisons it might not be the highest performer but it was in the upper ranks.

 

Also I should add, I'm not a hard core overclocker. With this particular sample I had excessive core variation leading to instability I don't see with my other two running at same speed and voltage. The first delid did resolve that, but it seems long term stability wasn't there as it was only about 2 months ago.

If you just want stability I could recomend MX-4 thermalpaste all day every day. You just have to apply it once and just let it sit for years on end (though I only used it for ~6 months). The same goes for the coollaboratory liquid ultra, but if you are just planning on improving stability it is way to expensive. I must say though, that same 3770k is still running with the original layer of coollaboratory thermalpaste in someone else's setpu and it has been running cool (max 85°C on air during summer) at 4.9GHz for about 1.5 year now.

[porina]

1 minute ago, tomaatvk said:

If you just want stability I could recomend MX-4 thermalpaste all day every day. You just have to apply it once and just let it sit for years on end (though I only used it for ~6 months). The same goes for the coollaboratory liquid ultra, but if you are just planning on improving stability it is way to expensive. I must say though, that same 3770k is still running with the original layer of coollaboratory thermalpaste in someone else's setpu and it has been running cool (max 85°C on air during summer) at 4.9GHz for about 1.5 year now.

I had a poke through my bits bin and found an old syringe of MX-2... quick look around it is similar if not as high performance as MX-4. Think I'll give that a go as what I have on hand.

[porina]

MX-2 applied and testing now. The spread has gone down, only 4C different between coolest and hottest core, and it is a different pair.

[dexT]

1 hour ago, ARikozuM said:

Kryonaut. Getting the best TIM is important for delids.

 

Yep or Conductonaut from Thermal Grizzly. Phobya LM is great as well. I see he wants non-conductive though.