[EOL] Arctic MX-5 is here!!Tests incoming! Completed. Now its MX-6 testing time!

ThrashZone · May 30, 2022

Chomiq said:
So is it discontinued or not? Should I not bother with it and return my tube and use mx-4 instead?

Hi,
Yes it is EOL same as discontinued
They did not recall mx-5 but did I believe offer refund or replacement.

Whether you get some at mx-5 now at discounted price is up to you
It would be a pass for myself
Wait for mx-5 2022 label similar to what they did with mx-4 2019 version.

lexluthermiester · May 30, 2022

Chomiq said:
So is it discontinued or not?

Seemingly so.

Chomiq said:
Should I not bother with it and return my tube and use mx-4 instead?

Keep it, use it. It's excellent.

Borc · May 30, 2022

lexluthermiester said:
You just had throw that in didn't you?

Once again, MX-5 is an excellent performer. Your experience was not the same as everyone else.

I'm not the only one:

Cinebench R20:

In green, MX5

Max temp 99.91C

Score of 4969

In red, Honeywell TPM 7950

Max temp 82C

Score of 5038

https://www.reddit.com/r/LenovoLegion/comments/rn3xhg

Keep in mind most users refer to desktop tests where it doesn't matter much which paste. It can be completely different on a laptop CPU depending on the heatsink contact and pressure, die size and some other things. A low viscous paste may struggle and I can tell you many pastes struggled on my laptop, it isn't MX-5 exclusive. I tested close to 60 thermal pastes. For a laptop I highly recommend to not buy Arctic MX-5.

lexluthermiester · May 30, 2022

Borc said:
I'm not the only one:
Back to stock TIM, Honeywell TPM 7950 from LenovoLegion

You're in the severe minority. You simply refuse to accept that fact and thus with your continued bemoaning..

Borc said:
Keep in mind most users refer to desktop tests where it doesn't matter much which paste. It can be completely different on a laptop CPU depending on the heatsink contact and pressure, die size and some other things. A low viscous paste may struggle and I can tell you many pastes struggled on my laptop, it isn't MX-5 exclusive. I tested close to 60 thermal pastes. For a laptop I highly recommend to not buy Arctic MX-5.

Incorrect. As has been mentioned, I have been using MX-5 on laptops as well. It works perfectly.

Borc · May 30, 2022

lexluthermiester said:
You're in the severe minority. You simply refuse to accept that fact and thus with your continued bemoaning..

Incorrect. As has been mentioned, I have been using MX-5 on laptops as well. It works perfectly.

You are right that laptop tests are a minority, that's actually true and I never denied this! It's the other way around you simply cannot accept other opinions/experiences.

And what is incorrect? What I'm telling is my experience based on many hours of tests on a laptop. Even if you don't like it you should accept it.

Not that your laptop matters for my laptop but it appears to me you never compared several pastes and you can't know how MX-5 exactly performs. And honestly no matter what you will never say something bad about MX-5, your defending is hilarious. It's just a paste, stay calm.

Beside all of this it is widely known for advanced users that on a laptop chip a more viscous paste is recommended because the heatsink contact might be subpar and the pressure low.

MachineLearning · May 30, 2022

The two folks who care about MX-5 the most - in very different directions - seem to have found one another. What are the odds?

lexluthermiester · May 30, 2022

Borc said:
It's the other way around you simply cannot accept other opinions/experiences.

Oh, I accept your experience, but do NOT accept that your experience is the norm. So quit the complaining.

Borc said:
Not that your laptop matters for my laptop but it appears to me you never compared several pastes and you can't know how MX-5 exactly performs. And honestly no matter what you will never say something bad about MX-5, your defending is hilarious. It's just a paste, stay calm.

You fail to understand, I own a PC shop. We have been using MX-5 on everything we repaste since shortly after I did my testing, including laptops which represents about 40% of our business. We have had NONE of those laptops come back having thermal problems. Not one.

MachineLearning said:
The two folks who care about MX-5 the most - in very different directions - seem to have found one another. What are the odds?

The difference is I'm a practiced scientist and make conclusions based on merit and evidence. In the case of this TIM, after much testing the conclusion is that it performs exceptionally. The opposition are basing their opinion on an experience with a single sample. They are making a judgment based on a limited perspective.

Mussels · May 31, 2022

lexluthermiester said:
You just had throw that in didn't you?

Once again, MX-5 is an excellent performer. Your experience was not the same as everyone else.

MX 5 Can be an excellent performer. It can also be shit.
Not everyone had the same experiences - or they wouldnt have EOL'd it so fast.

SpittinFax · May 31, 2022

Mussels said:
MX 5 Can be an excellent performer. It can also be shit.
Not everyone had the same experiences - or they wouldnt have EOL'd it so fast.

I didn't know they discontinued it. They mention poor consistency (oil separation) which means I definitely got a dud tube second time around, but I couldn't care less about fighting the RMA battle for a refund of $8. The consistency was crap but I just blended it with the spatula and thermals seem good.

That's a real bummer if they feel the need to kill the product completely, guess I'll need to go back to MX-2 or NT-H1. Personally I've found MX-4 to be a weak performer so it doesn't really interest me anymore.

Chomiq · May 31, 2022

tabascosauz · May 31, 2022

Chomiq said:
View attachment 249403

Uhhhh that's not an upgrade or even a sidegrade, Arctic

Regardless of how one feels about MX-5, MX-4 is not a performer lol

lowrider_05 · May 31, 2022

FYI, as far as i know, these are the Producers of the Arctic paste and i use their own EC360 Ruby Paste for a lot of applications and im very positive, that this paste is equal or better then MX4/5 and costs about the same: https://www.coolsierra.com/collections/thermal-paste

(I have no connection to this coperation, i just wanted to share my findings.)

Chomiq · May 31, 2022

tabascosauz said:
Uhhhh that's not an upgrade or even a sidegrade, Arctic

Regardless of how one feels about MX-5, MX-4 is not a performer lol

F# it. MX-5 will be here tomorrow together with 5800X, at this point I'll just do a dry run of MX-5 on some old Celeron to see how it spreads before deciding to use it on 5800X. If it spreads like sh*t on celeron IHS then I'll request a refund from Arctic and look for something else.

Ferrum Master · May 31, 2022

Chomiq said:
If it spreads like sh*t on celeron

It would be like spreading sh*t on sh*t? Well actually if it spreads like sh*t, would it it be really bad?

But as we see not always the new is the best, especially for TIM materials. Both MX-5 and Kryonaut got rather mixed reviews and are flawed. Why are you really concerned about the spread really, just draw your X shape and put the cooler on and everything is fine. If not, just warm up the syringe in a cup of hot water for a few minutes.

MachineLearning · May 31, 2022

tabascosauz said:
Uhhhh that's not an upgrade or even a sidegrade, Arctic

Regardless of how one feels about MX-5, MX-4 is not a performer lol

Honestly this thread has me convinced to never touch MX-4 again and just stick with MX-2. It's not worth the price increase. Doesn't perform much different in my testing.

Sithaer · May 31, 2022

One thing for sure, ppl take this thermal paste thing far more seriously than I ever will/care about. :oops:

Pretty much always used MX-4 since it exist and I had zero problems with it nor my bro who also built PCs for friends,etc.
Can't be bothered with 1-2 celsius differences between most 'top/best seller' pastes, at that point price is what matters to me.
Never had MX 4 dry out on my CPUs either or degrade in a noticeable way.

On my previous RX 570 I did the repasting with GD-900 from Aliexpress 'the older better version not the new' and it worked just fine before I sold it on the second hand market and the new owner had no complaints either.

Currently I have Frost X25 on my CPU that came with my ID cooler, so far it seems to be good enough for my use case but I think I will keep using this in the future cause why not. 'kinda reminds me of MX 4 actually, the overall quality'

Can't say much about laptops so I wont get into that but if it matters more for those then fair enough.

Borc · May 31, 2022

lowrider_05 said:
FYI, as far as i know, these are the Producers of the Arctic paste and i use their own EC360 Ruby Paste for a lot of applications and im very positive, that this paste is equal or better then MX4/5 and costs about the same: https://www.coolsierra.com/collections/thermal-paste

(I have no connection to this coperation, i just wanted to share my findings.)

I tried EC360 Ruby some time ago. From the consistency/viscosity and my performance results it's very similar to IONZ IZP14/Halnziye HY-P13. Most specs are identical as well, I believe it's the same as Halnziye HY-P13.

ThrashZone · May 31, 2022

Chomiq said:
F# it. MX-5 will be here tomorrow together with 5800X, at this point I'll just do a dry run of MX-5 on some old Celeron to see how it spreads before deciding to use it on 5800X. If it spreads like sh*t on celeron IHS then I'll request a refund from Arctic and look for something else.

Hi,
I'd message, is the replacement mx-4 "2019" or just vanilla mx-4
2019 so is okay might as well just hop on the 2019 version and skip the replacement process.

This is probably the least expensive item ever argued about :laugh:

tabascosauz said:
Uhhhh that's not an upgrade or even a sidegrade, Arctic

Regardless of how one feels about MX-5, MX-4 is not a performer lol

2019 version is okay.

Shrek · May 31, 2022

Sithaer said:
On my previous RX 570 I did the repasting with GD-900 from Aliexpress 'the older better version not the new' and it worked just fine

Did I hear 'GD900'?

lexluthermiester · May 31, 2022

Mussels said:
MX 5 Can be an excellent performer. It can also be shit.
Not everyone had the same experiences - or they wouldnt have EOL'd it so fast.

Yeah, that's fair. But that's not what Borc was implying, thus my response.

SpittinFax said:
I didn't know they discontinued it. They mention poor consistency (oil separation) which means I definitely got a dud tube second time around, but I couldn't care less about fighting the RMA battle for a refund of $8. The consistency was crap but I just blended it with the spatula and thermals seem good.

That's a real bummer if they feel the need to kill the product completely, guess I'll need to go back to MX-2 or NT-H1. Personally I've found MX-4 to be a weak performer so it doesn't really interest me anymore.

View attachment 249383

Chomiq said:
View attachment 249403

This was the wrong move by ArcticCooling. Acknowledging the problem and fixing it is the right move. But to discontinue it? Maybe Thrash is right, perhaps a revision is incoming.

MX-4 is an good replacement, gets the job done well. I would rather they just fix the problem.

ThrashZone · May 31, 2022

Hi,
Only 1 year and tried two batches, it is best to rename the product and try to move forward.

I doubt I got a bad first batch
Besides being green mx-5 was as wet as mx-4 2019 and frankly performed the same to on my x299 and z490 systems.

Sithaer · May 31, 2022

Shrek said:
Did I hear 'GD900'?

I have the big tube version but yea thats the thing, it performs close to the MX 4 from what I know and noticed myself. 'there are some reviews around'
Not sure about longevity but it held up pretty well on my RX 570.

It was dirt cheap at the time of buying, actually it was my brother who bought it out of curiosity.

Shrek · May 31, 2022

I am most grateful that your brother did get some; few out here seem willing to try it.

OK, I can understand why some people won't try 40% diaper cream (for comparison not real usage), but GD900 (not GD900-1) is great stuff; $4 for 30g with postage included.

For me the virtue of maximum strength diaper cream is that it illustrates the dangers of just trusting short term results and is not at the level of mustard or toothpaste as it contains 40% zinc oxide. Then again if someone asked me to test their CPU, why waste expensive thermal grease; diaper cream would be just fine for this purpose.

What ever happened to the copper based anti-seize grease?

Chomiq · Jun 2, 2022

Quick test on old celeron:

Just a tiny drop, no oil separation at all.

lexluthermiester · Jun 2, 2022

Shrek said:
OK, I can understand why some people won't try 40% diaper cream

Because it's little more than a curiosity and most people are just too busy to give it a go.

But no one is stopping you from doing your own testing and posting the photo's, screenshots and results.

System Name	Ghetto Rigs z490\|x99\|Acer 17 Nitro 7840hs/ 5600c40-2x16/ 4060/ 1tb acer stock m.2/ 4tb sn850x
Processor	10900k w/Optimus Foundation \| 5930k w/Black Noctua D15
Motherboard	z490 Maximus XII Apex \| x99 Sabertooth
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[EOL] Arctic MX-5 is here!!Tests incoming! Completed. Now its MX-6 testing time!

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