Thermal paste question

Hey guys,
So I'm debating over the effectiveness of four thermal pastes for the CPU/GPU. The four I've found are Arctic Silver 5, Tuniq TX-4, IC Diamond, and the coollaboratory series (Liquid Pro and Ultra). Can anyone tell me which is the best for mild overclocking?

 

I use phobya nano grease extreme i found it to be better that artic mx-4 and combined with phobya 0.5 thermal pads for the vram on my 780m i dropped it from 93'c to 79'c on stock clocks (ambiant temps might have had an effeect aswell but results are results)


Phobya NanoGrease Extreme 3.5g


Phobya Thermalpad Ultra 5W/mk - 0.5mm

 

Thanks for the recommendation. My GPU temps right now are 93 degrees with a moderately high over clock, so I wonder if in will have similar results to you.

 

what temps were you getting without the OC?

 

I use ic diamond for all my ocing.

 

According to toms hardware the best non conductive paste is the gelid solutions GC extreme. The best possible paste is the cool laboratory liquid pro, but is extremely hard to deal with. The liquid ultra offers a little worse performance but is still second and is easier to use than pro. Both these are conductive however.

 

How good a paste is will vary on pressure, you can't use desktop comparisons as the pressure is so much higher.

 

This is just making an excuse for Clevo's poor QA when it comes to designing the heatsink assembly IMO.

Anyway I have found IC Diamond to be the only acceptable paste for these systems. They don't have sufficient contact pressure due to Clevo's poor design and require a thicker paste as a result on the GPUs. The CPU appears to have adequate pressure but MX-4 dies fast so IC Diamond is again superior for the temps that Haswell pumps out.

Sent from my HTC One_M8 using Tapatalk

 

I see ic diamond being heralded all over the place, yet what about all the reports of abrasion and whatnot? This thread in particular sums it up pretty well:

http://www.overclock.net/t/1411528/avoid-ic-diamond-thermal-paste

Not a very elegant showing by the company I might add...

 

I've been using IC diamond for a few years now and I constantly have been putting it on and taking it off, the worst I have had is some lettering on the top rub off and that is not laser etched but a white compound on the top so I really wonder what those users have done to cause proper damage.

All notebooks have much lower pressure than desktops, even my beast (P570WM CPU heatsink) which is about as close as you can get. It's not an excuse but a reality of the restraints of notebook design.

 

Probably more due to the manufacturing process than poor QA. See this post as well as the rest of the thread after that.

I'm boycotting IC Diamond for moral reasons, but truthfully it's the best simply because it's the most viscous, and suffers far less from pumping out under extended periods of load. The MX-4 when freshly pasted is as good as any other, but quickly deteriorates and after a month (even with just light usage) temps are already 3-4C higher.

 

Yeah I meant manufacturing and said QA. Clevo has some really poor design decisions with their machines.

MX-4 was already deteriorating in a week for my 880s. I may try it on my desktop CPU when I get around to repasting that one but only because I have an H100i.

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Yeah some of the engineering decisions make me scratch my head. And the more I futz around with my P370SM the more I'm inclined to think it was a development candidate rather than a finished product and we're the beta testers lol

 

So based on the comments on the first page, IC Diamond is the way to go?

 

Yes, unless you're comfortable with the risk involved in using Liquid Ultra.

 

I would go for gelid solutions GC extreme. Solid reviews on amazon and has better results than ic diamond from testing

 

I've heard that liquid ultra/pro are usually "long term" TIMs that are very hard to get off once applied. Is this true?

 

Liquid Ultra does bond to the heatsink and leave a silver finish yes, but as long as that silver finish doesn't oxidize it doesn't hurt anything. Liquid Ultra oxidizing and caking itself over the CPU die is a concern, but as long as you repaste every 6 months you should be fine.

In any case, if you have access to dilute acid, then I wouldn't worry about removing Liquid Ultra at all. I've shown that dilute hydrochloric acid removes Liquid Ultra and its degradation products like champ, both from the heatsink and the CPU die.

 

Just be careful with acid of course

 

Just thinking out loud here - would Vinegar work to remove it?

 

I thought about that too, but it's probably too weak. Even pure acetic acid may not be enough.

 

So based off the information in the last page or so, I take it that liquid ultra/pro is still substantially harder to remove than normal pastes. Is the risk worth it?

 

Wow you guys won't believe this, and I assure you I am not joking when I say I got a 5 degree drop in temps by placing a small piece of paper in between the bottom cover and heatsinks! I noticed that they were a bit slanted... Wow.

 

Yep, you did the equivalent of lapping a heatsink.