Thermal paste is an often overlooked part of most computer setups. “ It’s just thermal paste, as long as it stays on it doesn’t matter,” says far too many when selecting their thermal paste.You can use the pre-applied stuff, or the thermal paste that comes with your motherboard and still get reasonable processor temps at stock speeds.However, it may not always be effective enough if you’re trying to overclock or if you live in a hot area.

• Gpu Capacitor Thermal Paste Diagram

Dab a small amount of the alcohol onto the microfiber cloth and gently wipe away the old thermal paste until the GPU or CPU is spotless, and you have a shiny, clean surface. Be sparing with the alcohol. Thermal paste between the CPU and Heat sink creates an even surface and covers 100% of the surface area of the CPU. This allows the heat to transfer from the CPU to the Heat sink, keeping the CPU cooler and at a nominal operating temperature. Not using thermal paste between the CPU and the heat sink will cause it to eventually overheat and fail. Thermal paste should be applied to avoid overheating, as air very bad conductor of heat so if there is just a millimeter space between CPU/GPU and the heatsink it can cause heating, to avoid this problem we use thermal paste which is a very good conductor of heat and serves as a medium to transfer heat to heat sink.

It can also go bad and stop being effective. When this happens, it’s important to change it out and apply new thermal paste to your processor (Intel or AMD).But what is the best thermal paste this 2019? Could you just buy any thermal paste and have it be just as effective as the next one? Well, we’ll get to that in a minute. First, let’s go over the contestants. Deciding what to and what not suggest to our audience is our first priority.

We take careful steps to make sure what we suggest to you is quality and will fit your needs. What’s Current? No one wants to get outdated information that’s going to do them no good. Making sure that we are on top of the market and current trends is a must!. Research is key. The computer and tech market can be confusing.

It’s hard to know where to start, and what’s accurate. We take this out of the equation for you by doing the research before we suggest anything. Narrowing down.

Once we’ve gotten together our list of potentials, we do research into the items themselves to see which ones are the best.Once we have that final list, we do even more research, and condense all the relevant information into one nice central location for easy viewing. Figure shows a processor with a fan heatsink on top of it. Notice the holes and divots (exaggerated for effect) in the two pieces of metal. These holes trap air, which insulates the heat. Thermal paste seeps into these holes and divots, helping to conduct the heat rather than insulate it.Thermal paste sits as a layer in between the processor and the heat sink; here’s why.Metal isn’t typically perfectly flat.

No matter how flat it may look to the naked eye there is always bumps and grooves and little holes and divots. These holes and divots and bumps trap air when another piece of metal is pressed against it.This is bad as air is an excellent insulator of heat. This means the heat transfer from AMD or Intel the processor to your heat sink isn’t optimal, and often can overheat and harm your system.Thermal paste resolves this issue. Not only is it engineered to be more thermally conductive (meaning it helps to transfer heat from one area to another), but since it’s in a liquid form, it can press down and get in between all the little nooks and crannies that usually trap air when thermal paste isn’t used.That’s why you need to use a thermal paste - specifically, a thermal paste that performs outstandingly like named brands (MSI, Arctic, Thermal Grizzly, etc.). How comfortable you are with working on your own components may play a factor into what thermal paste solution you decide on.If you’re a beginner and you’re worried about the possibility of harming your components, you may want to look into thermal pads instead of a paste. While not as effective as a paste, it’s very quick and easy and won’t harm your components.Whether or not it’s electrically conductive is something else you should think about if you’re comfort level isn’t very high, as some thermal pastes are made with materials that conduct electricity.There are also liquid metal thermal pastes, and these require special care to apply without harming your components. When designing the test, we wanted to make sure to cover all of our bases to bring you the best results.We measured:.

Gpu Capacitor Thermal Paste Diagram

Ambient temperature. Temperature during idle. Temperature during full load.

Temperature during full load, while also using the GPU to generate more ambient heatBefore testing we cleaned the processor using a. While isopropyl alcohol will work, we wanted to make sure to get the heatsink and processor as clean as possible so that the results for the next thermal paste weren’t contaminated.For the test itself, we used as a CPU stress test. This program makes good use of a processor’s computing power to generate as much heat as possible.While most of your gaming time probably won’t be spent with a maxed out CPU running complex mathematical equations, we wanted to make sure we got the proper data for testing our thermal paste.If the thermal paste can handle the stress of Prime95, it can handle gaming.We ran Prime95 for an hour on its own to bring the processor up to temp. After the hour, an additional hour of gaming was added on top of it WHILE Prime95 was still stress testing.This let our memory and GPU start generating heat, adding to the ambient temperature inside the case. This can affect load temperatures as the heat difference of the processor and the air around it start to come closer.

The heat from the processor will start to dissipate less efficiently at this point.After the testing was done, we reset and went again with the next thermal paste. Another heavy hitter from Thermal Grizzly: Kryonaut. The naming scheme doesn’t quite follow the others when it comes to this one as it’s not designed for sub-zero cooling solutions; it’s just a word that indicates cool temperatures.

Thermal Grizzly kind of dropped the ball on that one.Name aside, this is another great product from Thermal Grizzly. TestsI don’t know how Thermal Grizzly does it, but this one tested even cooler than the previous one. Coming in at a nice and frosty 53°C° degrees celsius (127°F), this is probably the best CPU thermal paste (it’s also likely the best thermal paste for GPUs, but we didn’t test it on GPUs).While it’s a better thermal paste than the previous two that we tested, it’s actually less expensive, so that’s a bonus!

Here it is, the very tippy top of our list. The premium of premiums. Thermal Grizzly Conductonaut. Made for the most extreme cooling solutions, this paste is actually a liquid metal solution.Liquid metal conducts heat much better than the traditional pastes and greases. Unfortunately, it’s VERY conductive, and easy to mess up. You will also need a few things to properly and safely apply it. TestsIn our testing, the Conductonaut came out on top, never reaching more than 52°C ° degrees celsius (125°F)!

This is very cold, and not even full processor and GPU loads could put a dent in this thermal paste.This would be our best thermal compound, but its conductivity and price point make it less attractive than the Kryonaut. Made by the same guys as Arctic Silver 5, Arctic Silver Ceramique uses a ceramic base instead of silver.Giving their consumers a non-conductive, beginner friendly thermal paste was a good choice by Arctic Silver. This thermal paste won’t short anything out if you accidentally get some overspill when applying it to the processor. TestsIn our testing, the Arctic Silver Ceramique didn’t score quite as well as its predecessor, but the results were still very favorable for gaming.

This paste never got over 61°C (141°F), keeping our processor cool even during intense gaming. Made by a company known for cooling and keeping your system cool, Noctua entered the thermal solution scene, and gave us the NT-H1.While it wasn’t the coolest scoring thermal paste, its results were still very solid and it worked very well. Our tests did find it to be quite thick, making it a little hard to get out of the container, so be careful when you go to apply it. TestsThe Noctua NT-H1 came in at 61°C ° degrees celsius (141°F) during full load while gaming. While it is above 60°C, it’s still considered very cool and more than within reason for gaming. I guess being great at making cases and power supplies wasn’t enough for Cooler Master, as now they’ve given us great thermal pastes.The first one we tested was the Cooler Master High Performance branded thermal paste.

Designed to be a great overall thermal paste, it definitely meets the mark. It even comes with a credit card like spreader and sticker templates to help you apply the thermal paste to the processor with no mess-ups! TestsIn our testing, this thermal paste did pretty well, coming in at 63°C (145°F). Still in that 60-degree area, it’s more than suitable for intense gaming. The second product we tested from Cooler Master was the MasterGel Maker Nano branded high performance thermal paste. Claiming to get even better performance than the other one we tested, Cooler Master touts this paste for more extreme cooling solutions. This thermal paste also comes with a spreader for easier application.

TestsThis thermal paste did end up testing better than their other high performance paste, coming in at a nice cool temp of 61°C (141°F), making this an excellent choice for keeping your system cool while gaming. Gelid Solutions is another one of those companies that I hadn’t really heard about, but the thermal paste was suggested to me, and so on the list of pastes to test it went!

I’m glad I did, as the Gelid Solutions GC-Extreme did excellent in our testing trials.The Gelid Solutions GC-Extreme is non-corrosive, non-toxic, and requires no curing time. It also comes with a handy spreader to take the guesswork out of the equation when applying the paste.It does come in a larger tube, though, which means you are paying more overall for thermal paste you might not necessarily need too often. TestsI was pleasantly surprised with the GC-Extreme, as it came in at 61°C (141°F) under full load while gaming, making this an excellent decision. Another power supply and PC case master, Thermaltake took it one step further and entered the thermal paste scene with everyone else.

Being touted as a solution for extreme performance, Thermaltake made this thermal paste out of a diamond powder compound.They also say it has a longer lifespan than other thermal pastes, but they don’t specify a definite answer. TestsSurprisingly coming in at 70°C (158°F), this was the hottest thermal paste tested next to the thermal graphite pad.

While it’s still within reason for gaming, the higher price point and higher temps make is a less desirable option. Thermal Grizzly is where we start to enter the little bit more expensive, “premium” thermal pastes. However, they are widely known as being a company that makes great thermal pastes for extreme solutions.The first in their line is the Aeronaut. As you can probably guess from the name, it’s made more for people running air cooling solutions, such as a simple fan and heat sink. TestsThe Aeronaut paste did very well in our tests, never reaching higher than 57°C (134°F).

This will keep your system nice and cool, even if you’re on any air coolers you’d find in the market. The Innovation Cooling Diamond thermal paste uses a non-conductive base with crushed synthetic diamonds sprinkled in.While the company claims the diamonds provide superior thermal transfer, it doesn’t appear to help any more than a non-blinged out thermal paste. TestsComing in at 60°C (140°F), the Innovation Cooling isn’t the coolest on the list, but it does hold up quite well. Is it worth the extra couple of dollars to get it just because it has the diamonds? Maybe not, but it’s still effective and it’s still a pretty good price point.

Innovation Cooling has their diamond thermal paste for more extreme cooling, but maybe you don’t need something like that, maybe you just want to throw a sheet on your processor and call it good.Luckily, there’s a solution: thermal pads. These are great for beginners and veterans alike. They’re Non-conductive, and they’re literally just a sheet you place on your processor.

It does the same job as thermal paste, just in a nice small sheet.It can also be reused, making it a perfect choice if you’re doing testing over and over again. TestsThe thermal pad was our hottest-testing thermal solution, coming in at 77°C (170°F).

While this isn’t exactly frosty, it’s still within normal operating temperatures. As you can see, there is a wide variety of thermal pastes available on the market now, and a lot of them are viable for keeping your gaming system cool. If you’re a beginner, you might want to use Innovation Cooling ’s graphite thermal pad. While it didn't provide extremely cool temperatures, it still kept the system running cool enough for gaming and day to day use.

If you’re looking for something suggested to you that’s tried, tested, and guaranteed to keep your system cool? Look no further than Arctic Silver 5. This has always been a very trustable thermal paste for me, and it will be for you as well. Maybe you’ve got an extreme system that needs just the absolute best, and you don’t care about the price or not being able to use an aluminum heatsink, then the Thermal Grizzly Conductonaut is what you need.