I've finally finished the tube of old sliver grey Akasa TIM that I've had for a few years. Any recommendations for a sensible day to day TIM that works and isn't madly expensive? I usually use the squished blob method of application on CPUs these day...
That's a no brainer, Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut High Performance (a bit of a gobful lol) but applies smoothly and evenly - it's performance is also first rate
Still working my way through a 30g tube of MX-2. No complaints. CoolLaboratory Liquid Pro is rather excellent too.
Currently use Deepcool Z5. Standard clock 3770 in a matx case with a Hyper 103 cooler that just has a 92mm fan and it never goes over 59 degrees. Performs much better than AS stuff for me and inexpensive. Think you can only get their stuff from Amazon over here, not sure though.
AS5 is so 2006. Kryonaut from Thermal Grizzly is probably my favourite one. Yes, it's expensive, but it is great. Easy to apply/remove and it performs more or less the best, with the exception of liquid metal options.
I'm overwhelmed! I've never has such a large response to a request on here, I'm humbled. So much choice; I was going to go for Arctic MX-2, but the Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut is now calling to me
I use IC diamond in my builds. The big thing is that I do a build and usually don't touch it for 4+ years. Most performance thermal compounds will lose performance in that time, but IC diamond keeps up without need of reapplication. Most tests don't account for this either since it takes a long time to test long term performance. So choose your TIM based on its application. If you're going to highest possible performance, there are other TIMs out there, but if you're like me and aren't upgrading constantly, IC diamond is a very good choice.
Thanks for all the input, I found some MX2 at work, but will splash out on Grizzly next time I'm doing any important refits.