ARCTIC Launches New MX-5 Thermal Compound

I'm on mx-2 should I upgrade ?

 

I hope it will be at least as good as MX-2 and MX-4. My top choice for building standard PCs. For OC intended PCs or as a GPU TIM swap I still prefer Thermal Grizzly, but customers expect and pay for the best in those cases.

 

im done with thermal paste on cpu since i discovered grizzly carbonaut, easy, clean, durable, you get maybe 1-2 more degree on your temps, but the ease of use and the fact that you dont need to reapply after a while make it worth it to me, its also very practicle on am4 socket

 

Only if you have it over 1 year applied and your mx-2 tube is now empty

 

Thermal pads had been used on laptops and other electronics beside desktops for long time now. It is definitely interesting solution but it's practical advantages seems to be just personal preference. I did replace my CPU heatsink after 5 years and the MX-2 was good as new. You for sure don't need to replace it often.

 

@Jawnys
after i started using liquid metal, it shows how little material you actually need between the block/HS,
never gonna happen with a pad, even at 0.01
maybe when its pounded into thin leaves, like they do with gold, but that wont be reusable..

would love to have some spare change to waste on having someone do this with copper,
and see how much that will help, even if its one-time-use only.

 

Who is going to buy this without knowing the performance? it cant be good if they are keeping it a secret.

 

The ease of use, IMHO, is only beneficial if you're swapping out components all the time. In a repair shop, for instance. For the 99% of users out there it's not advantageous.
Especially considering the price - in UK £9 ~ £12 - is twice as much as decent paste that can be applied several times over many, many years.

 

@Ripcord
not saying its going to be the best paste, but arctic does make decent stuff, even if it might not take the 1st place.
who else offers 8y warranty on their TP?

https://www.arctic.de/en/MX-5/ACTCP00047A

i pay 30-50% less for arctic fans compared to noctua or noiseblocker, they are within 10% of the performance, and even offer 10y warranty.

 

yeah those arctic bundles are crazy good value

 

I just installed 10700f next time I touch anything there will be to take it out for selling.hopefully.I hate having to change paste and fankly clean the cooler too.I cleaned it thoroughly when installing the new cpu,I hope the dust filter will take care of its cleanliness.

 

On my personal i7-8700k I've done the delidding, swapped original IHS for a custom copper one and used Thermal Grizzly Conductonaut (liquid metal) both between core/IHS and IHS/cooler.

Swapping original TIM used between core and IHS gave me about 15-20C depending on the test. Swapping original IHS to custom copper one gave me 1-2C, swapping Noctua TIM between cooler and IHS gave me maybe 3C and a lot more cleaning later It dried up after about a year, but still retained full heat transfer capabilities. It was a pain trying to take my cooling block off the CPU - I thought I will rip off the socket before being able to separate block from CPU

All those numbers were gathered using custom LC with a flat cooling block and flat IHS for the best connection. Since I've upgraded to 10900k I've decided not to use liquid metal on the IHS now - not worth the extra cleaning. Went with a standard TIM (Noctua because Grizzly sadly was empty when I was building my PC). Since 10900k has soldered IHS, I also didn't do delidding this time.

 

Will buy a syringe and test it myself. I always have a spare TIM tube for quick work. As it happens I almost finished a MX4 tube.
How bad could be?

 

@CoreyPL
always twist block to remove, dont pull upwards, or you end up pulling cpu from socket like i did 1st time.

did you treat/clean HS/block a few times?
they usually soak up some of the metals and "dry" it out, making it harder to remove later.
if you apply/remove it about 3 times within couple weeks/month, it will not dry out (as in get hard),
and removable of cooler is much easier, even after years.

one reason i will go back to using it (after i decided if i keep the 5800), as it is great as a permanent solution.

 

Thanks for the tips, but I've been building custom PCs for over 20 years now, I know how to disassemble and assemble one blindfolded

Believe me, when liquid metal dries up on such a big surfaces that are almost perfectly flat it makes them fuse together. I was twisting the block and with a twist move I felt like I was ripping the socket out of the motherboard.

When you have custom LC it's not that easy to reapply liquid metal. Basically you apply it once and do it again when the maintenance period for the LC hits.

Tip from me - you can clean dry liquid metal easily (easier) by applying some fresh liquid metal on top of the dried up one. It will infuse the dried up one with the carrier agent and bring it back to liquid form. After that use some nylon spudger and isopropyl alcohol and you are golden. Only thing that will still be left is a little staining, but that can only be removed with lapping - totally not needed, staining does not limit heat transfer in any meaningful way.

 

Glad the focus has begun shifting from a 1 degree advantage, to a focus on long term reliability. A lot of gpu that die from mining actually died from gpu paste drying out and then cooking the chip. Reading a thermal paste test the other day, and one thermal paste from a slightly older tube, did much worse then the fresh sample.

 

From the website it seems to be less viscous than MX4, so easier to spread. There is no indication of better thermal transfer so I guess it is the same.

Being more "runny" should be easier to spread thinly and uniformly I guess.

 

Normally good quality paste will work fine even 3 years down the line z there are instances that it dries up eventually and you loose a lot of performance. When my gtx 770 died i was given a 7870 as a loan from a friend the card on stock was sticking to 85-90 c ....witch was obsurd i had arctic silver around open the card up replaced the old crusty paste and the card was running with light oc at 75c after that ! In general changing tim is a good practice every 1-2 years but you can aim for when ever you see high temperatures without any particular reason !( I always assume the system is almost dust free/ clean)

How fast they dry and how much this affects performance it varies a lot between tims and other factors .

 

if you apply/remove/reapply it a few of times, it shouldnt.
i removed the block after 6 month an it was still a liquid in the areas where block/HS have contact, the only time it doesnt is if i got a new cpu and didnt care to treat it.

LC maintance isnt something i worry about, as i dont use hadr tubing for that reason
(cpu block is off in 1min) and distilled water and biocide reduce it to 2-3y.
it was even able to remove the bio growth on a used resorator i had in the past.

then again all my loops use clear tubing/res/block,
so i wont do anything until i actually see stuff in the water...