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What cpu paste is recommended

RobTi

RobTi

RobTi

Associate
Joined
23 Jan 2005
Posts
1,437
Hi not built a system in a while so will be getting a i5-13500 and new cooler and think my old tube of as3 won’t be up to it. So asking what we are all using at the moment?
Thanks
 
I've never found that much of a difference in paste types tbh. Think the last one I used was the noctua stuff (e: NT-H1 iirc) that came with my cooler that works perfectly well.

Just have some AS-MX4 besides that.

I can see maybe trying to find that point whatever a degree may be important in a SFF setup but in a 'regular' setup any 'good' paste will do you.
 
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For ease of application MX-4. For best paste temps Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut but it is thick and a pain to spread so warming the tube up before use helps. Thermal Grizzly Aeronaut is easier to use but doesn't cool quite as good. In my opinion liquid metal isn't worth the hassle on a cpu or gpu. It is the ultimate in thermal solutions but the downsides out weigh the positives. The only time I have used it is when delidding a cpu and putting it between the die and IHS and in a laptop. For normal computer use I stick with normal thermal pastes. To be honest the difference between the most popular thermal pastes is only around 1-4 degrees C and even liquid metal only drops temps by another 1-3 degrees C. Going by Toms Hardware 2023 Thermal Paste Roundup the worst thermal pastes can be up to 11 degrees worse than the best ones (not including liquid metal). Stick with the mainstream thermal pastes and you can't really go wrong.
 
adidan said:
I've never found that much of a difference in paste types tbh. Think the last one I used was the noctua stuff (e: NT-H1 iirc) that came with my cooler that works perfectly well.

Just have some AS-MX4 besides that.

I can see maybe trying to find that point whatever a degree may be important in a SFF setup but in a 'regular' setup any 'good' paste will do you.
Click to expand...
The Noctua is very good. Very easy to use, performs well, has a very long life.
 
I still have a huge syringe of Arctic Ceramique probably it's well over a decade old. Even when heated it cements Ryzen AM4 CPUs to the heatsink so I only use it when I know I can easily take the heatsink back off without damaging pins.

Recently I used MX-4 and it provided great temps with my watercooled 5950X plus it was relatively easy to remove the heatsink after a while. The small syringe it comes in means it doesn't last long but not a big deal for occasional use.
 
I have a 10g tube of Kingpin cooling KPx. It was supposed to pip Grizzly Kryonaut. However I just used Grizzly Hydronaut on my watercooled GPU and CPU because I knew the correct pasting method.
 
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