Best thermal paste?

[Kawazu]

A bit old but still shows the most popular thermal paste.
Only a 10c difference between toothpaste and AC5

http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/Thermal-Compound-Roundup-October-2011/1396/5

As you can see the difference in the brand you pick is almost none and i would not even bother buying the more expensive brands as a "normal" consumer.
If you are on the other hard trying to set some sort of OC record and using dry ice and stuff like that i understand that you are after that 1c that will take you a bit higher in the OC war.

 

[Monkeh]

Except that graph doesn't show how the thermal contact compounds perform over a period of time - yes toothpaste and mayonnaise also scored highly, but I'd bet they degrade rapidly and would be useless or break down into conductive liquids which would damage the system in a very short amount of time.

I'm not 100% sure exactly what I've got on my cooler atm, I have a tube of MX-2, MX-4 and 2 tubes of Prolimatech thermal compound I got free with a heatsink open in my bits box - it will be the first one I grab after cleaning down with IPA, the thing about the better ones is they don't dry up into a useless layer of crap that fails in its job after a year or so. How many times does a laptop, graphics card or console like the 360 or PS3 start going wonky after a year or so because they cheap out with the crappy white silicon compounds on the important and hot chips?

 

[delshay]

I have seen the above link and I burst out laughing, it seems you can use anything that is spreadable, but the biggest winner is artic clean.

There is no competition its the best.

http://www.arcticsilver.com/arcticlean.htm

 

[plazma]

What would be good double sided thermal tape (non-permanent) for attaching heat sinks to C64 chips?
I have some brand in the garage. And also Arctic Silver Thermal Adhesive but it is too permanent for my taste.

 

[ShambleS1980]

you can get lots of thermal tape,
this stuff i use for gpu ram
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/ARCTIC-SL...hermal_Compounds_Supplies&hash=item43b1a268bb

and you can get this sort of stuff for bigger chips
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/50mm-x-50...hermal_Compounds_Supplies&hash=item2c64d4f8c0

they really arent that good compared to a 2 part compound but that stuff wouldnt be non permanent, the tape you can remove

 

[delshay]

The only thing thats going good for toothpaste is the hotter it gets, the more minty freshness you will get.

I can also confirm AS5 here has drop a further 7c, but this has taken longer than the recommended 200HR so I have to assume its all down to how the paste is applied.