The large thermal paste tutorial with 85 tested pastes (2017)

In keeping with the hot season, we have once again dealt with the active cooling of CPU, GPU and other components and use our tried and tested and very successful tutorials for years. We have now... The Heatspreader If you cut through a CPU once in the middle, you can see very clearly that the actual processor chip (which) only makes up a part of the total area and thus only part of the externally visible metal cover... Uneven and with gradient As if the misery as such weren't big enough, the CPU manufacturers put one more on it. According to the just mentioned unevenness of the surface, the respective heatspreaders of both manufacturers are also available in the outer form of a... Reference to our How-To article If you want to get much further into this topic and even plan a conversion yourself, take our big how-to-guide at this point: graphics card cooling and thermal paste optim... Thermal guide pads for advanced users: miracle or glare? First, let's make sure that pad can never replace the thermal paste for the CPU or GPU. They should only be used to remove other components such as Voltage converter (VRM), ... Cleaning and grinding The a and o for a good success and the adhesion of the metallic liquid is a clean and above all grease-free surface on the radiator floor and CPU heatspreader! Of course, the most suitable are the rivers... Why four different measurements for the charts? At the time, we had collected and evaluated many suggestions and wishes of our readers in the forum, which led us in the end to the decision to use all thermal pastes with water cooling as well as... Let's start with the AiO compact water cooling, as it is currently the most used form of water cooling and is safe enough for the inexperienced. The Liquid Metal Pad has a burnin, so we can control the CPU for a short time... Under air, the deltas get slightly larger, but the order remains roughly the same. Here it becomes clear once again that very good pastes can already tend towards liquid metal, if you really have the spin out when applying. Much... The boxed coolers and everything from the entry-level segment that uses push pins or AMD's holding clips can't apply so much pressure that the tougher pastes can hold their own. This is especially true of the diamond pastes and Kingpin Coolings KP-x,... We quickly remember the extra chapter. The only conductive solutions we tested for this were the paste-like conductonaut slated by Thermal Grizzly and Coolaboratory's Metal Pad. The rest is too hot... Consistency is always a smaller or large spring foot for newcomers, because with increasing viscosity, the paste is then also what is called tough. The actually excellent Kingpin KP-x is such a classic representative, the si... The thinner a paste is, the easier it is to handle. However, other criteria are also taken into account here, because some pastes pull nasty threads when tearing off, which remind you of cheap Gauda on hot spaghettis. It's... Summary One should not expect miracles from (however expensive) pastes, but a significant improvement over the normal average. Nevertheless, in the end, it is often less important what you pay for a paste and what the...

Summary

One should not expect miracles from (however expensive) pastes, but a significant improvement over the normal average. Nevertheless, in the end, it is often less important what you pay for a paste and what the manufacturer gives full-bodied for a theoretical heat conductivity. You get very good pastes even for acceptable prices and often enough decides in the end the right application alone about the failure or failure of the thermal paste exchange. So you can also be shipwrecked with expensive products if you make serious mistakes.

Some pastes have been real long-distance runners for years and are also extremely inexpensive. So it makes little sense to invest huge sums if you could live the same way with 1-2 Kelvin temperature difference. Because one thing is also certain: systems in which such a small temperature difference already decides the life and death of a component are neither suitable for everyday use nor designed for use.

Anyone who has given sufficient thought to the installation of your PC and a sensible ventilation in the housing concept is hardly dependent on supposed high-tech climax. For extreme overclockers, this may look a little different, and even silent freaks who fight for any possible speed reduction of the fans are the ideal target group for such thermal pastes. The normal consumer, on the other hand, should pay more attention to user-friendliness and use as liquid pastes as possible, because by errors during application one almost always loses more than one gains (perhaps) through extremely expensive products.

But even when it is improved to graphics cards, very own rules apply! This naturally concerns, of course, the optimised and better screwing of all relevant parts during a conversion and, on the other hand, the use of better thermal paste and improved application, which would not be possible in mass production in this form. .

If you are aiming for a graphics card conversion, in many cases you will not be able to avoid including an existing backplate in the cooling concept – it is almost always worth it. In addition, the fan curves must also be questioned and, if necessary, adapted to the new temperatures. However, this adjustment only makes sense after the backplate has been included, as the cooling of the components such as the memory after the conversion is much better from the house. So it can really be worthwhile if you not only just change the thermal paste, but also think about suitable pads. If so, then we should include all aspects, as we do, but this is guaranteed to pay off!

Conclusion

In any case, it is advisable to study the best pastes in detail beforehand, because we can only give a recommendation from our own experience and the current measurements. There can and will be better products, because you can't measure and select everything in the end. In addition, of course, the market is constantly on the move.

At this point, we also thank Caseking, among others, who have constantly and continuously refilled our tube box over the years, as well as some manufacturers, who have often even sent us unsolicited samples. No, nothing really matters, even if it takes some time before we refresh this topic for next summer. Because it's always the moment.

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