Thermal Paste Questions

Hello everyone,

Thinking about buying thermal paste since my P650SG comes with stock paste, probably something like GC-extreme. I am probably not going with IC Diamond and Liquid Ultra, I don't really want scratches and liquid metal is probably isn't for me as a first time buyer.

Anyway, how many applications (such as the GC-extreme, 3.5g) will it do in your experience? Just wondering.

 

More than 30, try use less than 1g for every application.

 

At 3.5g you would get either more than 3 applications at about 1g each or more than 30 at 0.1g each. Not sure which they meant.

 

Should be able to repaste CPU+GPU 3 times at least with 1 tube of 3.5g...

 

I recommend against ultra


Use something like gellid extreme.

Silicon paste. These other ones like arctic silver and ultra etc are better for desktop with extreme heat.

Use something easy to use and remove.

 

Thanks for the responses from all of you.

Are there thermal pastes specifically designed for laptops? Is there a reason why? There's other cheaper solutions such as the Noctua NT-H1, not sure if it will work well.

 

They're all within margins of error of 2-3c, so you're not missing much.

What I recommend is to pick one with easy application and non-conductive, such as the Kryonaut/noctua/gc extreme. AS5 and ICD is conductive+scratch silicon die, thus I don't recommend them.

Liquid ultra, and other metal paste is geared towards people who deal with XM processors and whatnot, for your uses it's overkill.

 

Noctua NH-1 is known to be a good paste but is not cheap considering the amount you get. The syringe has only 1.5g of paste as far as I know. Gelid GC-Extreme costs a bit more but has 3.5g of paste. Arctic MX-4 should be a couple of dollars cheaper than both but has 4g of paste in the syringe. Take your pic, they'll all more or less perform the same give or take a couple of degrees like Mobius mentioned.

 

Heard multiple accounts of MX4 just drying up, can't say for myself since I haven't used it.

 

Arctic Silver 5 (AS5) is not conductive though, it's slightly capacative, so it's unlikely to damage components. You're right about ICD and scratches though & Liquid Ultra is definitely conductive & more dangerous to use if you don't know what you're doing. I'm using Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut, and it's about 2 degC cooler than previous Arctic Silver 5 applications I've done.

 

Indeed, add one more here.. it works for a week or 2 and then dries out and becomes useless!

 

And don't forget the junk Noctua Nt-H1. It last for 3-4 days with heavy Benchmark testing with my OC'd Hotwell Extreme. A really junk. Always use better paste on laptop hardware than what you need on much better cooled desktop hardware. You can't compare the cooling in an desktop vs laptop.

 

On the contrary, noctua is great even on my 5820k. Used it with a 120mm clc and works well for 4+ months before I changed to a D15

 

I have tested Noctua-AS5-Gelid Extreme and and a few other brand I can not remember the name of on my OC'd i7-4930Mx before I switched to Liquid Ultra. Noctua was one the worst of all I tested. It is not possible to say that a paste used on a desktop work equally well on laptop hardware. It is completely impossible because of the weaker Cooling http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...x-980-overheating.789202/page-5#post-10218974

 

HAHAHA true that! I'm tempted to switch to Liquid Ultra for CPU but too scared to do it ... Gelid GC Extreme and IC Diamond will be the choice for now..

 

One thing people need to keep in mind while using Liquid Ultra, is that you need good even contact and decent heatsink to IHS pressure. If there isn't proper contact or if your thermals pads (for laptop VRM's close to the processor) are too think, the contact wont be good enough for Ultra to do its job properly.