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Which Thermal Paste to buy and apply (Traditional and Liquid Metal)


Vasudev

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K5-Pro thermal goop (Thermal pad alternative)

Tested on Panasonic CF-31 (mk2) Intel Core i5-2520M @ 2.50GHz Running Window 8.1

I've had this laptop maybe 6 months and It has always been hot. Like 50C on idle and pegging 98C just by thinking about opening a youtube video. From what I have been able to learn this is not that uncommon.

 

Spoiler

IMG_20230322_174239 (1).jpg

1066219921_IMG_20230322_174247(1).jpg.ecf071f29de28221baebfd567d080989.jpg

 

On stripping the laptop I found an old thermal pad on CPU die. This is where I wanted to try the K5. I've read some tutorials that it can be used on CPU and some said VRM's and GPU only. I thought I would give it a shot (That is why I bought it afterall)

old pad.png

 

 

I put K5 on the die and onto the heatsink. 

 

958889291_newgoop.png.26f8dd3b2cea06cf5cc518c650eece3e.png

 

 

On reassembly of the laptop and testing found temps were same as before. No noticeable change. I ran Prime95 for a couple of hours to see if the goop might "settle"...it didn't.

After stripping the laptop again and looking at the K5 I noticed many small "air pockets". My application method probably didn't help.

 

71987683_1airpockets.thumb.png.62a850f624ebec11d10df5c1e282681c.png

2050850672_2airpockets.png.0fc1a154ceeadc58d0d354047257f796.png

 

 

 

I'm currently back on generic thermal pads and running 40C at idle.

 

Things to note.

I gave a quick eyeball guess and I think this was a little more than the recommended maximum thickness of 3mm, I was closer to 4-4.5mm maybe. I assumed squishing the parts together would reduce the thickness. It didn't. But my method of coating the heatsink and the die was also probably incorrect,  It trapped air inside!

 

 

Cleanup was easy with a tissue. Imagine you squirted toothpaste inside your computer. Same thing here without the minty freshness.

 

I think the K5-pro would be good used on VRM's and other components where your not 100% sure of thermal pad size/thickness requirement. Heat transfer seemed to be very similar to a standard thermal pad.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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It is for sure not for CPU and GPU dies.. only VRM's.

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sure k5 pro for the vram as well but i think this should be logical.

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I'm not sure using k5 pro instead of pads is that logical by default, depends on the gap I guess. Played around with it on the desktop and the mess is terrible. If you are doing something on a turdbook that leads it you into thinking k5 pro might be the solution, you probably shouldn't be doing it on that turdbook. 

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On 3/27/2023 at 10:36 PM, Etern4l said:

I'm not sure using k5 pro instead of pads is that logical by default, depends on the gap I guess. Played around with it on the desktop and the mess is terrible. If you are doing something on a turdbook that leads it you into thinking k5 pro might be the solution, you probably shouldn't be doing it on that turdbook. 

 

With this Panasonic running so damn hot I'm willing to give anything a try.

 

Currently thinking about making a custom copper heatsink. 

cf-31-heat-sink-MCF-P06P-RHE-1__81452.jpg.783449816636741ac8ffb009df827ac1.jpg

 

This is the stock type and that silver "metal" is real garbage, very brittle (as in I broke one accidently)

The entire laptop is sealed, take it in the shower with you if you want....but it makes for very bad thermals.

 

Edit: After digging I found out the metal is zinc. Not much flexibility

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35 minutes ago, Eban said:

 

With this Panasonic running so damn hot I'm willing to give anything a try.

 

Currently thinking about making a custom copper heatsink. 

cf-31-heat-sink-MCF-P06P-RHE-1__81452.jpg.783449816636741ac8ffb009df827ac1.jpg

 

This is the stock type and that silver "metal" is real garbage, very brittle (as in I broke one accidently)

The entire laptop is sealed, take it in the shower with you if you want....but it makes for very bad thermals.

 

Sounds like there is a price to pay for the toughness. 

 

I played around with K5 Pro recently. Wanted to make a liquid metal dam out of it. Almost completely useless. I was hoping it woild be reasonably dense, kind of like playdough. Nope it's more like toothpaste, horribly messy. I'm not clear how this would help unless used like a normal paste, in which case there are better pastes out there obviously. 

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Gelid GC-4 3.5g only 7€ on Amazon.de, I made a first test with this and it's not looking good. It's not competing with the best. The Gelid stuff isn't working for me sadly.

 

I have ordered PTM7950 and Alpenföhn Blitzeis. The specs from Blitzeis and Halnziye HY-P15 are pretty much identical. Maybe the same paste, I don't know.

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Alpenföhn Blitzeis is quite good, although it seems to be slightly below Kooling Monster KOLD-01. I tried two Blitzeis  applications and this is the better one.


Gelid GC-4

90/93/91/92

 

Alpenföhn Blitzeis

86/88/86/87

 

Kooling Monster KOLD-01

83/87/85/86

 

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3 hours ago, Rofa1234 said:

Alpenföhn Blitzeis is quite good, although it seems to be slightly below Kooling Monster KOLD-01. I tried two Blitzeis  applications and this is the better one.


Gelid GC-4

90/93/91/92

 

Alpenföhn Blitzeis

86/88/86/87

 

Kooling Monster KOLD-01

83/87/85/86

 

 

This is just after application, right? Not at least a day, week, or ideally a month on? 

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i hate to say it but tooth paste works well if applied properly(luck)

 

its a hyperbole but i think all the pastes are closer than we think with the exception of phase change pads effectively giving a perfect placement with ease. i used to repaste my laptops but now not so much, usually bga turdbooks are now all one big chunk which makes a repaste on gpu and cpu more challenging, all i would say is liquid metal(added ) and PCP must be the only exception, similar to ic diamond back in the day.

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On 3/30/2023 at 6:16 PM, Etern4l said:

 

This is just after application, right? Not at least a day, week, or ideally a month on? 

 

 

Initial 30 minutes OCCT temperature test. 1 day makes no difference. Ok maybe some can improve by 0.5 degrees after 1 day of curing or something like that but who cares, every application with the same paste can differ that much. I tried Gelid GC-4 the other day and there is no magic improvement. Curing is not a thing anymore. Gelid and many other even avdertize their pastes with Non-Curing.

 

1 week and more is longevity. I cannot test longevity, impossible to do on such a big number of pastes I tested in the last two years and how to test it equally for all in exactly the same way. However a paste that is 5+ degrees worse from the beginning is not a great deal in my books even if it has good longevity. I guess PTM7950 should be the best choice for longevity and also seems to have great temps from the beginning.

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8 hours ago, Rofa1234 said:

 

 

Initial 30 minutes OCCT temperature test. 1 day makes no difference. Ok maybe some can improve by 0.5 degrees after 1 day of curing or something like that but who cares, every application with the same paste can differ that much. I tried Gelid GC-4 the other day and there is no magic improvement. Curing is not a thing anymore. Gelid and many other even avdertize their pastes with Non-Curing.

 

1 week and more is longevity. I cannot test longevity, impossible to do on such a big number of pastes I tested in the last two years and how to test it equally for all in exactly the same way. However a paste that is 5+ degrees worse from the beginning is not a great deal in my books even if it has good longevity. I guess PTM7950 should be the best choice for longevity and also seems to have great temps from the beginning.

 

Yeah, 1 day would capture any curing behaviour (very pronounced with the Honeywell stuff), and1 week+ would be useful to assess pump-out resistance, although this is hugely dependent on heatsink fit, contact area size, heat flux, workload pattern etc. 

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PTM7950 pads rule!

 

Just did an MSI GT75 that I had never repasted and the difference is quite staggering.

 

CPU core differential went down from 18°C to 7°C and I also managed to get a top 20th place rating out of more than 24000 for its GTX1080 GPU with a litte bit above 8250 whereas before I could not get over 8000. The CPU still stinks (8750H) but at least it has gone down in temperature by more than 10°C.

Curing time: about 1.5 hours and about 5 runs each for Cinebench and Time Spy.

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10 minutes ago, ratchetnclank said:

Is there any truth to that? 

No, melts at around 50C and works great on the IHS. That said, some variance in performance has been reported, with the branded stuff from ebuy7 apparently working best. 

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5 hours ago, Etern4l said:

No, melts at around 50C and works great on the IHS. That said, some variance in performance has been reported, with the branded stuff from ebuy7 apparently working best. 

Awesome. Thought it sounded wrong. Mines from ebay so i guess i'll see if it's decent or not.

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Just now, ratchetnclank said:

Awesome. Thought it sounded wrong. Mines from ebay so i guess i'll see if it's decent or not.

I've tried two different noname pads from ebay, one seemed a bit better than the other, both were really good. I also ordered the 7958 paste from ebuy7, received as advertised via Yuyun Express, haven't tried yet. 

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Looks like my last PTM 7950 pad application has settled a bit as core temp differences are now down to 5°C from 7°C on the day of the application. Not bad coming from a 17°C difference.

 

I also have used it on the IHS of an 8700K and 9900K where intra-core differences have also come down to 5° and 7°C from over 10°C before.

 

Got my PTM 7950 from Ali Express and will probably buy from them again as so far it has worked extraordinarily well and there is very little guesswork as to how it is best applied.

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Good temps. What did you use? Paste or the pad?

 

I am waiting for my new 7950x3d and i will use the pad on it.

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21 minutes ago, cylix said:

Good temps. What did you use? Paste or the pad?

 

I am waiting for my new 7950x3d and i will use the pad on it.

It was the pad. 

 

Had some issues with some bits of the pad sticking to the top plastic or bottom and coming away from the rest of the pad so i'm glad a bought a much bigger piece than i needed as i had some wastage. 

 

I'm really impressed with it so far i've not had any thermal paste application have such a dramatic effect before only ever a couple of degrees difference normally 2-5c tops.

 

I also got a score of 15600 on a cinebench score for my 10900k which is higher than i've ever managed before.

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4 minutes ago, ratchetnclank said:

It was the pad. 

 

Had some issues with some bits of the pad sticking to the top plastic or bottom and coming away from the rest of the pad so i'm glad a bought a much bigger piece than i needed as i had some wastage. 

 

I'm really impressed with it so far i've not had any thermal paste application have such a dramatic effect before only ever a couple of degrees difference normally 2-5c tops.

 

Yeah, the pad is fiddly to apply. Sticking it in the freezer didn't really help, that's why I bought the paste for future applications. 

 

The last question in my mind is whether Conductonaut would be able to significantly improve on this. 

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