Discussion What thermal pastes are you using?

[findingmyfeet]

Hey everyone, I thought it would be interesting to get a view on what thermal pastes people are using and why you chose them too.

Personally although my 5900X has come with Artic MX4, I think I'll probably mount it with either Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut or maybe Hydronaut as its going on an AIO. Still not quite decided but have always liked TG Kryonaut as it gives very good heat transfer. It even stopped my PS4 Pro from nearly taking off whilst playing Warzone to barely having a noticeable fan speed kicking in.

What does everyone else use as their go to solution and why?

 

[Phuncz]

I had to look in my drawer, as it was one of the 'nauts. I also use Kryonaut. It's good, good enough. I don't see as much difference between thermal compounds these days from the better brands. Having an uneven block or IHS is probably going to matter more, as well as a good mounting system.

 

[riba2233]

MX4/5 on cpus, kryonaut on gpus.

 

[Mark13]

Hey everyone, I thought it would be interesting to get a view on what thermal pastes people are using and why you chose them too.

Personally although my 5900X has come with Artic MX4, I think I'll probably mount it with either Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut or maybe Hydronaut as its going on an AIO. Still not quite decided but have always liked TG Kryonaut as it gives very good heat transfer. It even stopped my PS4 Pro from nearly taking off whilst playing Warzone to barely having a noticeable fan speed kicking in.

What does everyone else use as their go to solution and why?

NT-H2 came with my L12 Ghost Edition

 

[Skripka]

Kryonaut

 

[tinyitx]

I have been using Gelid GC-Extreme for many years, way before Thermal Grizzly coming into the market. Quite happy. Ease of use is a main concern of me. In recent years, I heard many good things about Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut. When my current stock of GC-Extreme runs out, I might try Kryonaut, which, I reckon, will be marginally better thermally. This switch will not be for the small thermal benefit but just for the sake of trying something new.

Frankly, I do not think the bottleneck of the performance of my system (as well as many others', I can imagine) is the TIM. It is quite rare that the weakest link of a system is the thermal paste. As mentioned by Phuncz, factors like uneven IHS (objectively) or one's skill to overclock or finetune the system are likely to be much higher in the list that affects the system's performance.

 

[rfarmer]

I also used the Gelid GC Extreme for many years. When I last ran out I had a couple tubes of Noctua NT-H2 that came with different coolers that I thought I would try, seems to be very good.

 

[GuilleAcoustic]

I have a couple of tubes of NT-H1 considering all the Noctua IHS I've bought

 

[rcodi]

I'm currently using Hydronaut and will be for a while since I bought 7.8g, I'm a fan of the easy spread nozzles Thermal Grizzly includes with most of their larger tubes for simple full IHS coverage. Ease of use and longevity are more important than peak performance in my opinion, especially when the top pastes are only within a few degrees of each other.

Past pastes were Kryonaut and NT-H2/1 which I also had no complaints about, Hydronaut was just the best value when I restocked. I did try the IC graphite pad which was funky and a neat experiment but I didn't like how delicate it was to handle without smudging or leaving an imprint on it.

 

[findingmyfeet]

I had to look in my drawer, as it was one of the 'nauts. I also use Kryonaut. It's good, good enough. I don't see as much difference between thermal compounds these days from the better brands. Having an uneven block or IHS is probably going to matter more, as well as a good mounting system.

Yes I doubt anything significant is there in the better brands and its probably more a function of particle size and thermal conductivity across the compound. However I would expect some differences can be made with alterations to compositional phases. That's just (the materials engineer in me thinking out loud).

Its probably more down to precise coverage of the CPU / GPU chips with the ideal thickness of compound to achieve this without limiting heat flow by making it too thick.

 

[findingmyfeet]

MX4/5 on cpus, kryonaut on gpus.

Any particular reason for this split or was this just what was available at the time?

 

[lozza_c]

Arctic Silver Céramique. Had the same 2.5g tube almost 20 years now and still haven't managed to use it up.

 

[Questors]

Gelid GC Extreme, Thermal Grizzly and Arctic MX4.

They don't dry out. Less trouble than liquid metals and less maintenance. When liquid metal dries to a crust, these pastes are still doing their job effectively.

 

[Tute]

I use Noctua H1.

 

[thelaughingman]

Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut for me, got the biggest tube available (10g) and don't know when I will run out of the stuff haha

 

[Bubba]

Beware of liquid metal.
youtu.be/t4zcoCA553Y?t=3960

 

[tinyitx]

Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut for me, got the biggest tube available (10g) and don't know when I will run out of the stuff haha

Better write down the month and year that you bought the tube. It is hard to remember when after a couple years.
I am just about to install the NH-P1. Instead of using the bundled NT-H2 (which I will save for future usage), I will use my trusty Gelid GC-Extreme (which I bought on 2019-11). To my surprise, there is an unopened tube of GC-Extreme lying on the bottom of the spare parts box. To my further surprise, I bought it on 11-2013 ! (I have a habit of writing down the purchase date on the price sticker) Under ideal conditions, the shelf life of an unopened thermal paste tube is about 5 years max. So, beware!

 

[thelaughingman]

Better write down the month and year that you bought the tube. It is hard to remember when after a couple years.

thanks for the suggestion. I bought it via an e-commerce platform so it's all in the app. I don't need to remember a single date LOL

 

[Questors]

Beware of liquid metal.
youtu.be/t4zcoCA553Y?t=3960

Based on my personal experience, I couldn't agree more.

 

[Revenant]

Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut for most things unless I'm doing a period specific build and break out Arctic Silver 5. I have to admit, I just left the stock paste on my latest AIO build because...it was late and I was tired.