Best thermal paste?

[Soujiro89]

Went to the local PC and grabbed an EVGA Frostbite, though I’m not sure if it’s the best option.

 

My build is:

Processor: i8700k

Cooler: Deepcool Assasin 2 

Case: Corsair 570x Crystal

May switch to a h100i later down the line.

 

Should I buy another paste or is this fine?

[WallacEngineering]

Check out this thread where we helped this guy out with his overheating i7-8700K. Towards the bottom of the first page, I describe my personally recommended thermal pastes and why, as well as submit charts from Toms Hardware Thermal Paste Round-Up 2018:

 

 

Now My suggested thermal pastes are not electrically conductive. The ABSOLUTE BEST thermal pastes out there are actually made of straight up liquid metal, but be EXTREMELY CAUTIOUS and be sure you ABSOLUTELY UNDERSTAND THE RISKS of using liquid metal paste, the MOST RISKY part of all being the fact it is electrically conductive and so if it spills on your socket or MoBo and you fire up your system, that system is screwed and will short out and kill itself.

 

Be sure before you buy ANY paste that you visit the manufacturers website for specifications and to see if the paste is electrically conductive or not. Unless you are VERY experienced with risky endeavors and have built at least a couple PCs, I would highly recommend staying AWAY from liquid metal and choosing a high-grade non electrically conductive paste instead. Not to mention metal is metal and therefore liquid metal paste is extremely difficult to clean when changing coolers or troubleshooting, and the act of cleaning it off can often damage the finish on the CPU and heatsink/water block.

[Skiiwee29]

Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut is generally regarded as one of the best, if not the best. I personally use IC Diamond and have for the past 6 or 7 years with no issues. 

[Max_Settings]

3 minutes ago, legacy99 said:

Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut is generally regarded as one of the best, if not the best. I personally use IC Diamond and have for the past 6 or 7 years with no issues. 

Same I use IC Diamond

[Damascus]

I use whatever's handy, I actually just ran out of nh-t1 and arctic silver at the same time so I have to fall back on my ek goop.

 

I prefer nh-t1

[WallacEngineering]

6 minutes ago, legacy99 said:

Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut is generally regarded as one of the best, if not the best. I personally use IC Diamond and have for the past 6 or 7 years with no issues. 

The high-grade paste recommended in the i7-8700K running too hot thread is in fact the Kryonaut. I do also like IC Diamond and it is definitely a good product, I just dont see a realistic use for it is all. For example, if you want cheap, but effective paste then I recommend Artic MX-4 which can be had for $7 with free shipping for a 4g tube, and is what I currently use on both my CPU and GPU and shows pretty much the best price-to-performance ratio considering I have set up a total of 3 CPUs and 2 GPUs on this one 4g tube and still have plenty enough to help my buddy out with his hot-running i5 laptop tomorrow and will STILL probably have some left over! Ive had this one tube for 3 freaking years!

 

From there we move on to performance, expensive products. I also recommend the Kryonaut in this category, but the IC Diamond is also a part of this category and while it performs well, if you want the best, you get the best, which is the Kryonaut. Therefore, IC Diamond doesn't really have a place that would make any sense, to me anyways.

[Skiiwee29]

7 minutes ago, WallacEngineering said:

The high-grade paste recommended in the i7-8700K running too hot thread is in fact the Kryonaut. I do also like IC Diamond and it is definitely a good product, I just dont see a realistic use for it is all. For example, if you want cheap, but effective paste then I recommend Artic MX-4 which can be had for $7 with free shipping for a 4g tube, and is what I currently use on both my CPU and GPU and shows pretty much the best price-to-performance ratio considering I have set up a total of 3 CPUs and 2 GPUs on this one 4g tube and still have plenty enough to help my buddy out with his hot-running i5 laptop tomorrow and will STILL probably have some left over! Ive had this one tube for 3 freaking years!

 

From there we move on to performance, expensive products. I also recommend the Kryonaut in this category, but the IC Diamond is also a part of this category and while it performs well, if you want the best, you get the best, which is the Kryonaut. Therefore, IC Diamond doesn't really have a place that would make any sense, to me anyways.

You seem to miss what I said.. I said Kryonaut is regarded as one of the best, if not thee best. I was just informing the OP that I personally use and have used IC Diamond which performs within 1-2c of Kryonaut. (Basically within margin of error from tests)

[WallacEngineering]

8 minutes ago, legacy99 said:

You seem to miss what I said.. I said Kryonaut is regarded as one of the best, if not thee best. I was just informing the OP that I personally use and have used IC Diamond which performs within 1-2c of Kryonaut. (Basically within margin of error from tests)

Oh no I do understand, just wanted to give my two cents on IC Diamond. I never said you were trying to suggest it lol. But yea like I said its totally a good product and cools very well, I just think the OP would be better off choosing something else based on OP's needs. Honestly I still suggest that OP look at the performance graphics from Tom's Hardware Paste Round-Up in the other thread, I believe it also has IC Diamond on it so you guys can see how it stacks up, I mean the charts do have 85 freakin test pastes lol.

[WallacEngineering]

Screw it, adding graphs here for convenience:

 

AIR COOLING:

 

 

AIO LIQUID COOLING:

 

[Soujiro89]

Thank you for your info. Another last question, you think the Frostbite is not good enough and I should look for the IC diamond or Kryonaut? Or it’s fine at least for now until I get water cooling and start overclocking?

[WallacEngineering]

24 minutes ago, Soujiro89 said:

Thank you for your info. Another last question, you think the Frostbite is not good enough and I should look for the IC diamond or Kryonaut? Or it’s fine at least for now until I get water cooling and start overclocking?

Frostbite is totally fine for stock speeds, but once you OC then yes you will want to change. If you want to use a simple AIO liquid cooler then you should be aware that high-end air coolers can match or even in some cases beat 120 and 240mm AIOs, but they do severely loose to custom loop solutions especially when using larger 360mm or 480mm radiators, or multiple 240mm radiators. Im currently working on my Ultimate Air Cooling Rig (See my Signature) and so far the R1 Universal Air cooler absolutely destroys any 120mm AIO and keeps pace with 240mm AIOs (like literally within 1 degree C). A quick "Air-Cooling VS Water-Cooling" google search will show you exactly what Im talking about.

 

The world of high-end cooling can get just as complicated as say something like mining cryptocurrency. There are many variables and doing your research will leave you with a satisfactory purchase rather than a disappointing one. The way I see it the risk of water + electronics vastly outweighs the minimal performance gains I would see from cooling on water thanks to my ridiculous amount of airflow meaning that even on MAX OC running a high 125W TDP Phenom II CPU I have NEVER even hit 70 Degrees C, which is pretty amazing.

 

If you do want Kryonaut, use this Amazon Link: https://www.amazon.com/Thermal-Grizzly-Kryonaut-Grease-Paste/dp/B00ZJS8Q6S/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1519863943&sr=8-2&keywords=thermal+grizzly+kryonaut

 

This 11.1g tube is way overkill and you will probably have it for the rest of your life so long as you don't waste a bunch of it, but it is only $5 more than the 5.5g tube and therefore buying the 5.5g tube is just throwing money out the window. I mean $25 for 5.5g or $30 for 11.1g, which makes more sense to you? LOL but both Amazon options are cheaper than NewEgg and come with free shipping so definitely check them out.

 

EDIT: BTW these results of staying under 70 C are achieved by running MX-4 Paste (Which I plan to upgrade to Kryonaut for my Ryzen 2000 build since the MX-4 tube is finally starting to get low), Cryorig R1 Universal cooler with upgraded Phanteks HP140 II fans,  and a total of 7 freaking case fans (all Phanteks MP series upgraded fans) so trust me, air cooling can get a bit pricey too but nowhere near as pricey as a custom water loop. Also keep in mind that while my Phenom II X4 970 CPU does remain cool even on its max stable 4.0 GHz overclock, the VRMs on my Mobo do overheat. This is because I am currently running a TERRIBLE MSI AM3 880GMS-E35 Mobo which has NO VRM heat sinks and was NOTORIOUS for overheating VRMs since day one of its launch. The VRMs regularly hit 100 C and force a thermal shutdown of the system while using Intel Burn Test V2.54, but it does NOT overheat or shut down while using any other stress test.

[Canada EH]

They are all the same, just buy one with lots of good reviews.

[trace6x]

On 3/1/2018 at 12:41 AM, Canada EH said:

They are all the same, just buy one with lots of good reviews.

They're not all the same, different pastes perform better than others.