Thermal Compound / Grease

[Spydermag68]

I have been out of the computer building seen for years and was wondering what is the best thermal compound. I have used Arctic Silver 5 High-Density Polysynthetic Silver Thermal Compound in the past.

TIA
Spydermag68

 

[ignatzatsonic]

The last I heard, Noctua NT-H1 and Thermal Grizzly were among the highest performing regular pastes, but there's not a night and day difference among the common brands.

The liquid metal pastes from Coollaboratory are measurably better, but they are fussy and noticeably more expensive.

 

[JeffMD]

Arctic silver 5 is still good but a number of people are turned off by how solid it gets as time goes on. I still use it since it has never not worked and i don't overclock, and I have 2 tubes of it rattling around still.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

I'm still using IC Diamond.

The pastes so far mentioned excluding AS5 are all close in performance.

Even with a CLU or Indigo Xtreme TIM, you'll only see improvements around 3 to 5C for may 130W of load thermal power over the others -- if that much.

 

[lehtv]

Arctic MX-4 is cheap, easy to apply, and performs better than AS5. It's not quite on the level of Noctua and Prolimatech though, but those cost more.

 

[MongGrel]

Arctic MX-4 is cheap, easy to apply, and performs better than AS5. It's not quite on the level of Noctua and Prolimatech though, but those cost more.

Noctua isn't that expensive if you're not ripping things off everyday, at least what I keep around myself for general use, it is easy to apply.

Haven't used AS5 here in ages, it takes too long to cure and the conductivity thing I never liked.