Swapped thermal paste from the cheap stuff to MX-4 and my CPU temps dropped 12C

Been building PCs for about 5 years now and always just used whatever thermal paste came with the cooler or the cheapest tube on Amazon. Last month I rebuilt my Ryzen 5 3600 rig and decided to try Arctic MX-4 since it was like 8 bucks for a bigger tube. I cleaned off the old paste with isopropyl and did my usual pea-sized dab in the middle. Booted up and my idle temps went from 45C to 33C and under load it dropped from 78C to 66C. That's a huge difference for just a few bucks more. I always thought thermal paste was thermal paste but clearly not. Has anyone else seen big gains from switching brands or did I just have bad application before?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_linda8d ago

Honestly, brian328 is right, cleaning and remounting probably did half the work but MX-4 is legit.

viola_ward5d ago

That 12C drop is wild for just switching paste. I know brian328 mentioned it but yeah a clean remount can make a big difference too. Glad you're seeing those better temps though, must feel good.

brian3288d ago

Got a similar thing swapping from stock Intel paste to Noctua NT-H1 on my old i7. Dropped about 10C under load and I thought my case fans were broke for a sec because they were quieter.

-1