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Guys, OP is asking for the best thermal paste. Unless you've done testing yourself with a dozen pastes and have recorded the results, it would be nice for you to link reviews or other data so that the OP can get an objective answer to his question.
Amen. Google exists for a reason. We are assuming the best of the OP in that he wants the opinions of [H]'ers and not that he's too lazy to google.While I tend to agree, if OP wanted nothing but scientific results he/she could have just googled/searched for reviews on thermal paste.
IMO, since these are all opinions, use nothing but Indigo Xtreme (on my i7 930@4GHz/ H100 right now) if you want the absolute best and like spending money on the best.
If that's not the case, use mayonnaise (any of the popular TIM's).
http://www.indigo-xtreme.com/
I wish people would call stop calling Indigo Xtreme "paste".
People should use Indigo Xtreme between the cpu & integrated heat spreader on the Intel Ivy bridge chips that Intel didn't solder the heat spreader on. I likey my temps with Phobya He Grease & a Noctua NH-D14.
MX-2 is dirt cheap and works great. With a good mount it'll work as well as any other paste.
SonDa5 makes a really good point in that if you have low pressure mount than nothing can match liquid metal pastes like Liquid Ultra or Indigo Xtreme. If you're using a de-lidded CPU or a push-pin mounting system then it might be worth it to invest in one of those pastes.
OTOH if you have a regular heatsink with good mounting pressure you have very little to gain. So it all depends on your situation, do whatever works for you.
I like SonDa5 much as a fellow member, and have no personal axe to grind, but tests done by very well respected members going from IC Diamond to the IX and CL Ultra metal TIM did not create anywhere near a 19C drop, maybe 4-5C in the extreme cases..
I've seen a few people report that with their delidded ivy bridge cpus too. Its mostly that the CL ultra still performs well with a bad mount. I saw that much of a difference when I did a better job cleaning up the epoxy and lapping the base of the IHS a bit. So that was just fron correcting the mount.
Also IC diamond sucks. Its thick, its a pain to clean up, and its super sensitive to bad mounts. Most of the time mx-2 will actually perform better, at least in my experience.
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I feel SonDa5 is trustworthy, I just wanted more then one opinion, and one that offered cold hard facts like he does when he posts with data backing it up...
SonDa5, is your cooling setup allowing you to overclock the CPU higher than a regular heatsink?