Recommend a Thermal Paste

Hello, i have a m11x R2 i7 8gb ram 166 OC, and i want to upgrade my thermal paste because my temps are getting over 85 on heavy load -> Dolphin Emulator, Huge Starcraft Maps, Lots of animation in Diablo 3, bf3, etc. and in most cases those huge temps will make my cpu throttle. And i dont want low fps in a middle of a game :/

With no TS im reaching around 82c on heavy load.
With TS im reaching around 87c on heavy load.
With TS+SetPLL to 180 im getting 92c aprox.
-->(With 180OC and TS activated, you can get ~36 secs on TS Bench Proof: http://bit.ly/tVeHgz)

Now, i dont know anything about thermal pastes or which one is better for the m11x.
Which one should i buy?

I have heard good stuff about: Arctic Silver 5
Newegg.com - Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound - Thermal Compound / Grease

Innovation Cooling Diamond "7 Carat" Thermal Compound
Newegg.com - Antec FORMULA 7 Nano Diamond Thermal Compound

ARCTIC MX-2 (1.5g, 4g, 8g, 30g & 65g)
ARCTIC MX-2 (1.5g, 4g, 8g, 30g & 65g) · Thermal Compound · Cooling · Arctic Cooling

Antec FORMULA 7 Nano Diamond Thermal Compound
Newegg.com - Antec FORMULA 7 Nano Diamond Thermal Compound
Unclewebb recommends this one! --> http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...w-supercharge-m11x-core-i5-i7-um-cpus-96.html

Thanks.

 

I personally like arctic silver 5. Honestly though, I can't figure out why alienware does not use high quality thermal paste to begin with. We pay a premium for the name which is supposed to mean we get an exceptional computer. To me that means little touches like good application of thermal paste and high quality components should already be included. Shame on you alienware!

oh, with any thermal paste proper application is incredibly important! You want as thin a layer as possible on the surfaces. With most thermal paste it is not meant to conduct the heat so much as to fill the tiny microgaps between the heat sink and the processor. Also clean each surface beforehand. You want a mirror finish ideally on both the heat sink and the processor surfaces. Then put a very thin layer of the paste on them and put the system back together.

Of course the process varies with different paste types. Read the instructions the paste comes with, and follow them!

 

The reason companies use the thermal pads is to make the build simpler. They are mostly put together by low paid laborers and it is harder to screw up the application of a thermal pad than it is the application of a proper thermal paste. This reduces production cost for the company and increases the reliability for the consumer. But once again I cite the premium we pay for the Alienware name. That premium should include things like better thermal paste. (imho)

 

i usually use artic silver ceramique usually lowers my tempature and im happy with it its cheap and works good :]
http://www.google.com/products/cata...=_KrATqnBLLCGiQL-yuX7Ag&sqi=2&ved=0CF0Q8wIwAw

 

I used Arctic Cooling MX-4 on my M17x. It did a really good job at dropping the temps so it gets my vote.

 

Out of those, it honestly does not matter. They all perform close enough to each other. And they all perform better than the generic cheap stuff that comes with your Alienware M11x.

I tend to use Arctic Silver 5. But that is because I bought a tube of that stuff several years ago, when Arctic Silver was pretty much the only name in the high-end thermal paste business. If someone gave me something else (like IC Diamond), I wouldn't care.

So buy whatever one you like. And if you can't choose, flip a coin. Because in the end, picking between high-end thermal paste Vendor A or Vendor B doesn't make a difference.

 

+1 to that.

In benchmarks it beats acrtic silver 5 by a fair margin. Plus its metal free thus non-conductive which in my book is a huge bonus. Price-wise its similar as well. Go for Arctic Cooling Mx-4.

 

One thing I noticed about that test is he did not allow for the cure time needed to properly test the arctic silver 5. The following is taken directly from the arctic silver instructions and clarifies why the review on the arctic cooling mx-4 was not done properly.

==============
Important Reminder:
Due to the unique shape and sizes of the particles in Arctic Silver 5's conductive matrix, it will take a up to 200 hours and several thermal cycles to achieve maximum particle to particle thermal conduction and for the heatsink to CPU interface to reach maximum conductivity. (This period will be longer in a system without a fan on the heatsink or with a low speed fan on the heatsink.) On systems measuring actual internal core temperatures via the CPU's internal diode, the measured temperature will often drop 2C to 5C over this "break-in" period. This break-in will occur during the normal use of the computer as long as the computer is turned off from time to time and the interface is allowed to cool to room temperature. Once the break-in is complete, the computer can be left on if desired.
==============

(Edit) in that review for the MX-4 paste the tester only let it cure for 30 minutes! Nowhere near the 200 hours and several thermal cycles needed for a proper test.

 

I like to use OCZ Freeze, it actually works better if you use the "rice-sized drop" method, and has a really big tube for the price. I live by it, about 5C lower temps than AS5.

I live by it.

 

dunno, but i don't really feel like waiting 200hours for my thermal paste to set in... and with AS5 i didn't see much difference on my old desktop with the E6300 over cheap crap from china... besides non-conductive i like.

AS5 is most popular i guess, but theres quite a few better options. I did read the diamond stuffs scratch the silicone(or w/e it is) shiny surface on the processor, never tried those things as the *oooh i got diamondz* meme.

AC mx4 has Thermal Conductivity (W/mk) 8.5
AS5 has >350,000W/m2 °C (0.001 inch layer)

now since i couldn't find AS5 thermal conductivity in units that are agreed upon to use which is Watts per meter kelvin i can't exactly compare them, and am too lazy to get a piece of paper to even em out... not sure if its possible tho as those look imaginary.

but according to this Heatsink Thermal Compound Review Comparison, OCZ Ultra II vs Arctic Silver 5 - SLCentral AS3 has >9.0w/mk so i suppose 5 should be more, then again its up to 9.0w/mk so they probably didn't bother measuring it and just imagined a number higher than the rest...

Since i like to know exact specs of stuff i use and own, i took AC mx-4 over the imaginary numbers of AS3/AS5 plus MX-4 is non-conductive which is a nice thing.

EDIT: excuse my mumbling lol. got carried away

 

I use that silver stuff, works well. But I never check temps, I go by how often the fan turns on. When I installed it, fan never really kicked on, after my mobo replacement, fan on all the time. So time for a repaste again.

 

Agreed. There has been many discussions over the past few years and in the end, the thermal performance differences will be very small and so it's best to base it on value (cost per uses). If paste A is $2 and paste B is $5, and both are single use, I'd get the $2 one. Since this amount of money is pretty trivial relative to the computer, if it makes you more comfortable buying the $5 one, nothing is wrong with that either...