Been wanting to get some mx6 but still got loads left of the mx4 ...bought a big tube when on offer.
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Recommended Thermal Paste?
- Thread starter arc@css
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Up to around 100 watt TDP or so the difference between MX4 and MX6 is pretty much non-existent other than one being a touch easier to apply than the other. Where you see the difference between them is load temperatures on like a 14900K.
Yeah I was going to say the same but also Thermalright TFX, which I've just recently tried on my CPU as is working well.
Depends on the CPU, can't really go wrong with the blob method though. For Intels the optimal application is usually a line through the core but with recent Ryzen CPUs other patterns can be better.
You're going to get people telling you specific patterns to apply the paste, the fact is unless you're running on the high end with heavy productivity related CPU loads it barely matters outside of one or two dead ideas.
You could cover the thing in so much thermal paste it splats all over the motherboard once you apply whichever HSF you've bought and you will not see a difference. In fact, that's bordering on a better approach to the (sadly) many advocates of the "pea" method still out there, even though it's irrelevant at this point due to multi-core CPU's no longer having dies dead centre.
The easiest and safest method for 98% of people is lightly spreading paste over the IHS, aka the big metal plate on top of the chip where you apply the HSF.
Personally very against this method unless you buy one of the pastes designed for it and come with a spreader like some of the TG ones. Generally the best thing to do is look at the application guide for a given paste which for some reason few people do - though that isn't always the best - the Arctic YouTube guide was quite bad and wrong and even went against their written guide (which was right) though I've not rechecked if it is still up.
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I get what you're saying, but for Joe Bloggs making a gaming/media/basic rig which is most of the population it really is not a problem. I'd argue that those building more specific or higher end systems are likely to have a better understanding of things anyway.
You've more or less said it yourself, it barely matters unless you're dealing with super high wattage CPU's running at extreme loads. The biggest issue that I do see comes from those thinking the pea-method is relative to their new CPU with cores which are offset from centre, they apply too little and often in the wrong place.
For chips where MX4 or TF7 are competent just spread over, but if you need to run heavy CPU loads with high temperature processors reconsider, the latter being in a vast minority for end users on forums like this.
I keep seeing painfully confused enthusiast or entry level users that will never run into those issues dealing with extremes which are frankly irrelevant to them.
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