CrazY_Milojko:

For all these years after using God knows how many different thermal compounds MX-2 is still my favorite one. I've spend last tube of MX-2 last year, can't find it here localy past few months so now i'm "forced" to use MX-4 and NT-H1. Shipping MX-2 (same as anything that costs more than $2 to $3) from eBay/Aliexpress is insanely expencive past year or so, so atm I'm waiting for a good local deal for MX-2 than I'm gonny buy supply of MX-2 that'll last me at least 10 more years. But will try MX-5 after this review...

fry178:

@A M D BugBear so your surprised a 21st century Paste outperforms a +6y "old" paste (and according to Arctic not recommended/replaced by MX4/5) ? ok 🙄. i dont mind paying a bit more, and did see temps drop a few *C on LM, but i wont pay multiple times more, for only a few degrees difference. MX is 7$ for 4g, and anything from TG is at least 50% more (while up to 4 times less amount), without being "twice as good". Another reason for me to stay with MX5, was how easy it spread, while not getting "repelled" from oily "residue" (previous TP applied).

Falkentyne:

MX-2 is still available on Amazon. Large tubes too. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08H6B5P2T https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07LF1R7T8?th=1

jura11:

Usually I use for GPUs Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut or at least I have used them on RTX 2xxx series or 3xxx series, on GT9xx or GTX1xxx I have used with good success Noctua NT-H1 where Noctua performed bit better than Kryonaut Recently I used on friend I have done test with Kryonaut and ZF-EX just for comparison, ZF-EX outperformed Kryonaut by 1-2°C on RTX3090 but on 5950X with ZF-EX I got like 4-6°C lower temperatures Other good TIM as @Falkentyne said is Thermalright TFX For test mount I usually got spare MX-4 20g which I use only for tests I don't use LM or any liquid metal TIM and I can't comment on their performance over time or how fast they degrade Hope this helps Thanks, Jura

Mufflore:

Thanks for posting about ZF-EX paste, its not generally available in the UK but managed to find it on a slow boat from China. Price is very good for the amount you get, as long as it doesnt spread thick. (Just over £7 for 2g) This is for my 3090 upgrade, theres a month wait to choose the right memory pad depths. Do you have any information about Gigabyte Aorus Xtreme cards please?

jura11:

Hi there ZF-EX its bit on thicker side but its manageable, I usually don't spread the TIM on GPUs, usually X with small dots between the crosses and TIM spread I would say is very good and temperatures are great ZF-EX usually I'm buying over Aliexpress and regarding the thermal pads for Gigabyte Aorus Xtreme found only thread on Reddit and hooe it helps you https://www.reddit.com/r/gpumining/comments/lztdt8/thermal_pad_thickness_on_rtx_3090_gigabyte_aorus/ For thermal pads Thermalright Odyssey or Gelid Extreme pads, these pads are best in my view Hope this helps Thanks, Jura

jura11:

Hi there ZF-EX its bit on thicker side but its manageable, I usually don't spread the TIM on GPUs, usually X with small dots between the crosses and TIM spread I would say is very good and temperatures are great ZF-EX usually I'm buying over Aliexpress and regarding the thermal pads for Gigabyte Aorus Xtreme found only thread on Reddit and hooe it helps you https://www.reddit.com/r/gpumining/comments/lztdt8/thermal_pad_thickness_on_rtx_3090_gigabyte_aorus/ For thermal pads Thermalright Odyssey or Gelid Extreme pads, these pads are best in my view Hope this helps Thanks, Jura

Glottiz:

NT-H2 is missing 🙁 (upon more reading I see that NT-H2 is present in one test, but not others).

Catspaw:

I would suggest testing Thermal paste in laptops. Due to the pump out effect (at least that is what der8auer called it), it is probably the most important place to know what thermal paste to use. I personally used 3 different pastes (Arcitc silver 5, thermal grizzly ... I think it was cryo and a standard thermaltake paste) and all of them had the same problem: after a few thermal cycles (like 2 weeks to 6 weeks, 2 in summer, 6 in winter), the temps were very high again. When I went to replace the thermal paste I saw almost none of it was still left on the contact area, it was mostly on the sides of the contact plate/CPU or GPU die. Right now I dont have a laptop but once I do I will have to find a fix for this issue, because my temps right after replacing the TIM were in the high 60s for the GPU and high 70s for the CPU (this was an old laptop, i5-2670m and 570M) and after a few weeks: high 80s ion the GPU and mid 90s on the CPU. And the more wide spread the temps get in a laptop, the higher the chance that something will die quicker, especially in bigger GPU dies. If your Laptop is at 20C when turned off, and at 80+ when on load, that is a rather large variance for the metal parts that will contract and expand due to thermal expansion.

Falkentyne:

ZF-EX and TFX are the exact same paste. 6g of TFX is usually around $40 USD on Amazon but may be cheaper on Aliexpress. If you can get 12 grams (6x2g) of ZF-EX for $7 each, but can handle waiting for the Slow Boat, that puts you in the "I didn't get scammed for too high of a price" category. What's funny is, with 2g of ZF-EX costing $7 if you find a good deal on aliexpress, that actually makes the 33g of Kryonaut Extreme for $104 look like a bargain (I bought that before the price increased even more, when it first got released). Yes you can spread TFX (ZF-EX) and it does work very well if you do that, but it's annoying to do and will end up costing you a lot of paste since a lot of it sticks to the spatula, so you have to overdo it to get a nice layer on the GPU or (BGA/direct die) CPU. (Don't even think about spreading it on a LGA IHS CPU, just do the 9 large dots or "X" method + dots in quadrants) http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/which-thermal-paste-to-buy-and-apply-traditional-and-liquid-metal.806840/page-51#post-11092211

Mufflore:

I'm deciding which thickness memory pads to buy and came across a post a few days ago where 0.5mm pads were built up to give the required thickness. I decided against this earlier as I didnt like the thought of more surfaces contacting to make one pad, but perhaps it doesnt really matter with soft pads. What are your thoughts on this please?

Montville:

My opinion: A well over-hyped topic fumbling around with minor temperature improvements - my tip is get a decent well ventilated case and thermal paste becomes secondary/unimportant at best especially when using liquid cooling. I am using Ceramique 2 since many years and it always works as expected. The old times when t-paste vaporised away are long gone!

Mufflore:

My case is open air and the CPU is water cooled. This doesnt make the problem go away 😉