Come join the discussion about computing, builds, collections, displays, models, styles, scales, specifications, reviews, accessories, classifieds, and more! Below you'll find the temperatures we measured on our standardized test bench, and as always, lower temperatures are better. Thermal Grizzly's Carbonaut is a thermal pad, allowing it to be easily installed and reused without requiring replacements for longer periods of time. The way to apply it is the one that we personally have always used and it has given us the best results; You already know that there are many theories about what is the best method to apply thermal paste, but in our experience the one that has given us the best result has always been to apply thermal paste with the size of a grain of rice and spread it with a card or similar.

The paste doesn't contain any silicone, so it has low viscosity compared to some other paste in this collection.

Gelid GC-Extreme is a moderately viscous compound, making it very stable during application and it spreads consistently, although it requires slow consistent pressure on the syringe plunger for correct placement.

Thermal paste can go by many names, such as "thermal compound," "thermal grease," or "TIM" (Thermal Interface Material), but they all have the same purpose — to help keep your chip cool by ensuring that heat passes efficiently from the CPU to the cooler. Choosing the best thermal paste may sound simple, but a dizzying array of options can turn this seemingly easy choice into a time-consuming and confusing task. A bit further down, you'll find our original round of testing with 85 different pastes, some of which we've revisited in this new performance hierarchy. A compound with relatively ‘normal’ viscosity known to thermal paste application as well as good stability during application.It's also a good practice to open up these pre-built PCs to check if they spilled any liquid metal on the motherboard or other components. It contains micronized silver and several other thermally conductive ceramic particles to offer a high level of performance and stability. Arctic says the paste uses three unique shapes and sizes of pure silver particles to maximize particle-to-particle contact area and thermal transfer.

The Thermal Grizzly Conductonaut is a liquid metal thermal solution for enthusiasts looking to get their hands dirty with sophisticated builds involving overclocked CPUs. To do this, we pour a good amount on a piece of paper, and the first thing we notice is that a “stream” comes out, perhaps too fine and a bit difficult to control. Building a PC can already be quite overwhelming for a lot of people and we think every bit helps in making it a smooth and easy experience. This is suitable for use across different CPUs on the market including even high-performance HEDT chips like an AMD Ryzen Threadripper. Thermal Grizzly says Hydonaut is based paired with high-end PCs with sophisticated cooling solutions, so this is a fantastic option to consider if you have a heavy-duty machine.Another comment we have about the specs is that the popular conductivity metric (W/mk) used in thermal compound comparisons is unknown.