best long lasting thermal compound?

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[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Oct 19, 2005
Messages
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how long does THERMAL GRIZZLY KRYONAUT last?

it says arctic mx-5 is good to 8 years before changing

noucta NT-H2 says 5 years or more


any others?
 
Mx-5 is your best bet for solid temps and longevity. I dont know of anything else that has more than a 5 year guarantee.
TG kryonaut is 2yrs.
 
I can't stand Kryonaut. PITA to spread, super expensive, and has never given me even 1 degree better temps than anything else I use.
 
Kryonaut seems very expensive for only 1 tiny gram, so i wanted to avoid it unless it lasted forever and i dont have to mess with it.

I am done with arctic silver 5 the one tube i got is really old anyway.
 
then dont look up the 30g version that looks like Bubble gum it is not cheap cost me $110+ shipping.
 
where do i get this it is sold out everywhere


it also dont have a long term use rating..

UDxWpdcQ4rtpSNoEe84vak-970-80.jpg





https://www.amazon.com/dp/B008M516R...are-us-6026836957188484000-20&geniuslink=true
 
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isnt that the stuff tech tubers get free when they wipe there butts with 3090 kingpin cards for LN2 videos?
 
where do i get this it is sold out everywhere


it also dont have a long term use rating..

View attachment 365941




https://www.amazon.com/dp/B008M516R...are-us-6026836957188484000-20&geniuslink=true
Pk3 is really good but i dont remember what the rating is, i think its 3 or 5 years but im guessing. Dbl checked the website and found no mention. I bought mine from Amazon two years ago ($17) but its been oos for at least 8 or 9 months. No idea why it hasnt been restocked or why its become so hard to find.
Found it at frozencpu.com for roughly $21 5g tube.

Edit- when i tested mx-5 it was only a degree or two off of pk3.
 
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I got the best results ever when I ran out of paste and had to scrape my empty tubes and mix it all together. A mixture of cooler master bundled stuff, TG kryonaut, and phanteks bundled stuff. It took me almost 30 minutes to spread it on a big Haswell-E IHS because I had so little of it in total. Paper thin translucent layer. It was only 1 degree off from Liquid Metal on the same CPU.
 
Thermal grizzly is great but only good for a couple years. I take my system apart and upgrade far too often for it to matter. For set it and forget it? I would get MX-4/5 and be done with it. It is pointless and waste of time to argue over which paste is best. All modern pastes are pretty damn close to each other.
 
Just curious, why are you so against Thermal Grizzly? I've been using it in my last couple of builds and had no issues with it.

I meant like a literally hot grizzly bear. I only use tim pads.
 
how long does THERMAL GRIZZLY KRYONAUT last?

it says arctic mx-5 is good to 8 years before changing

noucta NT-H2 says 5 years or more


any others?
Not long. maybe 6 months to a year tops. Sometimes Kryonaut comes out of the syringe dried up. Inconsistency is a known issue with kryonaut.

Ive been using KPx paste for a few years now with great success.
 
lol. yeah good for 8 years, supposedly. im sure none of us would let it go that long to find out though...
and theres ~2c improvement over mx-4, based on the testing i did.
 
best long lasting is "High end thermal pads". it wont match liquid medal but will last forever or the life of the setup

View attachment 365958
Price:$12.95


They have a new kind, which I will receive this week. It's not reusable, but is supposed to compress/conform better.

I have an r9 fury I'm going to try it on. (the hbm is not flat enough to use paste on)
 
They have a new kind, which I will receive this week. It's not reusable, but is supposed to compress/conform better.

I have an r9 fury I'm going to try it on. (the hbm is not flat enough to use paste on)
non reusable is a no go to me......reusable is good...to me its half the point of using pads. When i rip my cooler off once a year and put it in the dishwasher and its time to put back on i dont have to look for any paste or pads. My cooler has a stupide convex base instead of a true flat one is another reason i went pad this go round. strange as it is i have heard of people doubling the pads up in certain conditions.
 
I'm using that thermal pad on 2 rigs - and no problems at all. I switched after I had a mishap with an old 2700k rig where the CPU twisted right off. Not going to repeat that mistake ever again.

Since I'm not OC'ing - stability is key ere and the pads do just that. Remove and swap CPUs without any incident and can reuse the pad again too.
 
lol. yeah good for 8 years, supposedly. im sure none of us would let it go that long to find out though...
and theres ~2c improvement over mx-4, based on the testing i did.

Your MX-4 must have been old. I just tried MX-5, tested the same way I did last night for the AIOs (Prime 26.6, small FFT, 5960X at 4.2GHz/1.18V). Ambient is 24.5C

MX-4
Average Cores: 57.5, 56.4, 63.6, 59.5, 61.0, 59.6, 60.6, 57.5
Average Steady State Package Temp: 63.6
MX-5
Average Cores: 57.4, 55.7, 63.6, 59.5, 60.8, 59.8, 60.3, 57.2
Average Steady State Package Temp: 63.6

I gotta say, I like the sky blue color. This one's a keeper.
 
Your MX-4 must have been old. I just tried MX-5, tested the same way I did last night for the AIOs (Prime 26.6, small FFT, 5960X at 4.2GHz/1.18V). Ambient is 24.5C

MX-4
Average Cores: 57.5, 56.4, 63.6, 59.5, 61.0, 59.6, 60.6, 57.5
Average Steady State Package Temp: 63.6
MX-5
Average Cores: 57.4, 55.7, 63.6, 59.5, 60.8, 59.8, 60.3, 57.2
Average Steady State Package Temp: 63.6

I gotta say, I like the sky blue color. This one's a keeper.
no, i bought the mx-4 2 months before i got the mx-5. its all in the mx-5 thread. was your temp last night exactly 24.5? i tested in a controlled 21c for all my tests.
 
I've used just about everything that's been mentioned in this thread given my years of motherboard and CPU reviews. The fact of the matter is, they all produce results within the same range. The worst to the best is about a 3c difference. I have also used those graphite pads. For a test bench, they are absolutely awesome. For longevity, your basic white pastes last a very long time. They'll appear dry due to the pump out effect, but the temps will be fine. I've seen servers and desktops running that stuff for more than a decade without issues. It's designed for longevity first given its use in OEM systems.
 
no, i bought the mx-4 2 months before i got the mx-5. its all in the mx-5 thread. was your temp last night exactly 24.5? i tested in a controlled 21c for all my tests.

Yep, exactly 24.5, I just ran these tests back to back. One thing that is possible is that this stuff might need some time to cure. The MX-4 was on there for most of a day, while the MX-5 was just applied. My idle temps already look a touch lower in a very unscientific anecdotal way.
 
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Wow this thread just took off.

The next big thing in paste are the Shenzhen compounds, which are an easier to spread TFX.

SYY-157 and FuzeIce Plus and Maxtor CTG9 seem to be from the exact same factory.
Thick pastes, thicker than Kryonaut Extreme, far thicker than MX-5, but not as thick, and easier to spread than Thermalright TFX. And far less "sticky" than Coolermaster Gel Maker Nano.

Comparing SYY-157 and TFX on my i9 9900k gave a 0C temp difference between them. Just SYY-157 doesn't stick to the spatula as much as TFX.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B079DQS77Q

This was $11.79 + 15% off for 8 grams (huge bargain) for a few days but the price went a bit up. Still not the same price/gram as MX-5 but performs better.
SYY-157 is FAR Better than MX-5 on laptops (MX-5 is just too runny).
 
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How easy is that stuff to spread? It looks like it's easier than regular Kryo...
very easy i didnt have to preheat t like others. room temp it spread like honey. just use sparingly as even a small amount seemed to go along way. somewhere on forum i posted a horror pic of what happened lol.
 
how long does THERMAL GRIZZLY KRYONAUT last?

it says arctic mx-5 is good to 8 years before changing

noucta NT-H2 says 5 years or more


any others?
Gelid GC Extreme is probably the best bang for the buck. As it performs within a degree of Thermal Grizzly's best pastes, but is a few dollars cheaper. However, they don't state a length for usage time.

If its important to you to buy a product which claims a long usage time, then buy Noctua paste. Its good stuff. Lower cost, easy to work with, and is a better paste than many others, in terms of temps. Noctua even gives you a mini tube of it, with their coolers. Enough for a couple of installations.
Wow this thread just took off.

The next big thing in paste are the Shenzhen compounds, which are an easier to spread TFX.

SYY-157 and FuzeIce Plus and Maxtor CTG9 seem to be from the exact same factory.
Thick pastes, thicker than Kryonaut Extreme, far thicker than MX-5, but not as thick, and easier to spread than Thermalright TFX. And far less "sticky" than Coolermaster Gel Maker Nano.

Comparing SYY-157 and TFX on my i9 9900k gave a 0C temp difference between them. Just SYY-157 doesn't stick to the spatula as much as TFX.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B079DQS77Q

This was $11.79 + 15% off for 8 grams (huge bargain) for a few days but the price went a bit up. Still not the same price/gram as MX-5 but performs better.
SYY-157 is FAR Better than MX-5 on laptops (MX-5 is just too runny).
Thermalright TF8 is very wet and spreadable. It works great, but I do think its probably prone to "pumpout". Which is probably why TFX is thicker. I watched a youtube live stream comparing TF8 to TFX when TFX first came out (the guy installed parts with TF8, logged temps, then cleaned the same parts and rebuilt with TFX, live on youtube). TFX was consistently only 1 degree better, for a much higher cost. But it also "might" last longer.
 
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I only recently got a tube of MX-4 so I can't attest personally to the longevity but unless it's or MX-5 is quite a bit worse than MX-2 it should last years no problem. I had a couple Q6600s with MX-2 applications which were more than five years without being touched. Both systems were taken apart and cleaned with a new application of MX-2 and the temps were basically the same as before. There might have been a 1C-2C drop in temps but that was probably because every speck of dust and dirt was washed out of the heatsinks.
 
I just tried MX-5, tested the same way I did last night for the AIOs (Prime 26.6, small FFT, 5960X at 4.2GHz/1.18V). Ambient is 24.5C

MX-4
Average Cores: 57.5, 56.4, 63.6, 59.5, 61.0, 59.6, 60.6, 57.5
Average Steady State Package Temp: 63.6
MX-5
Average Cores: 57.4, 55.7, 63.6, 59.5, 60.8, 59.8, 60.3, 57.2
Average Steady State Package Temp: 63.6

To follow up, I retested with the MX-5 now that is has had about 24 hours to cure. 1.1C improvement in deltaT.

Ambient: 25.0C
Cores: 56.3, 54.9, 63.0, 58.7, 59.5, 58.7, 59.5, 55.7
Package Temp: 63.0
Delta Temp: 38.0
 
To follow up, I retested with the MX-5 now that is has had about 24 hours to cure. 1.1C improvement in deltaT.

Ambient: 25.0C
Cores: 56.3, 54.9, 63.0, 58.7, 59.5, 58.7, 59.5, 55.7
Package Temp: 63.0
Delta Temp: 38.0
see, some of those are ~2, its slightly better ;)
 
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