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Best thermal compound on the market

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EcoGeek

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I know this has probably been asked a dozen million times in various places but what I notice is in the benchmarks for thermal compound there seems to be a pattern of testing the popular and trendy products and ignoring the ones that are actually claiming they are the best out there, or pastes made of better materials than average - like diamond.

Tbf, since I originally could never find anything conclusive I assumed diamond would be the best because of availability and being naturally more thermally conductive than silver, and I've done quite well with diamond based compound, and it seems miles ahead of anything else I tried.

I wouldn't mind seeing a round up of the apparently "actual best" compounds out there, or just one for all the diamond based compounds out there as I've fared really well with some of them. A couple of vendors say they're the actual best and I'm just surprised there's not much out there comparing these, or enough to say "these are the top five, without doubt".

GC Extreme claim to be the best paste out there. IC Diamond claim testers (ie users) always say it's better than anything etc, though personally I found antec formula 7 (another diamond compound) slightly better.

There is apparently graphene thermal paste on the market, which ought to be best in theory but I couldn't find that. Anyone know a brand name fo this btw?

Anyway,..I'm just gonna ask lol - is there an actual "best" thermal compound out there that really does seem to be the best with some kind of accurate benchmarks to back it up from say 3-5 accurate sources?

I know there are advantages/disadvantages to them all - ie, some are not electrically conductive, some are more 'permanent' etc, but I mean purely in performance.

I would accept best as something that comes in the top 3 or 4 every time but more often 1 or 2, and more 1 than 2 if you get me. I would guess that would mean theres a few in that bracket but.. still, what do you think is best (from the data out there)?
 
This ^^. But most don't need that and the extreme cost that come with it. I mean you are paying 3-4x more for a degree or two is what it comes down to.

Personally, I would grab some MX-2, MX-4, and call it a day. Take the $15 you save and go grab a 12 pack. :)
 
Depending on what CPU Block you get you might just get some good paste with it. I got the EK-Supremacy Clean CSQ and it came with Gelid GC-Extreme in the box and far more than is needed for just that one block.
 
Conumdrum said:
Indigo Xtreme. You have to let the CPU go to thermal shutdown to melt it.
Click to expand...

That looks like it should knock everything out the water at >20 W/mK, the site does mention that normal grease ought to be better unless extreme overclocking.. does that imply it does less at lower temps and loads?
 
Here's a link to a fairly extensive chart at Hardwaresecrets. Just put the Indigo on top by another couple degrees. It's also about $20 for 3 applications I think
 
^A nice chart, so the prolimatech looks like it's rated quite high too. But I guess the indigo extreme wouldn't be usable for gpu's and other chips?
 
You are really being incredibly granular for such little differences... thermal paste is honestly a 'buy a decent one and go' thing. Don't make it harder and more expensive than it needs to be. :)
 
just pick one for the most part the difference is gonna be a degree or 3.

mx-2, as5, mx-4, mx-3, ect.. theres lots to choose from.
 
haha, i'll try the gc extreme, really just trying to see how many degrees could be pushed
 
Ajay57 said:
I went with this one seems to give good CPU and GPU Temps all round, the reason is i saw this on the HWbot Review.

1, http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835426020

And @ 12 Bucks not that to expensive!!!
Click to expand...

Yes, it seems to come highly recommended by all, hence why I think I should give it a try.

I'm going to resit my cooler, clean out my graphics card and the motherboard heatpipes, it all needs doing which is why I'm trying to push the last degree out here to get that better overall cooling. That and I recently went with some noctua ULN fans and I'm hoping to run them in the lower noise margins. My overall temps are pretty nice when everything is cleaned up but at the moment my cpu temps are up a little.

BTW: whilst I'm on the topic, does anyone know the name of the spring type clips that hold heatpipes down? I couldn't find them on ebay but the reason I need to paste up the chips is one of the clips are loose and not repairable. This is my board http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/M4A79T_Deluxe/ .. I don't know if you can see the black clips holding down the copper cooler, but it's what I'm after.

I found a ten gram tub of GC Extreme on amazon for £16.. it's not the budget version of cooling I reckon (MX paste is cheap and effective as someone pointed out above), but it's a good size tub. Sadly my gpu's run hot enough to mark the motherboard and back panels after a while, as it's an older card.
 
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