hello all, I'm looking to build a PC, and I'm air cooling it. So I was wondering which thermal paste you recommend? thanks.
Well it depends on what cooler you go with. If you’re going with a Noctua then the thermal paste that comes with it is good quality. If you are set on aftermarket paste, go with the Thermal Grizzly stuff. Some of the best paste around.
In my line of work, I get this question a lot. 90% of the time I recommend using the paste that comes pre-applied to coolers these days. In most cases it's an Asetek formulation and it's more than good enough to get the job done. Noctua coolers come with Noctua's NT-H1, which I have personal experience with and I very much care for it. IC Diamond not only performs like crap, but it's been proven to scratch surfaces. Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut doesn't spread properly. You have to manually spread it, and if you don't do an amazing job, it insulates more than conducts in my experience. Best paste around my ass. Arctic Silver 5 is what I run in my personal watercooled system. I've been using it for 15 years. It's a classic. However, it doesn't cure fast at all and it can be a bit hard to apply at times. Arctic MX4 is about half the price of Silver 5 and is about 85% as efficient in thermal conductivity. I love the stuff. It's a go to of mine for GPU's. Tuniq TX-2 will match AS5 for a similar price. Cooler Master MasterGel Maker is 11 w/mk of thermal conductivity, but extremely expensive for thermal paste. There are also some hilariously good but prohibitively expensive boutique formulations on performance-pcs.com. TL;DR Go with what's pre-applied. None pre-applied? Arctic Silver 5/Arctic MX4.
