Best Thermal Paste for Gaming laptop?

I want a thermal paste which:

  • Is not electrically conductive
  • Has longevity because I can’t open my laptop

Currently, my Acer Predator Helios 300’s temperatures go up to 94 degrees (CPU) and 90 degrees (GPU) even while undervolted. I will be sending it to the service center to get it cleaned and so I am thinking I will also get my thermal paste changed.

I read on the internet that some thermal compounds can just pump out or dry off if temps go too high, and my location’s ambient temperatures are usually 35 C (95 F) or more.

I am thinking about getting the Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut Paste [Some reviews say 1 gram is too less, I need it for both CPU and GPU. Is 1g really less?]

Is this a suitable choice for me? Is there any other thermal paste you all can suggest? If so, please let me know.

Thank you in advance.

Would get the thermal grizzley carbon pad not as good as top paste but won’t dry out

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I wanted to suggest the Kryonaut as well, since that is what I always used. But looks like @mutation666 knows best. The Thermal Grizzly Carbonaut pad has a thermal conductivity of 62.5W/mK opposed to only 12.5W/​mK of the Kryonaut! If such high thermal conductivity makes any real world difference however is something I have no data on.

Edit: For VRAM or RAM components I suggest the Thermal Grizzly Minus Pad. You can get these i different thicknesses from 0.5mm to 2mm. I suggest this in particular because while the heat sink normally makes contact on the die, there is usually a gap between heat sink and RAM modules that is bridged by the thermal pad.

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Alright, thank you.

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BTW because you ask, I would get 5g of Kryonaut to be on the safe side. 1g could be enough for the dies of CPU and GPU but if you make a mistake and have to reapply you probably don’t have enough. All these Thermal Grizzly accessories are quite expensive, but they are normally really good.

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Agreed, but that would be way too expensive for me. How’s the Arctic MX-4? 4 grams of it cost roughly the same price as 1 gram of Grizzly Kryonaut.

But some reviews are scaring me.

This is a review I found on Artic MX-4. Some more reviews say they received a fake product.

For things I intend to forget about, IC Diamond paste is a strong favorite of mine. It’s been a top tier paste since it came out, and is still very close to kryonaut in performance. It isn’t electrically conductive, and just doesn’t seem to degrade in performance even over years from what I’ve seen.

I’ve used it on everything from HBA’s, NIC’s, GPU’s and even my current Epyc CPU.

Do be aware it often stains cpu heatspreaders a bit, and repeated applications such as during review testing can eventually “polish” away the thin laser etching on heat spreaders as well. The polishing isn’t an issue with normal use.

It is also fairly thick and difficult to push out when at room temp, I recommend warming it in hot water. It works good right away, but can take about an hour to a day of use to reach its best temp, as it gradually becomes thinner from the heat and pressure. The difference was maby a few degrees when I last cared about checking several years ago.

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Should be trivially easy to test if the thermal paste is electrically conductive when you receive it. You have a multi-meter, don’t you?

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Not that I’d recommend it but I’ve been working on lapping a laptop heatsink for a while now. Down to ~1 micron so far, aiming for a third of that error. Will be interesting to see what the cooling impact will be.

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This thread reminded me of some complete bullshit I encountered long ago.

I was moving around a lot at the time, so a laptop was my only computer. I had a Lenovo W520 (which was the last model with a decent keyboard, fuck chicklets and fuck the new layout) which idled at 70 degrees C and instantly throttled because it jumped above 90 degrees the moment it did anything.

I eventually replaced the thermal paste (with IC diamond), and it idled at about 43 degrees, would be between 50-60 under normal use and maby hit 80 degrees under benchmarks. Turns out this was an extremely common problem for these laptops, basically each and every one needed repasting from the factory.

Since then I’ve compulsively replaced the paste on everything, new or not.

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Are you idiots rly gunna buy shit online when a physical store exists with not fake product less than 15 miles away?

Go to best buy pick up a tube of corsair xtm50. Theres not much of a difference unless you’re doing some actually cold shit.

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At least around where I live 1g of Kryonaut is 7EUR while the syringe with 5g is only 14EUR. So it is not 5 times as expensive.

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If I could repaste my laptop without taking it fully apart I’d buy carbonaut for longevity. It’s not worth tearing a laptop apart every 2 years to repaste it, especially if it’s difficult to take apart.

Not everyone has access to tech stores nearby that most likely would sell even worse thermal paste. The only paste I’ve seen sold where I live is the most cheap white one you can buy and it’s just as expensive as Noctua or other are on Amazon.
Couldn’t even buy a gold rated PSU. A store owner even had the audacity to tell me that a gray PSU that weighted 10g taken from a pile of them was “good enough” for an i7 4790K.

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Jesus. What is wrong with people.

If you’re going longevity then I’d be looking at icy pads or graphene stuff

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