I-C Diamond is good stuff, as is Noctua NT-H1. I've also heard that Shin-etsu makes excellent thermal paste, but I've never used it.
Ive found them all much the same really, ive used MX-4 in my current build and rate it, very easy to apply and great temps.
Apparently Indigo Extreme is the best of the best, according to all the colored lines. Though I hear it's a bit of a headache to apply.
I've used MX-4 on my rig and i'm very happy with it. However, it's a pain to spread. I think MX-2 is the best option...
Agree with some of you peckerwoods. I've read a lot of reviews saying how great this or that paste is and when I actually come to use it my temps aren't as good as with AS5. What gives?
To be honest with the well known brands, in my own experience i've never noticed more than 1 or 2 degrees difference. Any well known brand, megahalems, arctic, gelid etc. would yield good heat exchange. Though.. I would stay away from the diamond based thermal paste, they're god awful.
Agree. I have diamond 24 I used once and totally removed the laser etching on i7. Temps worse than AS5. Actually I have the diamond on my 2 x 560Ti now so I assume the laser etched code has been wiped.
That's why i never even used the diamond stuff, i'd read around on these forums that the laser etching gets wiped. Plus temps are crud. I'm actually really happy with gelids brand of thermal paste. It keeps the temps down .
I use Arctic Silver 5. NB: The AS kits with the nice smelling fluids are a bit expensive for what they are, the AS cleaner 2 that is used is just analytical grade isopropanol or something very similar in analytical grade quality so that when it evaporates there is no residue. Any analytical grade organic solvent will do the job as long as it is in the 99.5% pure range.