Which thermal paste?

[jellyrole]

Lol, I know that processor stuck to the heatsink feeling...my Phenom 9600 a couple years ago was stuck to the heatsink for no reason at all really and when I finally got it off it went flying into the desk and bent some of the pins..had to straighten them with tweezers. Now that was some tedious work.

 

[surfingerman]

OCZ Freeze +1 non conductive, beats as5, cost $5, easy to apply, spreads on pressure easily, pretty much no cure time.. only down side is tube is small

most of the reviews on the internet are biased and suck.. the diff between thermal compounds is only 1-2C at best in most cases.. this is the best review i found tested 100 thermal pastes

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[Super XP]

There you have it AS5 is one of the best.

 

[PaulieG]

There you have it AS5 is one of the best.

But it is still conductive, which in my eyes makes MX-2 a better choice. I do say MX-2 over MX-3 too, as it's so much easier to spread.

 

[RejZoR]

MX-2 is imo the best price/performance. MX-3 is better, but also considerably more expensive.
If you want the best you go Colaboratory Liquid Pro. Just make sure no aluminum comes close to it as it is corrosive for aluminum. But packs some serious performance ratings. And price.

 

[sweeper]

I just ordered some AS5. I've tried several types and even some that say they are very low conductive and my brother used one brand that stated it had a very low conductive state. But when it warmed up it became really thin and instead of staying around the heat it pulled away and off the edge of his CPU and got into a couple pins and shorted his MB out. AS5 has always performed well and doesn't run away from the heat but forms a barrier and transfers it to the HSF rather than becoming thin and looking like a liquid grey fluid as this stuff did.

 

[afw]

80-way TIM test.

One of the best reviews about TIM performance ... ... I was about to quote this as I saw the title ... ... check this first ...

Personally I've heard a lot of good things about ...

Arctic Silver 5
MX-2
MX-3
Gelid Extreme ...

 

[HeroPrinny]

mx-2 due to it being cheap and non conductive

 

[sweeper]

mx-2 due to it being cheap and non conductive

I still don't believe that these all are NON CONDUCTIVE. As I stated above the paste that was used was supposed to be NON CONDUCTIVE and yet it shorted 2 pins and fried his MB within about 2 minutes upon boot. Had to RMA the board after cleaning the pin holes out.

 

[Velvet Wafer]

MX-2 is imo the best price/performance. MX-3 is better, but also considerably more expensive.
If you want the best you go Colaboratory Liquid Pro. Just make sure no aluminum comes close to it as it is corrosive for aluminum. But packs some serious performance ratings. And price.

dont forget to mention, it sticks like solder after a while
when i talked of liquid metal,i exactly meant this!

 

[ShRoOmAlIsTiC]

ive seen so many different tim reviews recently. What make the benchmarkreviews.com the one to follow. Ive got some mx-2, tx-2 and some pk-1 here. every test ive seen besides the benchmarkreview one says they are all better then as5. but in all those same reviews either tx-2 is the best in one, pk-1 is best in another and mx-2 is best in another.

I still dont know which one to use. I just lapped my 955c3 and put some mx-2 on it for now. Im thinking the pk-1 might be better. I was using that before I lapped the cpu and im getting the sames temps as now with mx-2 w/ lapped cpu.

what are some cons of spreading it instead of doing the drop in the middle?

 

[stock]

For as long as I can recall people have sworn by AC5.
Go with the tried, true and time tested one is what I'd recommend.
I've bee using AC5 for years.
It does it's job, no question.
AC came out with some other stuff a while back that was supposed to do better after like a 3 week set in period.
I never saw it do better.
Went back to AC5.

If we all thought like that we'd be stuck in the dark ages

*for the American readers that's a loonng time ago*

PS MX-2 or ceramique here, trying OCZ freeze atm

 

[ShRoOmAlIsTiC]

how does ceramique compair to the rest, I got some of that too.

 

[RejZoR]

I still don't believe that these all are NON CONDUCTIVE. As I stated above the paste that was used was supposed to be NON CONDUCTIVE and yet it shorted 2 pins and fried his MB within about 2 minutes upon boot. Had to RMA the board after cleaning the pin holes out.

MX-2 is non conductive. You can see that by just looking at it and the way it spreads.
Besides, i've had it over electronic parts around GPU (those little thingies) and the card is still running.

 

[a_ump]

petroleum jelly+tooth paste mix!!! ., my bro used it once and it lasted bout a month n half before temps skyrocketed.

 

[sweeper]

petroleum jelly+tooth paste mix!!! ., my bro used it once and it lasted bout a month n half before temps skyrocketed.

 

[d3fct]

Arctic Silver Ceramique, love the stuff, I put it on mobo's, cpu's, gpu's.

 

[willslick]

That's the stuff that came with my XT water block. After reading this post & looking at the review, I think I'll just use what I have. Question I watch the A.S. vid on how to apply TIM, Is that the way you pros do it? Make a line and put the water block on it and give a little twist? is that the best way now. Or should i spread it thin like i did before?

Arctic Silver Ceramique, love the stuff, I put it on mobo's, cpu's, gpu's.

 

[wrathchild_67]

I swear by Shin Etsu X23-7783D.
You can get it here. The site looks like it was designed in 1999, but it is legit and they have the lowest price I've found anywhere.

I've used AS 1-5, standard silicon grease, Nanotherm (was good at the time due to its viscosity, but corrosive to copper), Tuniq TX-2 and ThermalRight's grease. None have beaten the Shin Etsu after it has settled in. It's slightly expensive and difficult to apply, but IMO worth it if you want the lowest temps, and if you're watercooling it's even more of an incentive. My i7 920 at 4.2GHz 1.32v reaches a max of 60c under Linx testing on water.

 

[MN12BIRD]

I've always bought AS5 just because it's what I've been using for so many years now and it's always been up there. But I'm pretty sure next time I need some I'll be buying OCZ Freeze. It's cheaper for 4.0g than the AS5 is for 3.5g and on top of that many folks on here have claimed lower temps using it.

 

[stock]

how does ceramique compair to the rest, I got some of that too.

Love the stuff - easy to spread, non conductive and fairly cheap compared to some other paste's. Good temps, too