Which Thermal Grease the best!!!

darkwildchild79 · 12 Apr 2010 at 17:34

I was at work and we was talking about overclocking and a topic came up with what is the best thermal grease on the market and to be honest i was just stunned, because when it came to cooling i never really thought about it, if can remember i have always is AS5 and then when i got my zalman i started using STG-1 reason why i change, because it came with the item...well not a good excuse but at the time i did not have an AS5, i have no problem with my system when it comes to temp so if anyone know anything different i would like to know your findings and result..and why you use what you us???

Who knows... this could be helpful to someone out there..if there is a thread about this already sorry for start it up again, please forward me to it....

UnworthyBean · 12 Apr 2010 at 17:40

Arctic Silver 5 is still very good but MX-3 outperforms it slightly.

darkwildchild79 · 12 Apr 2010 at 17:45

UnworthyBean said:
Arctic Silver 5 is still very good but MX-3 outperforms it slightly.

Whats about the Zalman ZM-STG1 Super Thermal Grease, which they included in there CNPS 9700

demonfatality · 12 Apr 2010 at 20:20

the grease than came with the Prolimatech Megahalems i found was very good...my temps went down by 2-3deg from as5 ...but maybe it was just due to the reseat of the cooler

alex24 · 12 Apr 2010 at 20:22

I think the coollaboratory liquid metal pro is the best performing, but also most risky and problematic to use.

Arctic Cooling MX-3 is probably the best after that.

darkwildchild79 · 12 Apr 2010 at 21:05

so from the sounds of it the zalman stg is not recommended since know has said anything about it

Helios1234 · 12 Apr 2010 at 21:07

alexhull24 said:
I think the coollaboratory liquid metal pro is the best performing, but also most risky and problematic to use.

Arctic Cooling MX-3 is probably the best after that.

q6600 · 12 Apr 2010 at 21:16

i use Noctua's NT-H1 for my cpu. very happy with the temps so far. my i7 860 is oc @4 ghz

Razor Time · 12 Apr 2010 at 21:24

I recently swapped to MX-3 after using AS5 for years and MX-3 is slightly better.

alex24 · 12 Apr 2010 at 21:27

Helios1234 said:

Indeed.

Azuse05 · 12 Apr 2010 at 23:00

Silver has a thermal conductivity of 8W/mK i.e. has the best thermal conductivity of any metal. On the other had the MX-3 has a quoted rate of 8.2K/mK which I'm inclined to believe since it's just ahead.

Liquid metals are indeed better, but will happily short your kit too. You'd get safer, better returns for water cooling than those.

alex24 · 12 Apr 2010 at 23:12

Well, personally I use Arctic Silver 5, and although it's conductive, I've never had any problems. Just take your time and be careful, as you would with any paste I guess. The only reason I'm still using AS5 is that I have some left in a syringe. When I run out I'll try my Noctua stuff again or buy some MX-3.

Higadeb · 12 Apr 2010 at 23:15

darkwildchild79 said:
Whats about the Zalman ZM-STG1 Super Thermal Grease, which they included in there CNPS 9700

I had a CNPS 9900 and used the compound that was supplied with it. (I'm asuming it's the same stuff as the 9700). Anyway, when I was using my 9900 I changed to MX-3 because I bought some to apply a GPU cooler with and thought I might aswell. It improved cooling by ~4'c underload, which I guess is a fairly significant amount!

stulid · 12 Apr 2010 at 23:26

this is a little old.

www.xbitlabs.com/articles/coolers/display/thermal-interface-roundup.html

alex24 · 12 Apr 2010 at 23:31

If Helios1234 doesn't mind me linking it, here are his results with some newer compounds:

http://www.vortez.co.uk/contenttell...quid_metal_pro_thermal_compound_review,6.html

CAPTAINBUMFLUFF · 13 Apr 2010 at 00:07

MX-3 gets my vote

Helios1234 · 13 Apr 2010 at 01:42

alexhull24 said:
If Helios1234 doesn't mind me linking it, here are his results with some newer compounds:

http://www.vortez.co.uk/contenttell...quid_metal_pro_thermal_compound_review,6.html

Of course not

. I'm gonna try and do an updated version at some point. I just need to find the time!

alex24 · 13 Apr 2010 at 01:45

Yes, certainly have to appreciate all the changing and cleaning involved in between testing. I think you also said you left it 48 hrs in between, that's a long test!

Helios1234 · 13 Apr 2010 at 01:50

alexhull24 said:
Yes, certainly have to appreciate all the changing and cleaning involved in between testing. I think you also said you left it 48 hrs in between, that's a long test!

Yeah! It certainly feels like a long time! I've built up quite a collection of thermal paste since then so it'd be good to see how they all fare against each other.

Azuse05 · 13 Apr 2010 at 11:38

alexhull24 said:
Well, personally I use Arctic Silver 5, and although it's conductive, I've never had any problems. Just take your time and be careful, as you would with any paste I guess. The only reason I'm still using AS5 is that I have some left in a syringe. When I run out I'll try my Noctua stuff again or buy some MX-3.

Exactly my position. However the idea of using a precious metal instead of tiny bits of carbon is nice