The Official Thermal Interface Material thread

[Magic Cube]

As lexluthermiester wanted. I will write little experience on this Upsiren U6 Pro thermal putty. Before this I did change my Asrock Challenger A750's thermal pads to Ultra version and it has been working about 2 months without problems.

So I decided to order this cheaper Pro-version. This is not thermal paste, it is putty and meant to replace thermal pads. I didn't do long tests because, I am not that interested about testing stuff(Just for my own enjoyment)->Snarks Domain on Youtube tells you more about thermal putty's. This stuff should be reusable. Applying is pita and I have never cleaned this stuff->what I heard toothpicks are great for cleaning.

So I did change thermal pads to putty on my Sapphire Radeon 5700XT. Putty is quite hard to apply, it is like clay or thermal paste which won't stick. I would say do like Snarks domain does->use gloves and roll putty to rolls. As I did forget to buy nitrile gloves and had to manage with finger condoms and spatula. I don't recommend using those, only then if you don't have anything else. I also don't recommend using putty without any protection on your hands.

First I did run 3D mark Firestrike Extreme stress test on original thermal pads. After applying thermal putty I did same stress test run. There was no difference in temperatures, about couple degrees. So atleast it is as good as thermal pads Sapphire used with my 5700XT. It should perform better, but my application method was not that good. I will try again some day. Nothing more to say for now about U6 Pro. But I do highly recommend to do your own research before buying.

 

[jayjr1105]

I have a 50g container of U6 pro as well. I think it does better if it replaces a 1mm pad vs 1.5 and 2mm. It performs about as well as a decent thermal pad but will outperform the white fabric type thermal pads like the stock nvidia founders cards had.

 

[Ferrum Master]

Putty is quite hard to apply

Bullcrap. I use putty daily. Use some spoon or chopstick and fill up a syringe with it then literally decorate everything like a cream on a cake.

Warnings... putty does sag off like old ladies tits... so if your GPU is front mounted with riser for show off in your case it will spill down with time. If you use it horizontally, then no probs.

Putty is great where you don't really know the right spacing, thus you concentrate all force to the gpu without creating some uneven pressure spots.

 

[lexluthermiester]

Putty is quite hard to apply, it is like clay or thermal paste which won't stick.

Did you apply it to the CPU directly or the heatsink first?

There was no difference in temperatures, about couple degrees.

So margin of error. Did you compare to a known good thermal paste and if so, what results did you have?

I'm thinking I might try another series of testing. I've been wanting to test Iridium pads VS graphite pads VS MX-6 and a few other TIMs. This stuff you're shown intrigues me!

 

[Magic Cube]

Did you apply it to the CPU directly or the heatsink first?

So margin of error. Did you compare to a known good thermal paste and if so, what results did you have?

I'm thinking I might try another series of testing. I've been wanting to test Iridium pads VS graphite pads VS MX-6 and a few other TIMs. This stuff you're shown intrigues me!

I did apply putty to every chip which had thermalpad originally->memory and vrm chips. For gpu core I used MX4, before it had MX5. I will check soon how did putty spread on chips and fix if there is something to fix.

I am also interested about those different pads. And I am still interested to try Honeywell PTM7950 on cpu. But when I will do that I don't know and I would need order multiple one's for different use cases.

I did apply putty to every chip which had thermalpad originally->memory and vrm chips. For gpu core I used MX4, before it had MX5. I will check soon how did putty spread on chips and fix if there is something to fix.

I am also interested about those different pads. And I am still interested to try Honeywell PTM7950 on cpu. But when I will do that I don't know and I would need order multiple one's for different use cases.

So I did check how well putty was spread. Only one memory chip looked like it did have good connection to heatsink. So I fixed it with thermal paste spreading tool, taking putty from other place(some places had too much). Memory junction dropped about 4 degrees. Gpu core still had same temps as yesterday.

Also noticed that when I was stress testing with 3D Mark my RX5700XT's fan speed was low(max 900rpm) and no boost clocks at all. I have to research why, probably something to do with drivers. Last time(could be year ago) I used this card, boost clocks on core where 2000-2050MHz. Only bios mod done to this card is fan always on(about 550-600 on desktop).

 

[sLowEnd]

I haven't seen anyone recommend Arctic Silver 5 in ages. I wonder how the Arctic Silver company is still selling enough of that stuff to stay afloat in light of better, newer competing products?

Even aside from having an outdated product, I don't think I've ever seen an Arctic Silver advertisement. Their website still says Copyright 2012 (on some pages, some say 2017, some say 2015...either way it looks old throughout), so there's no effort there either. The more I think about it, the more baffled I am at how they are able to continue to exist. No R&D + no advertising + outdated product = profit?

 

[lexluthermiester]

I haven't seen anyone recommend Arctic Silver 5 in ages. I wonder how the Arctic Silver company is still selling enough of that stuff to stay afloat in light of better, newer competing products?

If you still have some, use it! AS5 is still a solid TIM. And it's still for sale.

Arctic Silver Incorporated - Arctic Silver 5

www.arcticsilver.com

Amazon.com

 

[freeagent]

I like AS5. Nothing wrong it, but it does perform better with a nice thin application..

 

[lexluthermiester]

I like AS5. Nothing wrong it, but it does perform better with a nice thin application..

Wait, didn't everyone spread it out thin? I always have. AS5 was the reason I started using the spread-thin method.

 

[Macro Device]

I wanna buy and apply some A or even S tier thermal paste on my GPU, RX 6700 XT, as my current paste is rather a cheap parody. What can you recommend me? Money is not an issue but I don't want to spend more than I really need to.

 

[freeagent]

Wait, didn't everyone spread it out thin? I always have. AS5 was the reason I started using the spread-thin method.

You would think, but with people talking about spill over.. I doubt it..

 

[lexluthermiester]

I wanna buy and apply some A or even S tier thermal paste on my GPU, RX 6700 XT, as my current paste is rather a cheap parody. What can you recommend me? Money is not an issue but I don't want to spend more than I really need to.

Arctic Cooling MX-6 is currently the best. I highly recommend it!

You would think, but with people talking about spill over.. I doubt it..

Good point!

 

[Macro Device]

Arctic Cooling MX-6 is currently the best.

For CPUs, sure, but for GPUs? I don't say you're wrong but I want to be dead sure about my purchase.

 

[nomdeplume]

I haven't seen anyone recommend Arctic Silver 5 in ages. I wonder how the Arctic Silver company is still selling enough of that stuff to stay afloat in light of better, newer competing products?

It was discussed fairly recently? Not that long ago this discussion reached a point of discussing it in relation to pump out and other impactful realities of modern high end hardware. For nearly all computers and many gpu it was felt to be up there among the best choices. Never needs to be replaced or dealt with again, best choices.

Where we diverged back into temporary solutions was new at retail hardware reaching conditions historically reserved for OC. Mostly it seemed those who took great enjoyment from testing TIM were happy to get back into communally doing so.

 

[P4-630]

I haven't seen anyone recommend Arctic Silver 5 in ages. I wonder how the Arctic Silver company is still selling enough of that stuff to stay afloat in light of better, newer competing products?

Even aside from having an outdated product, I don't think I've ever seen an Arctic Silver advertisement. Their website still says Copyright 2012 (on some pages, some say 2017, some say 2015...either way it looks old throughout), so there's no effort there either. The more I think about it, the more baffled I am at how they are able to continue to exist. No R&D + no advertising + outdated product = profit?

IIRC I have mentioned this before in this thread, I used AS5 for the CPU in my dads rig in 2010, it's a socket 775 system with an E7200, it's still runnig cool today, so that's almost 14 years....

 

[lexluthermiester]

For CPUs, sure, but for GPUs? I don't say you're wrong but I want to be dead sure about my purchase.

Yup, it's my TIM of choice for everything. Just an FYI: If it's good for one, it's for the other.

 

[Macro Device]

Yup, it's my TIM of choice for everything. Just an FYI: If it's good for one, it's for the other.

Okay, my piggy bank will be used on MX-6 next week. This week, I'm recording "before" values for comparison.

 

[lexluthermiester]

This week, I'm recording "before" values for comparison.

Cool! Screenshots and comparisons are always welcome!

 

[Macro Device]

Cool! Screenshots and comparisons are always welcome!

Spoiler: Cyberpunk 2077 (4K, High, FSR: Quality), 30 min gameplay

 

[natr0n]

only fans , c0ck size
charmingly funny

 

[oiawshboiwsahnoidaws]

I received a (hopefully legit) PTM7958SP paste from ebuy7 and compared it to thermalright heilos pad (likely PTM7950 re-brand)
I should say i didn't let the PTM7958SP paste dry which has to be done according to honeywell and just freshly applied so temperature might improve over time yet
Roughly 4°C worse than thermalright heilos pad (again kinda worst-case scenario for the PTM7958SP paste)

I did a second run with my wrongly applied ptm7958 and temperatures improved already not as good as heilos yet but who knows maybe will reach its performance in few days (if it can as i didn't let it dry with heatsink off)

 

[jayjr1105]

I wanna buy and apply some A or even S tier thermal paste on my GPU, RX 6700 XT, as my current paste is rather a cheap parody. What can you recommend me? Money is not an issue but I don't want to spend more than I really need to.

https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256805348508116.html

https://a.co/d/a6atabo if you want it sooner

I did a PTM7950-like sheet on my 6750 before selling it, brought down core temp and hotspot to within 8-10c of the core.

 

[Macro Device]

https://a.co/d/a6atabo if you want it later

FTFY. Amazon don't ship to my country.

Is PTM7950 any better than MX-6? I don't think so.

 

[jayjr1105]

FTFY. Amazon don't ship to my country.

Is PTM7950 any better than MX-6? I don't think so.

I would say 1-2c better vs high quality carbon pastes. Hot spot will be better as well plus much less susceptible to pump out.

 

[adilazimdegilx]

Wonder if I should try that 'Amech SGT-4' to replace my stock paste that came with phantom spirit (I guess it's TF7)?

I have originally ordered MX-6 but it was cancelled due to stock issues and I took it as a sign to stick with what I have. (I kinda have abundance of allegedly good box thermal pastes. stock PS120 SE paste, stock Deepcool AK620 paste and stock Scyte Fuma 2 paste )

Amech drops to 6$ with prime but I need to pay for international shipping, still it's almost the same price with MX-6 here due to profits and extra taxes.

I feel like I dont really need it and just trying to justify the purchase in my mind but I would be pleased with any temperature drop really. My only concern is seeing identical results. Not because of the money, but falling to exaggerated reviews of koreans and ordering a small <10g box from 5000kms away for nothing.