Arctic silver 5 vs. Zalman's included thermal paste

[NoodleTech]

I bought a Zalman CNPS9500 AM2 for my friend and it came with a tube of zalman's paste. Now i'm wondering how good the paste is. Should I just use Zalman's paste or bust out my own Arctic Silver 5 for his computer? Is there a big difference? Thanks.

 

[mjrtoo]

Well, Arctic Silver 5 is losing its crown to Arctic Cooling's MX-2. It's an electrically non-conductive paste that beats AS5 by several degrees in all categories, and even better than the Akasa stuff...

 

[m1ldslide1]

Use the AS5 if you already have it. There's reviews out there... too lazy to google right now...

I went through the same thing myself when I got my 9500, and there are a few degrees difference in the benchmarks.