Thermal paste.

fastamdman

Golden Member
Nov 18, 2011
1,335
70
91
Hey guys my wife and I are going ham for cyber monday. Buying all new cases, water cooling aio setups, etc.

Anyway, she is getting the h100i and I am getting the nzxt kraken x61. Is the thermal compound that is already on these good to use? Or should I wipe it off and grab some thermal paste. If I should buy some, please recommend me a few.

I have used shin etsu and artic silver and some mx-4 compounds in the past. Never saw huge temp changes by any means between them. All within margin of error imo, but let me know if I need thermal paste or not.
 

JEDIYoda

Lifer
Jul 13, 2005
33,981
3,318
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This subject has been hashed and rehashed so many times.....
Nowadays the thermal paste you get included in what you buy is very descent and adequate for the regular user.

Don`t pay extra for thermal paste! Unless you are into extreme over clocking and even them sometimes you get lucky at a top of the line brand of thermal paste comes included!
 

fastamdman

Golden Member
Nov 18, 2011
1,335
70
91
I do consider myself an extreme overclocker, however I will take your word that the thermal paste "pad" that is on the aio water coolers will suffice. If not I know I have a little spare paste somewhere in this house lol.

I know the thermal paste subject has been brought up A LOT in the past, however I had no clue if the thermal pads/paste used on AIO setups were decent or not. This is my first dive into water cooling.
 

MongGrel

Lifer
Dec 3, 2013
38,751
3,068
121
This subject has been hashed and rehashed so many times.....
Nowadays the thermal paste you get included in what you buy is very descent and adequate for the regular user.

Don`t pay extra for thermal paste! Unless you are into extreme over clocking and even them sometimes you get lucky at a top of the line brand of thermal paste comes included!
Pretty much what he said.

That being said, I still have a tube of Noctua NT-H1 I use for most things.
 

Rvenger

Elite Member <br> Super Moderator <br> Video Cards
Apr 6, 2004
6,283
5
81
Hey guys my wife and I are going ham for cyber monday. Buying all new cases, water cooling aio setups, etc.

Anyway, she is getting the h100i and I am getting the nzxt kraken x61. Is the thermal compound that is already on these good to use? Or should I wipe it off and grab some thermal paste. If I should buy some, please recommend me a few.

I have used shin etsu and artic silver and some mx-4 compounds in the past. Never saw huge temp changes by any means between them. All within margin of error imo, but let me know if I need thermal paste or not.

Corsair uses Shin Etsu which is top notch stuff. I am not certain what NZXT uses though.
 

BonzaiDuck

Lifer
Jun 30, 2004
15,699
1,448
126
Corsair uses Shin Etsu which is top notch stuff. I am not certain what NZXT uses though.

Well, As JediYoda or somebody said, "This subject has been rehashed so many times." And I'm here to promote the snake-oil of nano-diamond and Liquid Pro, like I always do with these posts.

I was able to re-use the IC Diamond paste three times for changing CPUs and remounting heatsinks, knowing that it would serve just as well as it had with the fresh application.

But think of it!! The Kraken X61 pushes the envelope for AiO coolers, or so the rumors abound. If you can exceed an "un-enhanced" heatpipe cooler by 6 to 10C, that's good. And for these new processors -- essential.

It's essential because heat transfer depends on the areal size of contact. Fewer square millimeters? Less heat wattage transferred per unit time to the heat-exchanger surface or waterblock. And with the smaller lithography and the die shrink, the area of contact has shrunk. It appears that even with the voltage decreases of new processor lines to which the die-shrink contributes, it isn't sufficient to compensate for the limited ability of heatpipe technology to adequately transfer heat from the smaller die.

[Since I'm not an expert, speak up if I'm essentially wrong about this.]

Ordinarily, if quantum physics didn't seem to be getting in the way, we'd think that the lower voltage and even spec TDP decreases would eliminate this problem and make it possible for higher clocks, but it hasn't -- yet.

Instead, instruction-set additions and design improvements make up for speed in sheer Ghz/Mhz. But we're still talking about the health of the same basic material -- silicon.

So I would think that again we're in a deeper pit even with AiO coolers. Unless somebody comes up with some weird positronic framistanic discomboobulator innovation in coolers that don't have a radiator separate from the main point of processor contact, liquid cooling is the wave of the future for anyone who tweaks their systems to higher speeds that are more than just casual, modest flirtations with the BIOS settings.

Even so, at this point and possibly challenged by the Kraken and models that have yet to appear, you can get a heatpipe cooler to match good AiO coolers.

And the problem with the AiO makers: their solutions have to fit into a variety of cases to capture more market share. So the radiator size on AiO coolers will be the limiting factor, in addition to using only a single pump and no reservoir.
 

BonzaiDuck

Lifer
Jun 30, 2004
15,699
1,448
126
I got one of those on sale Black Friday... :biggrin:

Personally, I like IC Diamond, even if it is a little hard to work with.

Ain't it a b****, though?! I've variously applied it with a credit card or a razor blade. Now I use two razor-blades: one to spread the TIM, and the other to clean the TIM off the first to use in a "second pass." And I'm now more inclined to "re-use" old diamond TIM if it's not mixed with dust, my whiskers or cat-hair. On this one system I'm playing with now, I've reapplied the same TIM three times.

I think my post "digresseth too much." Poor guy wanted to make a decision about TIMs. Point here is that it wouldn't matter with the higher efficiency of AiO coolers, but for the fact that all types of coolers are rendered less effective because of the die-shrink, die size, and voltages that aren't scaling one-to-one with the die-shrink.

This means that you should use every means at your disposal to eliminate every spare Celsius degree. Heapipe, AiO, custom-water -- it wouldn't matter. We're still going after the last grain of rice because of these new processors. To me, that means nano-diamond or CLU/Liquid-Pro -- or even Indigo Xtreme metal-pads (and the pile of trouble "initializing" them with 80C temperatures.) If OP wants no more trouble than fiddling with a razor-blade over a task of 15 minutes which would otherwise be completed in 5, I say nano-diamond.

I've got 5 grams of nano-diamond powder I purchased before Innovative Cooling released their product. Don't ask me what it cost. I think I need to settle on some other TIM as a "base" so I can mix that stuff and use it. I just need one of those little containers for contact-lenses and a paper-clip to mold into a hand-crank mixing-paddle. How many tubes of ICD will that save me?