Liquid metal compounds make their way to the top of the temperature chart with slightly cooler values than the traditional pastes. Interestingly, the difference between the top and bottom of this chart is less than 4C. In contrast, traditional thermal paste compounds are relatively simple for every experience level. Most, but not all, traditional pastes are electrically non-conductive.

However, there is a catch to it. These wipes have very strong and unpleasant smell that doesn’t go away instantly. ARCTIC is not adding or mixing any artificial flavor for the fragrance to alter this smell. Each wipe is 115x115mm. Noctua's NT-H1 is a super-reliable paste that has been around for years. It is regarded as one of the best with more than 150 awards and recommendations, and it's one of the best options for building or repairing computers, especially for amateurs who may not yet have a lot of experience with thermal pastes but are confident enough to use them. The NT-H1 formula also gets excellent marks for usability, with an easy-to-apply consistency. It's easy to clean when dry and is designed to not corrode. As you can see, the Arctic MX-6 is the winner of this comparison, taking 0.7 degrees from the excellent Noctua NT-H2 and 1.9 degrees Celsius from the CORSAIR TM30, which is not bad thermal paste either. Of course, in terms of performance, it seems that Arctic has done an excellent job again. We tested each thermal paste with a low-tension air cooler mount, high-tension air cooler mount, and a high-tension AIO liquid cooler mount. Each application was given a 1-hour burn-in using Prime95 with ten load and cooling cycles over the course of the hour; six minutes each with a ten-second cool-down between. Each testing load session was then executed for a one-hour load period, again using Prime95.

On top of that, liquid metals can't be used with aluminum heat sinks since the Gallium in them reacts with aluminum. That's not really an issue since most heat sinks (remember, not all) are made of copper which is nonreactive with the liquid metal. That being said, the high risk pays off in meaningful ways the liquid metal provides up to 73 W/(mK) thermal conductivity. It's much higher than the 0.5-12.5 W/(mK) thermal conductivity provided by conventional thermal pastes. Artic's Silver series is extremely popular among enthusiasts. The Silver series has also been around for quite some time now and the company has managed to keep it relevant in the space by adding newer, better variants to match the current standards. The Arctic Silver 5 is currently one of the most popular thermal paste solutions on the market. It's a high-density polysynthetic silver compound that's known to be very effective in a variety of builds. It contains micronized silver and several other thermally conductive ceramic particles to offer a high level of performance and stability.

the wipes MX Cleaner To remove thermal paste they come in individual sachets, and be careful because they are wet wipes that have a very, very strong smell of disinfectant. We have tested them, and of course we recommend using them to remove the previous thermal paste naturally, without pressing too much and folding the wipe so that you always wipe it with a clean part, but once that is done, we recommend wiping it down a bit. toilet paper to the surface to remove the remains of the disinfectant liquid that may remain. Now coming to the main point of this article, the following configuration is used for thermal paste testing: – PC was powered off for a minimum of 30 minutes after a stress test run. This would allow the completion of the thermal cycle with hot and cold runs giving the thermal paste some time to reach its near-optimal condition. The dispersion is quite good, denoting that it is not as viscous as it seemed to us in the first instance, especially when we have not applied as much pressure as a heatsink will apply to the processor and, in fact, we have put much more thermal paste on the paper of the which we will cast on the IHS of the processor normally.

Apple cancelled this, now what?

A graphics card with a much higher heat load or the HEDT/EPYC CPUs with large surface areas are better candidates for thermal paste testing. Now, we fold the paper and apply enough pressure with our fingers on it to see how the paste spreads. We are proud of our thermal pastes. With over twenty years of experience in the PC cooling market and the goal to offer first-class products at a fair price, we have developed the MX-6. The formula of the new thermal paste is based on the proven MX-4, one of the best-selling thermal pastes in the world. Our focus was both on improving performance and on versatile application possibilities and an easy-to-use consistency. The above picture shows a thermal paste. This paste is not easy to spread in my opinion unlike MX-5 or even Noctua NT-H1. The fans of the air cooler were set to run at their full speed for which the settings were made in UEFI/BIOS.

As shown in the slides above, the outcome of the different testing scenarios resulted in some interesting comparisons among the compounds. We’ll look at the overall thermal load averages for each, as well as the relative performance value of each in terms of price-per-gram. The XTM50 paste by itself has low viscosity, so can also just use the 'Dot method' to apply the paste and let the mounting pressure do its thing. But if you're too worried about applying using that method, then the bundled stencil and spreader make it very easy to get things done. In theory, you can use any application method for a compound with low viscosity, but the stencil makes it that much easier to apply. It's for new builders who don't necessarily have the technical know-how of properly applying thermal paste and how improper application can have a lasting impact on the overall performance of the CPU.Corsair Commander Pro, 100%/50% PWM Speed profiles (liquid cooling pump always @100%, if applicable) Well, the ARCTIC MX-6 lowers the temperature by 1°C over the Noctua NT-H1. I would hardly declare it as a winner.

We'll go into our breakdown of how we test these thermal pastes below, but the key takeaway here is that a single thermal compound can perform differently based upon several variables, such as what type of cooler and mount you use. To cover all the bases, we've tested every thermal paste with three variables: In the following graph you can see the result, expressed in Delta temperature, that is, measured temperature minus ambient temperature, so that even if the ambient temperature varies, the comparison is still reliable. The performance value chart shows most of the liquid metal compounds with a poor value-per-gram rating, but once again, Phobya LM proves to be the outlier for that sub-category with its budget price tag. Why should you buy this: It is one of the best-performing pastes with excellent thermal conductivity.We're also putting a new take on an old approach to the test — thermal pads. These pads can be used as TIM and come as a single sheet you simply apply to your heatsink, with Thermaltake's Heilos Pad being the first new thermal pad entrant to see our test bed in the coming weeks. For a compound that costs less than half as much as leading competitors , Phobya's Liquid Metal Compound LM offers impressive performance, often besting the the CoolLaboratory Liquid Pro or Thermal Grizzly Conductonaut in our tests. Ideally, we would have wanted to do 3 tests as a minimum for a single thermal paste and show the average of these three runs. I am recovering from a total hip replacement surgery and slowly resuming the testing hence only one test result is used