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...

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 liquids of the respective herstller of such liquid metal products are best suited, whereby at least in the pre-cleaning of normal and much cheaper isopropyl alcohol from the pharmacy or the laboratory requirement is just as well suited.

However, the acetone and cleaning gasoline must be kept away in any case and also the cheap fuel spirit contains constrictions, which are not always very conducive. But important for all cleaning fluids: after cleaning, it is necessary to wait until the last residues have evaporated!

Extremely smooth surfaces, however, allow the liquid metal to bead off quickly, which can then drive the sweat on your forehead. Even if it doesn't seem very plausible to rough up the supposedly smooth heat spreader or to to grind – you can only recommend it, otherwise you will quickly make yourself a fruit when passing by. In addition, the quantity is usually only sufficient for 2 attempts.

Grinding should be discreet and even light, because the supposedly sloppy sponge, which almost always contributes to such products, leaves quite clear grooves when exaggerated. So piano, dominators, and move the sponge better like a ballerina. A hearty shoe-plattler is absolutely out of place here.

The perfect application

The application is a little tricky, even if more modern products are not completely dissimilar to conventional pastes, but are many times more liquid. However, the composition is still not entirely unproblematic, because more inert metals, such as Aluminium, but also certain alloys, are attacked by components of the paste and then react with the ingredients.

As a result, the advantage of actually higher thermal conductivity then quickly reverses and an insulating layer is created. Copper floors and nickel-plated heat sinks, on the other hand, are well suited and the heat spreaders of the CPUs are also reliable for use.

If you have slightly roughened the heat spreader, the paste applied as a drop can be distributed reasonably humanely with the enclosed brushes. The amount varies depending on the size of the CPU (or GPU), but you should plan for larger CPUs almost half of the tube, for smaller ones about a third.

It is always advantageous to paste a CPU in the extended state in order to protect the motherboard. The cleaning sponge serves as a soft base so as not to bend the pins.

In the end, it is up to each individual to decide whether they want to take the risk of a slightly more complicated handling and whether it is really worth the effort.

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