What thermal paste to get?

[mrsebe]

I have been looking for thermal paste, but whichever thermal paste I look at there is always people who say its not good, or have problems. So far I have looked at Arctic Silver 5, Arctic mx-4, and IC diamond. Arctic silver 5 seems good, but I have read that people have problems with curing time. Some reviews say that Arctic mx-4 is very liquidy and conductive, and for IC diamond people say that it can void your warranty because it can cause abrasion. I have an i7-7700k and am using a corsair h100i v2. The thermal paste that came pre-applied on the h100i worked great, 30c at 5ghz idle, but i needed to take cooler off for some maintenance, so i cleaned thermal paste off. Id appreciate if anyone has any other recommendations or suggestions for thermal pastes, this is a little overwhelming with all these different pastes out there.

[kelvinhall05]

Arctis Silver 5 is the cheapest and best option (although they're all pretty much the same).

[Max_Settings]

Personally I like IC Diamond.

[Hashiba]

I've always used Arctic Silver, I must have built around 20 computers with that, no problem whatsoever

 

I have a 7700K with a H100i V2 too, with AC ofc

[mrsebe]

5 minutes ago, Hashiba said:

I've always used Arctic Silver, I must have built around 20 computers with that, no problem whatsoever

 

I have a 7700K with a H100i V2 too, with AC ofc

Thanks, this helps alot! But do I have to wait for the paste to cure or can I use it right away?

[Amaranth]

Just now, mrsebe said:

Thanks, this helps alot! But do I have to wait for the paste to cure or can I use it right away?

Arctic Silver has a 200 hour cure time.

 

I would personally use Kryonaut and if you don't want to pay the premium for that then MX-4 or NT-H1 would also be good options.

[Guest]

2 minutes ago, mrsebe said:

Thanks, this helps alot! But do I have to wait for the paste to cure or can I use it right away?

You can use it right away, it will just run a little hotter(5C hotter or so) before it's cured.

[Hashiba]

1 minute ago, mrsebe said:

Thanks, this helps alot! But do I have to wait for the paste to cure or can I use it right away?

nah, you just apply it, and use it right away, there might be some thermal stabilization going on for a while but don't worry about it, it's perfectly normal. Enjoy!

[mrsebe]

20 minutes ago, Hashiba said:

nah, you just apply it, and use it right away, there might be some thermal stabilization going on for a while but don't worry about it, it's perfectly normal. Enjoy!

 

20 minutes ago, timl132 said:

You can use it right away, it will just run a little hotter(5C hotter or so) before it's cured.

Alright, thanks!

[mrsebe]

21 minutes ago, Hashiba said:

nah, you just apply it, and use it right away, there might be some thermal stabilization going on for a while but don't worry about it, it's perfectly normal. Enjoy!

Oh, I forgot to ask where you buy it from? Its on Amazon but some of the one star reviews say that its fake, its on newegg though and it looks legit.

[Hashiba]

14 minutes ago, mrsebe said:

Oh, I forgot to ask where you buy it from? Its on Amazon but some of the one star reviews say that its fake, its on newegg though and it looks legit.

I think I've ordered AC from amazon before, but I believe that you might be able to find it on some Best buys or Fry's too

[Christophe Corazza]

1 hour ago, mrsebe said:

there is always people who say its not good, or have problems.

 

Welcome to the internet, the world of cat memes and the place where everyone has somehting negative to say about something/someone 

[MaratM]

Any thermalpaste will do the job. Just make sure it is not conductive. The difference is minimal.

[Christophe Corazza]

37 minutes ago, MaratM said:

Any thermalpaste will do the job. Just make sure it is not conductive. The difference is minimal.

 

Liquid metal is an excellent thermal “paste”, better than Kryonaut, MX-4, NT-H1... and is conductive!

[kevinisbeast707]

I've use arctic silver 5 and ic diamond and both are excellent. IC diamond is nice because it has no curing time with a long usage life and its consistency is excellent. With that said I have noticed that on cpus it tends to wear away the laser etching that is on the top of the ihs. On gpus it definitely gives them micro scratches however it does not harm performance in any meaningful way. Silver 5 is excellent though it has a thinner consistency and is supposed to have a longer curing time. I've had no complaints with it so far though be aware it is electrically conductive. The mx4 is pretty much as good as the silver 5 but it is not electrically conductive. Alternatively, you could use something like thermal grizzly kryonaut which is stupidly highly regarded. I just ordered some so I'll let you know how it is when I get it. It isn't electrically conductive and i believe it's supposed to have pretty much no curing time. The only bad part is that one gram costs about $10 so it is more expensive than the other two. Another thing you could consider is IC diamonds new graphite pad which is supposed to be pretty much as good as their IC diamond but it is reusable and very consistent. So if you have to clean anything again you could just reuse that pad. I believe on amazon it is about $15 right now.

 

http://a.co/cee44C3

[mrsebe]

13 hours ago, kevinisbeast707 said:

I've use arctic silver 5 and ic diamond and both are excellent. IC diamond is nice because it has no curing time with a long usage life and its consistency is excellent. With that said I have noticed that on cpus it tends to wear away the laser etching that is on the top of the ihs. On gpus it definitely gives them micro scratches however it does not harm performance in any meaningful way. Silver 5 is excellent though it has a thinner consistency and is supposed to have a longer curing time. I've had no complaints with it so far though be aware it is electrically conductive. The mx4 is pretty much as good as the silver 5 but it is not electrically conductive. Alternatively, you could use something like thermal grizzly kryonaut which is stupidly highly regarded. I just ordered some so I'll let you know how it is when I get it. It isn't electrically conductive and i believe it's supposed to have pretty much no curing time. The only bad part is that one gram costs about $10 so it is more expensive than the other two. Another thing you could consider is IC diamonds new graphite pad which is supposed to be pretty much as good as their IC diamond but it is reusable and very consistent. So if you have to clean anything again you could just reuse that pad. I believe on amazon it is about $15 right now.

 

http://a.co/cee44C3

Thanks for the help! So I ended up getting arctic silver 5 because of the amount of people satisfied with it, it helps a lot getting advice from people more experienced than me

[Christophe Corazza]

5 minutes ago, mrsebe said:

Thanks for the help! So I ended up getting arctic silver 5 because of the amount of people satisfied with it, it helps a lot getting advice from people more experienced than me

 

Have you already applied the thermal paste?

[mrsebe]

On 6/6/2018 at 6:03 PM, Christophe Corazza said:

 

Have you already applied the thermal paste?

Yes, why?

[Christophe Corazza]

15 minutes ago, mrsebe said:

Yes, why?

 

Just to know if it turned out alright after all  :-)

[mrsebe]

20 hours ago, Christophe Corazza said:

 

Just to know if it turned out alright after all  :-)

Oh, ya it turned out nice, its working, thanks for the help!

[Amaranth]

On 6/4/2018 at 4:37 PM, Christophe Corazza said:

 

Liquid metal is an excellent thermal “paste”, better than Kryonaut, MX-4, NT-H1... and is conductive!

That really depends on the application. If you are, for example, working with a desktop GPU then you're going to see any major gains using Conductonaut liquid metal over Kryonaut.