![]() ![]() To clarify: The “after shots” do not show what the paste looked like when it was hidden under the coldplate, as the surface tension during cooler removal will suck the paste back up and inward, toward the middle of the coldplate. Keep in mind that cooler tension forces the past out the sides when excessive, and that removing the cooler will relieve that surface tension. Conventional wisdom says that a really thick layer of paste is bad, since ideally the coldplate and IHS should be as close to each other as physically possible, but we’ll wait until the end of the article to compare temperature averages. With the cooler installed and tightened down, only a little paste squeezed out over the edges of the IHS, and there was a layer of paste that remained between the coldplate and the CPU. The blob measured at 10.12mm x 12.22mm x 3.1mm deep. This is an excessive amount of thermal paste, but within the bounds of what a sane human might use. The “big blob” test was the first one with usable results. Big Blob - Best Thermal Paste Application Methodĭimensions (XYZ): 10.12mm x 12.22mm x 3.1mm There’s also some desync between the current clamp’s numbers and the temperature logging, but that’s fine-they’re only plotted on the same graph for visualization, they’re not interdependent. BEST THERMAL PASTE WINDOWSAs the charts show, current and temperatures vary throughout the tests as Windows diverts system resources away from Prime95. Normally we disable Windows updates and don’t connect to the internet during testing, and this is exactly why. Windows was downloading updates in the background during the first two tests passes we attempted and both had to be scrapped. We tested with 100% fan speeds and left them fixed. Each test ran for half an hour with a current clamp around the CPU 8-pin cable, a temperature probe next to the bench to log ambient temperatures, and HWInfo64 running to log sensor data. To stress the CPU, we used Prime95 with 8Kx8K FFTs tested in-place with an FFT time of 30 minutes. ![]() The cooler used was a Kraken X62, tightened down in the same way each time, along with a Noctua NF-A12 pointed at the motherboard to blow some air over the VRM heatsinks. The idea was to push temperatures into the 80-90C range without crashing or throttling, and to remove Intel’s thermal paste from the equation so any temperature fluctuations would be sharpened and magnified. We used a delidded 8086K clocked to 5.1GHz on a Maximus X board, using fixed voltages across the board, with uncapped current. The performance of thermal paste can change over time as it cures, so the temperatures we measured should only be compared to each other, not other tests outside of this article. Tests were all done immediately after applying the paste. We debated over whether to use a more common product like Arctic MX-4, but part of the motivation for this test was to see whether our paste application method affects our tests, and we currently use Kryonaut for all of our tests that don’t specifically involve CPU temperature (we use a thin layer of Asetek paste for those). The variety of paste used for all of these tests was Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut. We settled on four paste applications to test: a normal blob appropriately sized for desktop chips, a blob we’d consider a little too large, a thin spread over the whole surface of the IHS, and finally a huge slathering of far too much paste. BEST THERMAL PASTE PCWe are finally addressing the YouTube-wide comment of “too much” or “too little” paste, likely so prevalent as a result of everyone’s personal exposure to this one specific aspect of PC building.Īgain, this isn’t really about whether an “X” or “dot” or thin spread is better (and none is superior, assuming all cover the IHS equally - it’s just about how easily they achieve that goal). Today debuts our formal thermal paste quantity testing - not just method of application, but amount - and looks specifically at the more common desktop CPUs. We have formally tested this for Threadripper (which cares about IHS coverage greatly) and X99 CPUs, but not for smaller desktop SKUs. ![]() As we mentioned in our Threadripper paste application comparison, the general consensus for smaller desktop CPUs is that, as long as enough paste is applied to cover the IHS, every method is basically the same. The “correct” method for applying thermal paste is still the subject of arguments, despite plenty of articles with testing and hard numbers to back them up. ![]()
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