Still skeptical about liquid metal thermal paste after 3 builds...

I kept hearing how it drops temps 10-15 degrees over regular paste but after trying it on my last 3 gaming rigs I only saw maybe 5 degrees at best on a stress test. Plus the risk of that conductive stuff shorting something out just doesn't seem worth it for the small gain. Anyone else had better results or am I just applying it wrong?

2 comments

2 Comments

iris_stone281mo ago

Oh man, I've been saying this for years and people act like I'm crazy. The risk of that stuff getting where it shouldn't is way higher than any temp drop you might see. Unless you're pushing some insane overclock on a custom loop, regular paste works just fine and you don't have to stress about killing your motherboard.

markl751mo ago

Wait, only 5 degrees? That's actually worse than I expected lol. I've been running liquid metal on my 5800X3D for about 8 months now and I swear I dropped like 12-15 degrees under load compared to my old NT-H2. What kind of cooler are you running? Because if you're on a standard air cooler or an AIO the contact might not be perfect with liquid metal. The stuff really shines on direct die setups or with lapped IHS. But yeah I totally get the fear factor - I nearly had a heart attack when a tiny drop rolled off the die onto my motherboard pins on the first try.