Best thermal compounds to use for gpu/cpu?

I'll be receiving my m17r3 in a few days with a NVIDIA 580m, I plan to do a repaste of the gpu and probably the CPU within the first week or 2 and wanted some input as to what kind of thermal compound works the best in this situation?

Regards,
Howard c

 

Most name-brand thermal pastes will perform about the same. Proper application technique (read the instructions for the paste) has a much larger impact than the actual material / composition of the paste itself.

Don't kill yourself trying to specifically buy one brand / type of thermal paste over another, because the performance differences are so small that they might as well be within a margin of error. If you really have no idea what to buy and are starting completely from scratch, just buy a tube of Arctic Silver 5. It is the "gold standard" against which all other thermal pastes have been compared for the past several years.

 

Artic Silver 5 is ancient. If you can get Prolimatech PK-1, get that, if not, the Artic Cooling MX-4 is probably the benchmark in reliability and performance nowadays.

I use IC Diamond but I'm extremely careful and it does stain the die a bit as it has diamonds inside which scratch the hell out of anything.

 

I could not agree more. I follow the small grain of rice size method for CPU's.

 

I will compress 6 months of discussion, research and experimentation here. I've used PK-1, AS5, MX-4, OCZ FREEZE on my laptop and IC7 in desktops in the last 6 months. The winner: PK-1

I agree with both Kent and Beaverman

Very important to apply the paste well...so from that perspective, the application of the paste is really important. Don't use the creditcard spread method, let the heatsink spread the paste via compression. Also ease of use is important. IC Diamond is a real pain the behind to work with. It doesn't spread easily. However, MX-4, AS5, PK-1 spread easily

SO...going further to this, it is really important to get a paste that will work well regardless of how you apply it. The best one available right now that works well with moderate contact between CPU/GPU die and heatsink is Prolimatech PK-1 (which is what i use)

My GPU runs 67c in Furmark after 10 mins
My CPU cores hover between 71c - 73c after 20 mins, completely 100% loaded with prime95

AS5 is still decent, but only works well under the most optimal spread/contact situations between heatsink and CPU/GPU die.

IC Diamond works well under bad contact situations, but it doesn't improve much when the contact improves. and like Widezu alluded to, IC Diamond will scratch the heck out of your CPU and GPU dies so avoid this one

Here is the bible of cooling as far as i'm concerned. Click on moderate contact for what you might expect in a laptop:

2011 Thermal Compound Roundup – Results Compilation | Skinnee Labs

 

So pk - 1 seems to be the winner here. Ive installed/repasted so many heat sinks over the years i have gotten pretty good at installing them, never used the credit card method, always seemed more of a hassle than it was worth.

Regards,
Howard C

 

I personally think OCZ freeze is the best, and this is largely in part because of the thermal compounds it's among the Easiest to use/apply.

 

Cool, did you buy the PK-1 in Canada? I am lost here in Quebec. I might wait until my next trip down to Ontario over Easter to obtain a tube somewhere.

Thanks!

 

I've used pk-1 and AS-5.

PK-1 wins hands down. I never exceeded 65 deg C on the gpu with pk-1.
With AS-5, I've hit 67 deg C.

I will be going back to PK-1 shortly.

 

Plus 1 for team PK-1!

 

Man, i just watched a youtube vid of someone repasting from one of the big laptop vendors and it was completely WRONG. First of all, they used IC Diamond. BAD CHOICE on lidless cpus/gpus. The sagers offer this and several resellers offer this because IC Diamond works decent even if you butcher the paste job...but it doesn't improve on good paste jobs, so it becomes an average paste (in the pack). IC Diamond also scratches the crap out of the CPU die. Why would you use something that will 100% do that? Plus they put too much on and they used the credit card spread method which is not optimal. Sorry had to vent.

FREEZE is one of the best pastes available. I'd put freeze ahead of MX-4. I used freeze on my gpu to outstanding temps. If you can't get PK-1 easily, ocz freeze is a great alternative

I just checked all my usual haunts and it looks like PK-1 is a tough find right now. Its out of stock! I think frozen cpu has it but they want insane postage. I saw a guy selling tubes on ebay recently, but that posting is gone. I still have a full 5 gram tube so I'm good for a while, but i'll let you know when the stuff becomes available again and where to get it

 

both the shin-etsu 7783d and the ocz-freeze are excellent alternatives to the pk-1. all 3 pastes are fantastic performers when applied properly.

it's true about the ic7 diamond scratching and staining, but it's also true that it is a fantastic performer.