Guru3D Thermal Paste Roundup - Round 2 (2021)

@A M D BugBear
so your surprised a 21st century Paste outperforms a +6y "old" paste (and according to Arctic not recommended/replaced by MX4/5) ? ok .
i dont mind paying a bit more, and did see temps drop a few *C on LM, but i wont pay multiple times more, for only a few degrees difference.


MX is 7$ for 4g, and anything from TG is at least 50% more (while up to 4 times less amount), without being "twice as good".
Another reason for me to stay with MX5, was how easy it spread, while not getting "repelled" from oily "residue" (of previous TP applied).

 

Been using Noctua NT-H1 since i got my first cooler from them over 10 years ago, now i'm using NT-H2.

 

an Idea for the next time : it would be great if you mentioned the ease of applying (compared to others)
I used the Kryonaut on intel, amd ryzen and threadripper I guess it's "good" but it's super thick and a pain to spread especially on the giant threadripper package it's more like masonry with cement than applying paste

 

MX-2 is still available on Amazon. Large tubes too.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08H6B5P2T
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07LF1R7T8?th=1

 

Not surprised at all, AS5 been around for quite some time. I am just saying the temp differences, nothing surprises me anymore, thanks for the reply.

 

Amazon links above: 30g MX-2 tube = $18.99, shipping to Serbia $30.74... 65g MX-2 tube = $32.62, shipping to Serbia $31.49

Ouch... thanks but no thanks

edit
Still for such amount of MX-2 above price (product + shipping) still is a good deal... But hate when I have to pay shipping way more or same as the product itself. If I can't find it locally will wait for my next trip to Hungary or Greece and buy it directly from some retailer there.

 

Very useful, thank you!

 

Usually I use for GPUs Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut or at least I have used them on RTX 2xxx series or 3xxx series, on GT9xx or GTX1xxx I have used with good success Noctua NT-H1 where Noctua performed bit better than Kryonaut

Recently I used on friend I have done test with Kryonaut and ZF-EX just for comparison, ZF-EX outperformed Kryonaut by 1-2°C on RTX3090 but on 5950X with ZF-EX I got like 4-6°C lower temperatures

Other good TIM as @Falkentyne said is Thermalright TFX

For test mount I usually got spare MX-4 20g which I use only for tests

I don't use LM or any liquid metal TIM and I can't comment on their performance over time or how fast they degrade

Hope this helps

Thanks, Jura

 

Thanks for posting about ZF-EX paste, its not generally available in the UK but managed to find it on a slow boat from China.
Price is very good for the amount you get (for a high grade paste), as long as it doesnt spread thick.
(Just over £7 for 2g)

This is for my 3090 upgrade, theres a month wait to choose the right memory pad depths.
Do you have any information about Gigabyte Aorus Xtreme cards please?

 

Hi there

ZF-EX its bit on thicker side but its manageable, I usually don't spread the TIM on GPUs, usually X with small dots between the crosses and TIM spread I would say is very good and temperatures are great

ZF-EX usually I'm buying over Aliexpress and regarding the thermal pads for Gigabyte Aorus Xtreme found only thread on Reddit and hooe it helps you

https://www.reddit.com/r/gpumining/comments/lztdt8/thermal_pad_thickness_on_rtx_3090_gigabyte_aorus/

For thermal pads Thermalright Odyssey or Gelid Extreme pads, these pads are best in my view

Hope this helps

Thanks, Jura

 

Great info, cheers!

 

ZF-EX and TFX are the exact same paste.
6g of TFX is usually around $40 USD on Amazon but may be cheaper on Aliexpress.
If you can get 12 grams (6x2g) of ZF-EX for $7 each, but can handle waiting for the Slow Boat, that puts you in the "I didn't get scammed for too high of a price" category.

What's funny is, with 2g of ZF-EX costing $7 if you find a good deal on aliexpress, that actually makes the 33g of Kryonaut Extreme for $104 look like a bargain (I bought that before the price increased even more, when it first got released).

Yes you can spread TFX (ZF-EX) and it does work very well if you do that, but it's annoying to do and will end up costing you a lot of paste since a lot of it sticks to the spatula, so you have to overdo it to get a nice layer on the GPU or (BGA/direct die) CPU. (Don't even think about spreading it on a LGA IHS CPU, just do the 9 large dots or "X" method + dots in quadrants)

http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...and-liquid-metal.806840/page-51#post-11092211

 

Wish you could compare to the pre-applied paste that comes with some of the air/water cooling... I own an h150 and I wonder if I should replace the pre-applied "sticker" with a paste...

 

For it's price, it is bad product anyway. NT-H1 makes more sense even while it performs worse.
I stopped using NT-H1 moment MasterGel Maker became available. That one is worth the price.

Actually, laptops are pretty safe. When you have desktop with vertically placed MB and then CPU heatsink with weight of 1kg going to side, pressure is quite uneven. Same applies to all bigger heatsink on graphics where best possible way to get even pressure is to have card oriented vertically. (But that does not apply to vapor chamber cooling as that cripples its functionality.)

Yet, there is liquid cooling which in most cases has lightweight contact block with CPU/GPU and has no issues from uneven pressure.
And same applies to laptops where entire heatpipe system and heatsinks are tightly screwed and can't really change pressure as they are not free to move and work as lever.

I do use mentioned MasterGel Maker on everything now. It had no issues to date outside of uneven pressure caused by weight of heatsink on GPUs.
In times I was using HN-H1, GPU needed repaste like once every 2 years which is reasonable. Liquid cooling and laptops needed no repaste. So changing it to CM MG Maker was only to get bit better thermals.

 

I'm deciding which thickness memory pads to buy and came across a post a few days ago where 0.5mm pads were built up to give the required thickness.
I decided against this earlier as I didnt like the thought of more surfaces contacting to make one pad, but perhaps it doesnt really matter with soft pads.
What are your thoughts on this please?

 

Assuming you're talking about a GPU.
I can't help you with this. I don't have your video card. You need to do your own experiments. Buy a caliper and measure the original thickness of both the edge and the compressed center of the stock pads as best you can. (or if those are already aftermarket pads, where the GPU core is making decent contact, but perhaps not "enough pressure"), And keep in mind those pads are designed to be ultra compressible. For replacement pads, on the GPU Core (Front) side, try Gelid Extreme pads, which should be very compressible, at least close to the compressibility of the crappy stock pads, and are among the softest high performance pads on the market. Ideally, if you can get gelid pads, of a thickness exactly 0.1mm-0.2mm thicker than the "compressed" middle of the pads you are replacing (for both VRAM and VRM's), you are in splendid shape. Backplate pads give a lot more leeway since there's no core to deal with.

 

My opinion:
A well over-hyped topic fumbling around with minor temperature improvements - my tip is get a decent well ventilated case and thermal paste becomes secondary/unimportant at best especially when using liquid cooling. I am using Ceramique 2 since many years and it always works as expected. The old times when t-paste vaporised away are long gone!

 

Recently I did a update on my rig. The new CPU waterblock came with a tube (1g) of "Thermal Grizzly" , I believe it was hydronaut, but can´t remember exactly. But what I remember is, that it was a pain to apply, way tooo solid.
IMHO: Performance of a paste only depends on its thermal conductivity measured in W/mK. So most manufactureres are listing the phsycal specs.of their products. Good viscosity and data spec., is what I am looking for....

Now, as far as I know, Thermal Grizzly is listing "some" of the chemical and physical fact sheets and they differ barely from other products, so that´s why I usually don´t buy them.
Edit: oops I have to admit, I never bought them because of ridiculous price....

 

My case is open air and the CPU is water cooled.
This doesnt make the problem go away

 

Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut still has a bad batch of past floating around that will damage/scratch your cpu.Thermal Grizzly confrimed it and said they have zero way to ID the bad tubes. I dont trust any of its products.