And yeah they were not sponsored by/for the frame, but they repeatedly were sponsored by/for the thermal paste.You said sponsored, they aren't sponsored. They run ads from various manufacturers, that's different. I appreciate the work that has been put into this test, where one can see comparison for most known products. I've now started using a line down the longer length of the CPU instead and the spread comes out much better.

Thermal compounds might always be compared and debated over, but the simple fact remains: PC system building needs thermal compounds to effectively dissipate thermal loads. Without them, our beloved gaming and content-producing machines would struggle to keep components cool during heated frag sessions, heavy workstation computations, or just simply browsing the web. In terms of specifications, the Cooler Master MasteGel Regular thermal paste has a thermal conductivity of 5 W/mk, which is more in line with a lot of other options mentioned in this collection. The company also sells a premium version of this particular paste with thermal conductivity of 11 W/mk. This paste is grey in color and its density is 2.5 g. We had absolutely no issues applying the paste on the CPU. The overall performance of the solution has also been pretty solid as we've encountered no abnormalities in the CPU temps. We've used this particular paste for many of our builds and it's been a reliable option. For the air cooling low- and high-tension tests, we used a large Noctua NH-D15 air cooler. We created the low tension mount environment by torquing the mounting screws to 1.13 Nm (10 in/lbs).

As you can see, the Arctic MX-6 is the winner of this comparison, taking 0.7 degrees from the excellent Noctua NT-H2 and 1.9 degrees Celsius from the CORSAIR TM30, which is not bad thermal paste either. Of course, in terms of performance, it seems that Arctic has done an excellent job again. In contrast, traditional thermal paste compounds are relatively simple for every experience level. Most, but not all, traditional pastes are electrically non-conductive. here's hoping for some tests of this on the forum or by TPU themselves, GN is I think Thermal Grizzly sponsored so its a bit off for them to test it

On top of that, liquid metals can't be used with aluminum heat sinks since the Gallium in them reacts with aluminum. That's not really an issue since most heat sinks (remember, not all) are made of copper which is nonreactive with the liquid metal. That being said, the high risk pays off in meaningful ways the liquid metal provides up to 73 W/(mK) thermal conductivity. It's much higher than the 0.5-12.5 W/(mK) thermal conductivity provided by conventional thermal pastes. Delta T (Temp difference between CPU and Cooler) = Thermal Resistance x Energy (to be transferred from CPU to Cooler)I've found MX-4 and NT-H1 to stay effective for longer before needing repasting. And honestly between all high performance thermal pastes I don't think you are looking at that much of a difference in performance, and its more about how long it lasts, if you get pump-out effect, etc. The differences would be slim when compared to the overall cooler solution and would vary with each installation. I don't know if it's very viable to do performance comparisons other than good/bad/terrible without very specific equipment. Zen 3 Rig (2022 - Present):AMD Ryzen 9 5900X | Nvidia RTX 3080 Ti FE | G.Skill Trident Z Neo 32GB DDR4-3600 | ASUS Crosshair VIII Dark Hero | 2x Samsung 970 Evo Plus 2TB | Crucial MX500 1TB | Corsair RM1000x | Lian Li O11 Dynamic | LG 48" C1 We'll go into our breakdown of how we test these thermal pastes below, but the key takeaway here is that a single thermal compound can perform differently based upon several variables, such as what type of cooler and mount you use. To cover all the bases, we've tested every thermal paste with three variables: You may have heard of thermal pads being used by many as a replacement for thermal paste. That's entirely normal because thermal pads are also highly efficient. Thermal pads are primarily used on M.2 SSD modules. As such the heatsink or the motherboard shroud covering the M.2 SSD module holds thermal pads to dissipate the heat produced by the modules. It works the same way as thermal paste, except these are solid pads as opposed to pasting or liquid solutions. We think the Thermal Grizzly's Carbonaut is one of the best options on the market. This can be used on both processors and GPUs too. The application of thermal pads involves placing the pad on top of the CPU IHS, thereby filling the gap between the IHS and the heatsink.

And yeah they were not sponsored by/for the frame, but they repeatedly were sponsored by/for the thermal paste. The XTM50 paste by itself has low viscosity, so can also just use the 'Dot method' to apply the paste and let the mounting pressure do its thing. But if you're too worried about applying using that method, then the bundled stencil and spreader make it very easy to get things done. In theory, you can use any application method for a compound with low viscosity, but the stencil makes it that much easier to apply. It's for new builders who don't necessarily have the technical know-how of properly applying thermal paste and how improper application can have a lasting impact on the overall performance of the CPU. We tested each thermal paste with a low-tension air cooler mount, high-tension air cooler mount, and a high-tension AIO liquid cooler mount. Each application was given a 1-hour burn-in using Prime95 with ten load and cooling cycles over the course of the hour; six minutes each with a ten-second cool-down between. Each testing load session was then executed for a one-hour load period, again using Prime95. Also, immediate performance doesn't reflect anything about long-term durability (which was the problem with MX-5). regarding the thermal aste application, I used the 'rice grain size' in the middle for so long. It never spreads to the corners when you do so.watt HamsterCertain batches had problems with material separation that Arctic was apparently unable to solve.Still better than MX-3. :P That thing was just... something else. I installed a CPU yesterday and I had to use my MX-4. A couple hours later the MX-6 arrived and I'm certainly not in the mood fo reapply paste if it's not going to be a 5-10C improvement. MX-5 is a new compound which does not directly replace their popular MX-4 but is a new formulation for enthusiast use based on carbon micro-particulates in what is assumed to be a silicon or silicone base. The slight-blue tint and smooth, viscous compound has a bit more fluid consistency much like thin toothpaste making it easy to apply and cleanup which lends to very smooth and fast spreading during cooler tension, but can also be prone to dripping and running if applied on vertical surfaces.