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Thermal compound

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OGMCVilleTC

Member
Joined
Aug 19, 2008
Location
Tn
What thermal compounds do you use for your CPUs? Also what do you use to clean? I normally use the articlean on my main bit don't think I will for benching. Do you just use alcohol, paper towels, and q tips? Trying to be as efficient as possible here.
 
I have a 30g tube of MX-2 its relatively cheap and works very well for me. alcohol and papertowels work for me.
 
But Gelid is so good. And when you get it on sale it makes it even that much harder to turn down. I bought some of that Indigo Extreme cleaner, it is pricey, but it takes event the hardest of TIMs off with easy. I put a NB/VRM cooler on my MB and the stuff AMD uses for the NB TIM is just sticky, using plain isopropyl alcohol to clean it was not good enough, went through 10 q-tips and a couple of shop towels, that stuff was just nasty, used the Indigo stuff and it was clean in 1 q-tip. But you cant leave the bottle open it will evaporate in minutes left open. Use in well ventilated room also, some potent stuff.
 
Usually Gelid Supreme. Cheap ( comparing to other good tims ), easy to apply, don't need anything special to clean it, works fine on ambient and sub 0, is also good for polishing copper from stains :)
 
I use just alcohol swabs. they work pretty well. paper towel to get the hard stuff off but usually the swab does just fine. BD and Guard are the brands I use. BD's are thick and soft cloth, the Guards are kinda rough textured so you can scrub a bit if you need to. Both have alot of alcohol saturated in them. I have an abundance of them because im a type one diabetic but they are cheap. 2-5 bucks for a box of 100 or if you buy them in bulk at a costco it was like 5-8 for 400.
 
MX-2, Gelid Supreme or what ever's on hand for ambient. Gelid Extreme for Sub Zero.
 
I got a bunch of big gelid supreme on sale when they were clearing stock at CanadaComputers, as been said very easy to use and clean. I don't even bother with alcohol just use coffee filters my block is nickle so not much sticks to it. Except for the Pot which is exposed copper. I still just use filters but first cleaning I do on a hard surface and scrub it around pushing down on the pot till the oxidation is gone.
 
NT-H1 typically, but I have a tube of Ceramique2 also.

For cleanup, typically a napkin. If it's being stubborn, a napkin with rubbing alcohol.
 
I typically use Arctic Cooling MX-4 or MX-2 these days (the big 20-30 gram tubes, lasts me over a year usually with the big ones). Use Ceramique 2 if I'm out of those, and Arctic Silver 5 if I'm out of everything else (think I've still got two or three tubes of it around, haven't used it in probably three years though).

I may try some others though as I need to find a good paste for using on GPU's with ambient cooling.
 
MX-4 or AS5 for me.

70%+ Alcohol and Q-tips to clean.
Just like most of us here ;)

Basically, if it's not toothpaste or vaseline or diaper rash cream it'll work well enough.
 
99% alcohol and 100% cotton swabs.
been using IC Diamond for the past couple years, but bought some MX-4 last.
and aways have a tube of AS5 laying around somewhere.
and pretty sure aftermarket paste is better than stock intel paste.
 
Any stock TIM is going to a cost-cut for the manufacturer. Heck, most aftermarket heatsinks come with sub-par TIM. Noctua's is great, but beyond that a lot of them are fairly meh.
 
I'm still on my 30g tube of ceramique so I use that for everything. I figure I'll pick up a big tube of MX-2 after this one runs out.
 
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