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

[johnksss]

On 6/14/2022 at 8:52 AM, Papusan said:

Alphacool Introduces the Apex Thermal Paste Rated 17 W/mK

By Hilbert Hagedoorn on: 06/14/2022 09:05 AM

 

The new Apex thermal paste is available from Alphacool. With a thermal conductivity of 17 W/mK, it joins the ranks of the market's most powerful thermal pastes Read more

 

@Mr. Fox @Falkentyne @johnksss +++

 

Alphacool Apex: New thermal paste with high 17 W/mK computerbase.com
https://www.computerbase.de/2022-06/alphacool-apex-neue-waermeleitpaste-mit-hohen-17-w-mk/

Is this easy to get?

[jaybee83]

3 hours ago, i.bakar said:

NTH1 is the least durable from what i hear too . however i already ordered KPX so i will be testing it once i receive it within 20 days hopefully. lets see how it will perform on the 9900k against the Kryosnaut .

 

kool man, let us know how it goes, "asking for a friend with a 9900K and kryonaut" 😂

[Papusan]

49 minutes ago, johnksss said:

Is this easy to get?

Probably easier in Europe. I’m on long summer vacation so I haven’t checked much about it. But this company offer a lot good things. Germany companies have a lot good engineering so…. Maybe worth a try. Regardless, buying things from other countries cost a bit more if you don’t find it in the main sales webpages where you live. If I order I probably have to add at least 50% on top of everything. 

[jaybee83]

27 minutes ago, Papusan said:

Probably easier in Europe. I’m on long summer vacation so I haven’t checked much about it. But this company offer a lot good things. Germany companies have a lot good engineering so…. Maybe worth a try. Regardless, buying things from other countries cost a bit more if you don’t find it in the main sales webpages where you live. If I order I probably have to add at least 50% on top of everything. 

 

14.89€ with free shipping for a 4 gram syringe when "midnight shopping" between midnight and 6am when ordering inside Germany:

https://www.mindfactory.de/product_info.php/Alphacool-Apex-17W-mK-Thermal-grease-4g_1457505.html

 

not sure if it would make sense to do like a mass order and distribute to members outside germany / EU? would be a bit of a gamble on how stringent they check packages at the borders 😛 haha

[JeanLegi]

Or you just ask me and i figure out if i can sent it to the US if i get some good shipment cost from germany.

I ordered it direct at Aquacomputer and it was delivered 2 days later.

I use Apex on the CPU of a MSI Ge76 Raider 11UH which i have here for some time.

On the GPU i use TFX it has slightly better temps of 2 degress 😄

 

[Vasudev]

On 7/8/2022 at 12:27 AM, KING19 said:

 

Yea you're right. Like i said its been hot and humid here lately because its summer, Damn east coast weather. We have an AC in our apartment but its off for most of the day because me and my GF are at work for most of the day. In my last gaming session the temps are still the same so i dont think its the paste itself anymore but we'll see after another week. It rained here for the last couple of days but the air is still humid. Our ambient temps is around 80f (26.6C) with the AC off but drops down to 74F (23.C) after running it for a couple of hours.

Your ambient temps are not extreme unlike in India where it hovers around 30-40C ambient temps. For me Cooler Master Maker Gel held up for 5yrs plus w/o degradation.

[jaybee83]

1 minute ago, Vasudev said:

Your ambient temps are not extreme unlike in India where it hovers around 30-40C ambient temps. For me Cooler Master Maker Gel held up for 5yrs plus w/o degradation.

ah, that brings back memories of 48C days in Hyderabad with the ceiling fan in my room broken. had to get up at night and splash my body with water to be able and continue sleeping 😄 good times! 

[Vasudev]

38 minutes ago, jaybee83 said:

ah, that brings back memories of 48C days in Hyderabad with the ceiling fan in my room broken. had to get up at night and splash my body with water to be able and continue sleeping 😄 good times! 

Now it is close to 50C. Ceiling fan always get broken in summer and fortunately,  I had pedestal fan otherwise I'd have become baked fat potato.

[KING19]

4 hours ago, Vasudev said:

Your ambient temps are not extreme unlike in India where it hovers around 30-40C ambient temps. For me Cooler Master Maker Gel held up for 5yrs plus w/o degradation.

 

Yea true lol.

 

I just checked my ambient temps again and now its around 27.7C (82F) with our AC off. There been no changes with my laptop temps so the paste is fine and i dont feel like repasting again, It isnt like its throttling or anything during gaming and my fans are clean. Cyberpunk and GTA V are the only games i've played that spiked into the 90Cs, Not even RDR2 does that.

 

We're going through another heatwave after going through rainy and humid weather last week. 

[jaybee83]

1 hour ago, KING19 said:

 

Yea true lol.

 

I just checked my ambient temps again and now its around 27.7C (82F) with our AC off. There been no changes with my laptop temps so the paste is fine and i dont feel like repasting again, It isnt like its throttling or anything during gaming and my fans are clean. Cyberpunk and GTA V are the only games i've played that spiked into the 90Cs, Not even RDR2 does that.

 

We're going through another heatwave after going through rainy and humid weather last week. 

 

5 hours ago, Vasudev said:

Now it is close to 50C. Ceiling fan always get broken in summer and fortunately,  I had pedestal fan otherwise I'd have become baked fat potato.

 

global warming FTW! grab your sunscreens, umbrellas, sun glasses and BBQ pits 😛 

[i.bakar]

well as i mentioned before , i ordered the KPX and it arrived today and i wanted to compare it to the kryonaut that i had on my system for 3 weeks now.

just for the record my system is Alienware area-51m stock fans and heatsink no mods to the cooling system .

so i did ( cinebench 23) 10 minutes test with the same processor i9 9900K overclocked with the following numbers:

1- i9 9900K @ 4.5GHz 

2- i9 9900K @ 4.6GHz 

however i changed my windows the past few days from windows 11 to windows 10 which did change the volt that each clock was at so the following numbers was recorded ( difference of 0.01V less on windows10 VS windows11 )

by the way i used the same overclocking setup on alienware command center with the same offset on win10 and win11 

 

1- on windows 11

 -  4.5GHz  draw 1.13V

 -  4.6GHz draw 1.16V

 

2- on windows 10 

 -  4.5GHz  draw 1.12V

 -  4.6GHz draw 1.15V

so here is the screenshots for the results 

LOOK AS THE SCORE OF THEM , HUGE DIFFRENCE !

 

SINCE  I DIDNT THROTTLE IN ALL THE TESTS , THEN THE DIFFRENCE IN SCORE IS BECOUSE OF THE WINDOWS NOT THE THERMAL PASTE 

 

[jaybee83]

1 hour ago, i.bakar said:

well as i mentioned before , i ordered the KPX and it arrived today and i wanted to compare it to the kryonaut that i had on my system for 3 weeks now.

just for the record my system is Alienware area-51m stock fans and heatsink no mods to the cooling system .

so i did ( cinebench 23) 10 minutes test with the same processor i9 9900K overclocked with the following numbers:

1- i9 9900K @ 4.5GHz 

2- i9 9900K @ 4.6GHz 

however i changed my windows the past few days from windows 11 to windows 10 which did change the volt that each clock was at so the following numbers was recorded ( difference of 0.01V less on windows10 VS windows11 )

by the way i used the same overclocking setup on alienware command center with the same offset on win10 and win11 

 

1- on windows 11

 -  4.5GHz  draw 1.13V

 -  4.6GHz draw 1.16V

 

2- on windows 10 

 -  4.5GHz  draw 1.12V

 -  4.6GHz draw 1.15V

so here is the screenshots for the results 

LOOK AS THE SCORE OF THEM , HUGE DIFFRENCE !

 

SINCE  I DIDNT THROTTLE IN ALL THE TESTS , THEN THE DIFFRENCE IN SCORE IS BECOUSE OF THE WINDOWS NOT THE THERMAL PASTE 

 

thats OS bloatware for ya @win11 vs win10 😄 

[Papusan]

40 minutes ago, i.bakar said:

1- on windows 11

 -  4.5GHz  draw 1.13V

 -  4.6GHz draw 1.16V

 

2- on windows 10 

 -  4.5GHz  draw 1.12V

 -  4.6GHz draw 1.15V

so here is the screenshots for the results 

LOOK AS THE SCORE OF THEM , HUGE DIFFRENCE !

Add a offset for voltage so the test can be done equal (same voltage). Either with ACC, TS or XTU. Not sure if Dell let you change voltage in bios.

[i.bakar]

20 minutes ago, Papusan said:

Add a offset for voltage so the test can be done equal (same voltage). Either with ACC, TS or XTU. Not sure if Dell let you change voltage in bios.

good idea , i will do that and redo the test 👍

[i.bakar]

32 minutes ago, jaybee83 said:

thats OS bloaware for ya @win11 vs win10 😄 

yeah right ?! 😅i always liked win10 then win11 , but i didn't expect the difference in performance would be that much

[Rofa1234]

This thermal paste test is interesting (chinese only unfortunately)

 

https://youtu.be/2Uc1lrfFnsc

 

 

It's a longevity test. Here is a transcript from the test: https://forums.hardwarezone.com.sg/threads/thermal-paste-specification-comparison.6677965/page-9#post-142742642

 

This is what they did:

 

Quote

The aging test is actually to put the silicone grease into the incubator and bake it at a high temperature of 200 degrees24 Wait for hours, wait for cooling, remove the baked grease and do another performance test to see how much it will drop.

 

 

Sure we could argue how realistic it is with a temp of 200 degrees but still, it could explain some longevity issues from some pastes. For example TFX has very good initial temps in basically every test (including my tests) but there are quite a few degradation reports. In this baking test TFX failed, several other pastes failed as well.

 

What is the reason? One post in the hardwarezone.com.sg forum explained it.

 

 

 

Quote

it is actually the best thermal paste in term of thermal cooling, this is because in nature they appeared to be more dry with higher viscosity and lesser silicone grease oil content, result in better thermal conductive material content.

However due to lesser grease oil, once baked the evaporation rate is so much faster and easily harden compared to those with higher silicone grease oil content (mx4 is the representative)

 

 

The Kingpin Cooling KPx has the lowest degradation after baking which surprised me. However the best baking performance comes from a paste called GK5. The best pre baking performance comes from Thermalright TFX and W15II but both failed the baking test.

[Rofa1234]

I have tried out two new pastes on my notebook, for reference I included SYY-157 (2021 edition)

 

Alphacool Apex
82/87/84/84

 

Scythe Thermal Elixer 2
83/91/87/87

 

SYY-157 2021 edition
81/83/83/82

 

Thermal Elixer 2 is medium viscous and not working. Alphacool Apex is a viscous paste, viscosity is comparable to several other Nano pastes I've tried. Much better than the old Alphacool Subzero which wasn't viscous enough.

 

Maybe I could improve the Apex result with a second application slightly, even though the gap is big enough it certainly won't match the SYY-157. I'm fine with the SYY-157 for now and won't give Apex a second try.

 

[Rofa1234]

HALNZIYE released a new paste called HY-P16 rated 16.1W/m-K (doesn't tell much), the interesting part is this:

 

Quote

 

 

HYP16 is phase change thermal interface material(PCM), When you press it out from the syringe and apply it on the chipset, it is grease, but it will be like themal pad minutes later, when device starts working and temperature up to 45 C, it is grease and extreme thermal conductive performance.

 

https://www.halnziye.net/product/237.html

 

I have to try out this paste as well as Honeywell PTM7950 at some point.

 

[raptorddd]

my mx4 its almost empty. what would you suggest.? am looking for 3 things in them. longevity,lower temps and price.

[K4sum1]

I got some SYY-157, and tried it on my 3770K. I delidded it and used SYY-157 under the IHS and above it for the heatsink, but the temperatures are kinda warm for stock voltage, like 80s under load. I have a similar system but 4790K using liquid metal under IHS, NT-H2 above, same cooler, and it runs like 20C cooler. Does liquid metal under IHS make this big of a difference or is something else going on?

[jaybee83]

1 hour ago, K4sum1 said:

I got some SYY-157, and tried it on my 3770K. I delidded it and used SYY-157 under the IHS and above it for the heatsink, but the temperatures are kinda warm for stock voltage, like 80s under load. I have a similar system but 4790K using liquid metal under IHS, NT-H2 above, same cooler, and it runs like 20C cooler. Does liquid metal under IHS make this big of a difference or is something else going on?

 

yep, for sure. liquid metal under the IHS can easily make a 10-15C difference. 20C might be a bit of a stretch, but it aint unheard of. likely a combo of beneath and above the IHS. plus different cpus, systems etc.... lots of variables.

[Papusan]

Thermaltake Intros TG-60 Liquid Metal Thermal Compound

 Techpowerup.com Today, 06:12

Thermaltake today introduced the TG-60, a high-performance thermal interface material made of liquid-metal. The TG-60 offers an extreme thermal conductivity of 52 W/mK, but comes with all the downsides of any liquid-metal TIM—it's electrically conductive, and requires that your CPU cooler's contact surface have nickel-plating (without which it will corrode through any exposed-copper surfaces, including copper base-plates, vapor-chamber plates, or direct-contact heat-pipes. Luckily the selection of nickel-plated copper DIY water-blocks and air coolers are fairly broad. The TG-60 includes an applicator, a nozzle with the syringe, and a cleaning gauze. The company didn't reveal pricing.

   

[Eban]

What if I decided NOT to "buy" thermal paste?

 

I saw this trolling through youtube and just had to share

 

 

[IamTechknow]

I also tried the Honeywell TPM7950 thermal pad, and it works much better than the IC Diamond re-paste that I did which was 7 months old by the time I replaced it back at May. I will admit my laptop has a RTX 2060 with a TDP limit of "only" 80W (circa 2019 so no dynamic boost) so I like to see it applied on a laptop that could hit 140+W.

 

Here are screenshots of Furmark that show how fast temperature increases with both pastes (with the Honeywell thermal pad it doesn't throttle), in room temperature (70°F/21°C). Nowadays I say the temperature throttling limit for my laptop is 81°C and it doesn't hit it as easily as with IC Diamond

 

[jaybee83]

20 hours ago, Eban said:

What if I decided NOT to "buy" thermal paste?

 

I saw this trolling through youtube and just had to share

 

 

whoa much respect to such undertakings!

 

@IamTechknow i wouldnt rely on furmark alone for such testing, its known to give funky results due to gpu hardware algos detecting it and artificially changing their behaviour vs other stress tests.