[EOL] Arctic MX-5 is here!!Tests incoming! Completed. Now its MX-6 testing time!

[robot zombie]

Good thermal performance, easy application, easy clean up, and not being electrically conductive are all key features. That's what makes it a great paste and that's why I use it all the time. Never any problems with the MX line since I started using it over a decade ago. Sure you won't get the best thermal performance, but you're giving up other features for that. Can't have it all.

TBF past a bottom level of low-performing pastes, they're all more similar than different on temps. There is basically "viable" "not viable" and "temperature delta margin nervosa" for options. The ones that ARE far enough behind to seriously look at the performance, aren't what you want anyway, and performance probably isn't the reason.

AFAIC if a paste does not result in significant cooling loss, the performance is not a factor. The longevity, ease of application, reactivity (chemical or mechanical etching,) and conductivity are pretty much all that matter in the end.

It's like so many of us always say when people ask about swapping paste. If you're thinking about swapping paste to solve a cooling problem, you have bigger cooling problems than paste can solve or no cooling problems at all, because you're thinking in single digit temperature deltas. Unless we're talking GPUs, some of which have had reps for bad paste/pad jobs which do hinder performance. Point is, you buy paste for consistency and reliability. It's the cooler that does the cooling.

 

[hat]

TBF past a bottom level of low-performing pastes, they're all more similar than different on temps. There is basically "viable" "not viable" and "temperature delta margin nervosa" for options. The ones that ARE far enough behind to seriously look at the performance, aren't what you want anyway, and performance probably isn't the reason.

AFAIC if a paste does not result in significant cooling loss, the performance is not a factor. The longevity, ease of application, reactivity (chemical or mechanical etching,) and conductivity are pretty much all that matter in the end.

It's like so many of us always say when people ask about swapping paste. If you're thinking about swapping paste to solve a cooling problem, you have bigger cooling problems than paste can solve or no cooling problems at all, because you're thinking in single digit temperature deltas. Unless we're talking GPUs, some of which have had reps for bad paste/pad jobs which do hinder performance. Point is, you buy paste for consistency and reliability. It's the cooler that does the cooling.

Pretty much this. The only time I would use a paste other than MX might be liquid metal, if I ever delid anything.

 

[robot zombie]

Sometimes thermal paste reminds me a little of cable audiophoolery. From an engineering standpoint, there is little benefit to fancy cable geometry, exotic conductors, so on, simply because audio cables tend not to be nearly long enough to even be considered transmission lines. Basically if you have enough of a steady conductor there, it'll work about the same. Hum may be an issue with unbalanced lines. There may be electrical benefits to massively overbuilding them, but likely not sonic ones. Still people will buy the $1000 headphone cable with a full brochure of features and impressive specs over the $80 plain copper one with nice sheathing and connectors that will last forever. All for the promise of very marginal gains, when the most noticeable difference between fully functioning cables is build quality.

Same with thermal paste. A certain threshold of thermal conductivity is a given, where anything at least in that range will work about the same in the end and will not be the most impactful bottleneck in the system unless you already have the absolute most ideal cooling hardware possible. Past that, you spend a lot more for a few degrees of difference and maybe not even a better experience applying it. And the temperature difference is so small it could hide right in your margins no matter how much you go back and forth testing. I don't see a point in that. It's hobby nervosa to me. Something I try to avoid, for my health.

To counter this point, Steve Brule also says if you get ants on your ice cream cone, you're gonna eat them for protein. But I'm pretty sure that's a parody. Eating ants for protien is taking things a little too far. You can just have some mixed nuts or something. You don't need to put ants on your ice cream.

I wonder if somewhere along the line people confused the troubleshooting 101 advice of 'reapply thermal paste' with 'apply better thermal paste'. The issue there is in the application and not the paste itself, but I wonder how many people catch that consciously instead of just getting it in their heads that they need the one with the absolute best thermals and going on to always seek that. I guess our tendency to count and rank everything doesn't help.

Of course there are exceptions. LM for a couple of cases. And then there are LN2-specific formulae.

I guess when I run out of MX-4, I'll try MX-5. Honestly, I just hope they didn't ruin the formula. Call me stubborn. I like working with MX-4. I am the best and worst person to ever ask about thermal paste.

 

[hat]

Yeah, I'll try MX5 when I run out of MX4... if MX6 isn't already a thing yet. I skipped MX3, by the time my MX2 ran out we already had MX4.

 

[freeagent]

I didn't know I ran out of TFX until I had the old paste wiped off. So I went to my local shop and got a tube of AS5 lol.. its actually not too bad until it gets hot

Curious what the hype is all about, I haven't tried any MX paste.

 

[robot zombie]

It's really just decently well-performing paste with a nice balance of consistency and longevity. And price. Apply on pretty much anything. Just the definition of 'all around good' IME and IMO of course.

 

[Space Lynx]

It's really just decently well-performing paste with a nice balance of consistency and longevity. And price. Apply on pretty much anything. Just the definition of 'all around good' IME and IMO of course.

well my reference rx 6800 non-xt i'm pretty sure has proprietary paste that you can't replace, gamersnexus did a teardown of 6800 xt and i think non-xt is same im unsure, but i believe its some kind of graphite paste or something. so yeah my days of opening up gpu's to replace the paste are at an end sadly. i get great temps with it so i don't want to risk opening it up.

 

[hat]

I've heard of a graphite pad, never graphite paste...

 

[sneekypeet]

The spatula is quite useful to scrape off old paste.

I realize I am late to seeing this comment, but never has a more honest reason of why to include a spatula with TIM be uttered. Not only are they amazing for scraping the bulk off the IHS, but they also cut the grime out of the side and corner bits for the seriously OCD of us that have CPUs in images all the time.

As for application, I used dots and let the cooler mounting pressure do its thing. For applications, seems they (spatulas) suck, as all I have ever had in hand were made of textured plastic that would not clean completely.... IMO, of course

 

[Space Lynx]

I've heard of a graphite pad, never graphite paste...

The hotspot of the Radeon RX 6800 (XT), hurdles in the thermal grease replacement and the correct assembly sequence | igor´sLAB

Even though AMD has solved the determination of Tjunction (“hotspot temperature”) differently with the new Radeon graphics cards (Navi21) and measures and calculates much more widely…

www.igorslab.de

i'm not sure what it is. i think its graphite paste/carbon pad hybrid i dunno

 

[8BitZ80]

Man! I just bought the giant 45g (or whatever it is) tube of MX-4. The cynic in me hopes the MX-5 isn't much better, but the enthusiast in me slaps that cynic silly.

GD900 on Aliexpress is $6 (edit: $3 on sale right now) for a 30g tube and every bit as good as MX-4. I haven't used anything else for over a year now.

 

[maxfly]

Just ordered a 4g tube, was only $7.50 shipped from Amazon. Wont be here until Wednesday tho. The only rig ive got to test it in has prolimatech pk3 on it. Ill try to make time to do a mx4 mount as well.

 

[delshay]

I've heard of a graphite pad, never graphite paste...

You can buy graphite power on EBAY & mix it in with the paste. ..Now you have Graphite Paste, not sure how well it will work thou.

Experiment at user(s) own risk.

EDIT: Thermal Pads will die a slow death. Meet the new king of thermal transfer for MOSFETS. You can now tie High side/Low side & Ground together for the ultimate heat transfer. I can't wait to test these new thermal jumpers.

THJP ThermaWick™ Thermal Jumper SMD Chips - Vishay / Thin Film | Mouser

 

[8BitZ80]

You can buy graphite power on EBAY & mix it in with the paste. ..Now you have Graphite Paste, not sure how well it will work thou.

Experiment at user(s) own risk.

I don't recommend graphite powder at all. You can buy it in bulk and it's great for lubrication (I mix it with lanolin grease and it's brilliant for gate hinges) but it really shouldn't go anywhere near a computer. The powder is super fine and gets airborne easily, it stains everything, it's conductive. I've also tested the mixing method with regular thermal paste and it doesn't help at all. When you mix it the thermal paste turns into a gum-like solid and it's too difficult to work with. 100% not recommended.

 

[Mussels]

i remember my brother lubed up the driveway with graphite powder once as kids, to make our bikes go faster or something

I can only imagine inside a PC will result in a broken PC so at least record the attempts on video for a highlights clip

 

[delshay]

I don't recommend graphite powder at all. You can buy it in bulk and it's great for lubrication (I mix it with lanolin grease and it's brilliant for gate hinges) but it really shouldn't go anywhere near a computer. The powder is super fine and gets airborne easily, it stains everything, it's conductive. I've also tested the mixing method with regular thermal paste and it doesn't help at all. When you mix it the thermal paste turns into a gum-like solid and it's too difficult to work with. 100% not recommended.

Edited my last post. ..See thermal jumpers link. Read the PDF Docs.

 

[Sithaer]

GD900 on Aliexpress is $6 (edit: $3 on sale right now) for a 30g tube and every bit as good as MX-4. I haven't used anything else for over a year now.

I have GD 900 on my GPU atm, repasted it a few months ago with it. 'also changed thermal pads'
My bro bought it sometime ago cause it was cheap and heard good things about it.
I think I've seen Bryan talking about it on TechYesCity and he liked/suggested it as a cheap alternative to MX 4.

So far the temps are all good, longevity is what I'm not sure about but it can't be worse than how the original factory paste looked like after 3 years.

We do have MX 4 around and been using it for years on our CPUs with no issues but I did not want to 'waste' it on my GPU in case I mess it up. 'I don't usually repaste GPUs, first time actually'

 

[nguyen]

If anyone can find Thermagic ZF-EX (which is just rebranded Thermalright TF-X) for cheap, go for it. This paste are so viscous that it will last a very long time under extreme condition (i.e laptop) and the performance is just a hair under the best paste (Kingping KPx, Kryonaut Extreme) while being much cheaper like 5usd for 2g tube.
Luumi's review

 

[jboydgolfer]

kind of surprised to see the MX-5 is blue

i havent used MX in a long time, but i dont recall it being blue before.

 

[bobbybluz]

kind of surprised to see the MX-5 is blue

i havent used MX in a long time, but i dont recall it being blue before.

View attachment 191467

I repasted a GPU using MX-4 a couple of days ago and it's grey.

 

[Ruru]

The spatula is quite useful to scrape off old paste.

I've always used toilet paper for cleaning the surfaces and it works fine.

 

[P4-630]

I've always used toilet paper for cleaning the surfaces and it works fine.

Or kitchen towel paper.

 

[jboydgolfer]

I've always used toilet paper for cleaning the surfaces and it works fine.

i use an old SD card as a Spatula when i need one.
i also use toilet paper to clean the surface.
im not one of those people who fears the 'particles of toilet paper causing a CPU meltdown', who also happen to often be the same people as those wrist strap suckers

 

[Blaylock]

I grab the endrolls of the paper hand towels from work. They are absolutely perfect for cleaning old Tim.

 

[thesmokingman]

It's pretty cheap for a 4g tube so I ordered one for spare. I've been using PK3 for a while now.