Best Thermal paste currently and liquid metal

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sram

[H]ard|Gawd
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Hi,

For delidding, I have seen people use liguid metal as the best material between the lid and cpu core as a replacement for merging the two surfaces by soldering. Can that be also used as a thermal paste? Or is it only for delliding? If not, what is the best TIM or thermal paste nowadays? Is AS5 still up there? There may be no paste that we can call best, but I want to know the best options. Easy to apply and remove and excellent heat transfer.

Thanks.
 
This stuff kicks butt, and it's 10x easier to apply than the AS stuff.

The only place I'd use the liquid metal stuff is between the die and the IHS.
 
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+1 for Kryonaut. It's up there (according to most tests) performance-wise, non-conductive. Wouldn't say it's easy to apply - the included spatula-like tips don't work for me. It seems to be too thick to spread easily with that rubber tip, but some harder tool(or the pea method) works well.
 
Agree - Thermal Grizzly is the highest rated thermal paste at the moment.

There is a Thermal GRizzly liquid metal product called Conductonaut available too. This too would be used if you delid your processor.

Actually liquid metal CAN be used between the IHS (Ie. CPU lid) and the heatsink, but due to potential issues* most people will use a paste here.

*Eg. Too hard to clean for multiple installs, IHS staining, danger of conductive liquid ruining your motherboard...
 
What TIM is best and which one should we use has no simple answers.
While Kryonaut gives the lowest temps except for liquid metal, it is only 0.31c better than Gelid GC Extreme and 0.47c better than Hydronaut and Prolimatech PK3 & PK2 are only 0.04c & 0.10c warmer.
Kryonaut is only 1.72c better than the next 27 warmer TIMs.

Liquid metals are 0.093-0.136c cooler than Kryonaut.
Out of the top 32 TIMs, the best is Phobya LM (liquid metal) being 1.36c better than 4th place Kryonaut .. and the 32nd TIM (Xigmatek PTI-G3606) is only 1.82c warmer than Kryonaut.

If we use Kryonaut as the best, the next 15 TIMs are a maximum of 1c warmer. That is correct, If we class Kryonaut as the best of the top 16 TIMs all the rest are 1c or less warmer, with the 4 closest to Kryonaut being 0.57c or less warmer.
 

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EchoWars said:
This stuff kicks butt, and it's 10x easier to apply than the AS stuff.

The only place I'd use the liquid metal stuff is between the die and the IHS.
Click to expand...

That's so expensive for a 1g tube. I got 20g of MX-4 for $14.99 and it's within 1C. 30g of MX-2 is the same price.
 
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kirbyrj said:
That's so expensive for a 1g tube. I got 20g of MX-4 for $14.99 and it's within 1C. 30g of MX-2 is the same price.
Click to expand...
Link was only there to show WTF I was talking about. 1gm is a bad buy. 11gms for $28 is a much better deal, but yeah, still spendy.

The MX-4 is great stuff, and I usually use it on desktop systems, but I've been tearing into a lot of laptops lately so I'm thinking 'no compromise'...go with the Grizzly.
 
If the paste is too thick that your using trying heating it up in a cup of warm water before application. Makes it a lot easier to spread.
 
I've been using CLU for delids and noctua NT-H1 for everything else. Been very satisfied.
 
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