What's the best thermal paste to use for CPU and GPU?

[8bit]

Hi all,

I'm going to be upgrading my motherboard and graphics card soon. I'm keeping my current CPU and HSF (Arctic Cooling Ultra TC-L 64) and will be getting an Arctic Cooling thing for whatever graphics card I get.

When I installed the HSF originally I just used the thermal stuff that came with it (not pre-applied, it came in a little tube along with it) and I dunno if it's rubbish, if I did it wrong or if the HSF is just designed to keep the CPU at a set temp but I'm showing 45C at idle and only 1C or 2C more under load when the fan spins up a bit. I'd have thought an HSF like that would have kept the temps down a lot more but if I'm going to be replacing the motherboard anyway I'd like to try using good quality stuff.

So what's the general opinion on the best thermal paste to use?

Cheers
8bit

[[DW]Cougho]

Arctic Silver. Any of them, i use AS3 but the latest is AS5.

With regard to temps motherboard sensors tend to have a sense of humour so i wouldnt treat them as anywhere near gospel. If i remember correctly the A8v had extremely bad ones although this may have been fixed in later BIOS'es. My rule: If it doesnt crash, its not too hot.

[47 65 65 6b]

AS5 is my own favourite, this review / comparison is pretty good and should give you an idea as to why one paste's better than another.

[kalniel]

Marmite

[8bit]

Hmm that review/comparison seems to suggest that the AC3 is slightly electrically conductive/capacitive whereas the Ceramique is not. I take it the Ceramique is probably a slightly safer choice for someone who's not terribly well experienced at using this sort of stuff then?

Cheers
8bit

[Lee H]

Marmite

Imagine the smell coming from a 3.2 Ghz P4 "presc-hot" if I used that as themal compound

*drool*

As for compound, I've got the akasa paste and found this is fine

[8bit]

Marmite

lol i seem to remember reading something about using marmite for thermal compound...

[Koolpc]

Toothpaste is great, keeps it clean and minty too!

[aphex]

I use Ceramique cos at first I didn't think spending like another £4 extra on AS5 for a few extra degrees was worth it. But now I got the o/c bug every degree counts!

[kalniel]

lol i seem to remember reading something about using marmite for thermal compound...

http://www.dansdata.com/goop.htm

Personally I use ceramic thermal grease - just some generic stuff from an electrics shop. Well, I do when the warrenty lets me. At the moment I have to use the pad that came with my X2 retail heatsink.

[Atanum141]

As5 FTW!!!!....keeps my mobile barton at nice temps.!

[teachmech]

Hi
I've used the akasa thermal paste on a 2800+ barton, a socket 754 Newcastle at 2.5 Ghz and a Zalman GPU cooler all from the same tube, all excellent temps. would recommend.

[mike_w]

I'm using Arctic Silver 5, and my CPU has yet to explode.

[Hans Voralberg]

AS5, but AS3 or Ceramique is a bit easier to apply.