Best Thermal Paste for CPUs 2022: 90 Pastes Tested and Ranked
23 Sep 2022 18:06:55 UTC
Topic 228185
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Best Thermal Paste for CPUs 2022: 90 Pastes Tested and Ranked
I am interested in your experience(s).
A Proud member of the O.F.A. (Old Farts Association). Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.® (Garrison Keillor) I want some more patience. RIGHT NOW!
It looks like I could double
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It looks like I could double the amount of heat removed while staying with a paste that isn't electrically "active".
For 10x the price of the middle-grade heat paste (MX-4) I am using now.
It would be worth it on BOINC production machines where I have no plans to swap cpus. (I think).
Comments?
Tom M
A Proud member of the O.F.A. (Old Farts Association). Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.® (Garrison Keillor) I want some more patience. RIGHT NOW!
Forget MX-5. It has been
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Forget MX-5. It has been discontinued. The new version is MX-6
Tom M wrote:For 10x the
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With the Arctic MX-4 the CPU temperature was 5.2°C (water cooling) or 5.7°C (air cooling) higher than with the best metallic thermal paste in that test. Compared to the best non-conductive paste (MX-5 for air cooling) the CPU with MX-4 is just 3.5°C warmer, in case of water cooling (ProlimaTech PK-3), it's 3.8°C difference. I don't think that matters in real life unless you are close to max. temperature for your CPU. But than it makes probably more sense to think if the cooling can be improved by changing the cooler or whatever else is necessary to get the heat away, 3-4°C less do not really matter.
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Yeah, I think if one is so
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Yeah, I think if one is so close to max temp for the CPU that the choice of thermal paste is a decider, then it probably means that there is some larger error about eg. air flow thru radiators, pump trouble with fluid coolant etc.
Cheers, Mike.
I have made this letter longer than usual because I lack the time to make it shorter ...
... and my other CPU is a Ryzen 5950X :-) Blaise Pascal
That list doesn't even have
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That list doesn't even have the best thermal paste. Besides the highest thermal conductivity the nice thing is that it stays soft and pliable for many months. Most pastes harden leaving voids that reduce the thermal load they can dissipate. http://www.thermalright.com/
MX-4 will remain the best
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MX-4 will remain the best bang for the buck.
good enough
doesn't dry out
cheap
available pretty much everywhere at retail stores or online
"best" can mean a lot of different things, and highest rated thermal conductivity wont necessarily give better temperatures or performance if your overall thermal transfer is limited by something else (like IHS mounting/flatness, the TIM between the IHS and die, etc).
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Tom M wrote: Best Thermal
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I have only a little experience recently. I've had many experiences long ago, but can't recall them.
I have only used Noctua's NT-H1 & NT-H2 Pro-Grade Thermal Compound Paste and KingPin's Cooling KPx Thermal Grease. There are others that are good too, like ARCTIC MX-4 or Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut.
I am very reluctant to try any of the lower priced, lesser quality pastes. Plus, it is nearly impossible to find a rating for cooling capacity in W/mK on them, such as "high thermal conductivity of 12.5KW", or "High Performance- 5.0 W/mK".
I stick with the names I can trust with a history to match. I'm glad though that I haven't gone for the ARCTIC MX-5. It has already been replaced with the ARCTIC MX-6 due to a lack of consistency in usage.
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