Best Thermal Paste (For CPU & GPU), Top 10 Best Thermal Pastes In 2021
An In-Depth Look At The Best Thermal Paste 2021
- Updated Sep 17, 2021
- Cooling, Thermal Paste
What is the best thermal paste 2021? Thermal paste is often the overlooked product for a lot of new builders computer setups. This can be down to a lack of experience or the simple fact that coolers already come with thermal paste pre-applied.
While the pre-applied thermal paste will work, it is often very old and has been sitting in a box for months on end. With this in mind, it is always a better idea to buy and apply your own thermal paste when installing your CPU for better temps at stock speeds.
Thermal paste needs changing annually, as it will eventually dry out and begin to lose its effectiveness. If you leave the thermal paste on too long, you will begin to see performance issues and gradual overheating which can damage your CPU in the long run.
Can you just apply any thermal paste? What is the best thermal paste for your needs? Let’s take a look and breakdown what truly is the best thermal paste available right now.
Watch Our Video Rundown
Our Top Picks
Best Thermal Paste: First Look
Arctic Silver 5
Arctic Silver 5 is a great pick if you want a simple, effective thermal paste for your Computer.
I’ve been using Arctic Silver for my processors since its release in the mid-2000s, and have always had great temps with it. Using silver as a base, it has great heat transfer.
Arctic MX-4
Not to be confused with Arctic Silver, this company brings its own blend of ice-cold thermal pastes.
The MX-4 uses carbon micro-particles to make sure it fills in all the air gaps on your heat sink, helping to ensure better heat dissipation.
Thermal Grizzly Hydronaut
Thermal Grizzly’s Hydronaut is a great solution if you’re running a computer that has a liquid cooling system in it.
Thermal Grizzly made the Hydronaut to be effective for systems using water cooling, while still maintaining a great price-for-performance ratio.
Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut
The next product in the Thermal Grizzly line is the Kryonaut – made specifically for extreme overclocking.
Thermal Grizzly designed the Kryonaut to work with even the most extreme overclocked systems still using a traditional thermal paste.
Arctic Silver Ceramique 2
A paste that’s easy to use for first time builders, Ceramique 2 is pretty much identical to Arctic Silver’s Ceramique, with an Advertised Thermal Conductivity of 8.5 W/mk.
Cooler Master High Performance Thermal Paste
The Cooler Master High Performance Thermal Paste is a relatively affordable non-conductive thermal paste that comes with its own spreader for ease of application.
MasterGel Maker Nano High Performance
MasterGel Maker Nano High Performance is another thermal paste from Cooler Master, which actually performs better than their High Performance Thermal Paste, whilst costing more.
Gelid Solutions GC-Extreme
Gelid Solutions GC-Extreme thermal paste, despite being from a relatively unheard of brand, matches up to the likes of Cooler Master and Thermaltake in terms of cooling performance.
Thermaltake TG-8
A disappointing entry from Thermaltake – a well-known brand in the thermal paste world. This thermal paste is pricey, and not particularly effective, though it will do in a pinch.
Thermal Grizzly Aeronaut
Another Thermal Grizzly thermal paste, Aeronaut offers great performance for air-cooled systems for a premium price.
How We Choose
When it comes to thermal paste suggests we take extra care to ensure you get a quality product to fit your needs.
- What’s Current? No one wants to get outdated information that’s going to do them no good. Making sure that we are on top of the market and current trends is a must!
- Research is key. The computer and tech market can be confusing. It’s hard to know where to start, and what’s accurate. We take this out of the equation for you by doing the research before we suggest anything.
- Narrowing down. Once we’ve gathered together our list of potential selections, we research the items themselves to see which particular thermal paste comes out on top.
Once we have that final list, we purchase the various brands of thermal paste and begin to test.
Things To Consider
Knowing what the best thermal paste is one thing but picking the best thermal paste for your needs can be tricky. There is a thermal paste for almost every situation so which one is it?
There are several things you should consider when buying a thermal paste for your needs. First though, let’s go over what thermal paste is, and why you need it.
What is Thermal Paste?
Thermal paste (also sometimes known as thermal grease or thermal compound) acts as a heat transfer agent on a CPU’s heat spreader or IHS (Integrated Heat Spreader). Its basic compound consists of zinc oxide.
Your processor generates a lot of heat. So much heat that you could literally fry an egg on it.
This is bad, high heat can fatally damage components very quickly, especially high-end graphics cards and processors. In order to combat this, we have heat sinks.
Air Based Heat Sinks
A heat sink is what you put on the CPU to transfer the heat and keep it cool on top of a CPU heat spreader or IHS (integrated heat spreader). Traditional air heat sinks have a metal base that touches the processor. The heat is transferred through that block of metal and usually channels into copper pipes, which are then attached to layers of thin metal fins with a fan blowing on it to dissipate the heat further.
Water Coolers
Water coolers work on a similar principle. The heat sink sits on top of the AMD or Intel processor with water running over it (sound dangerous, right?). This heats up the water, which gets funneled into a radiator. The radiator has channels and metal fins on it with fans that blow on these metal fins. This cools down the water before its return trip to the CPU heat sink.
So where does thermal paste play into all this? Glad you asked.
Thermal Paste’s Role
Figure shows a processor with a fan heatsink on top of it. Notice the holes and divots (exaggerated for effect) in the two pieces of metal. These holes trap air, which insulates the heat. Thermal paste seeps into these holes and divots, helping to conduct the heat rather than insulate it.
Thermal paste sits as a layer in between the processor and the heat sink; here’s why.
Metal isn’t typically perfectly flat. No matter how flat it may look to the naked eye there is always bumps and grooves and little holes and divots. These holes and divots and bumps trap air when another piece of metal is pressed against it.
This is bad as air is an excellent insulator of heat. This means the heat transfer from AMD or Intel the processor to your heat sink isn’t optimal and often can overheat/ harm your system.
Thermal paste resolves this issue. Not only is it engineered to be thermally conductive (meaning it helps to transfer heat from one area to another), but since it’s in a liquid form, it can press down and get in between all the little nooks and crannies that usually trap air when thermal paste isn’t used.
That’s why you need to use a thermal paste – specifically, a thermal paste that performs outstandingly like-named brands (Arctic, Thermal Grizzly, etc.).
Thermal paste properties
When looking at thermal paste, there may be a few properties you’re unfamiliar with, or you may be unsure how a paste positively impacts thermals. Let’s take a look at what those are and how they fit into the puzzle.
Viscosity
This refers to how thick/thin the thermal paste is. Those with a higher viscosity are thicker, and more like actual paste, and usually will adhere your heatsink better to your processor.
Those with a low viscosity are more liquidy and will tend to dry up over a few days after applied to set in. It is worth noting that a lower viscosity thermal paste can potentially leak onto your motherboard quite easily if too much is used.
Specific gravity
Specific gravity is how dense and heavy the thermal paste is, and generally isn’t listed on most thermal pastes, and isn’t usually needed to take into consideration. That being said specific gravity is expressed in g/cm³ which stands for grams per cubic centimeter.
Thermal Conductivity
This is the most important measurement to pay attention to. This unit of measurement tells you how good the thermal paste is at moving heat from one place to another.
This is measured in watts per square meter of surface area, shown as W/mK. Let’s look at a couple of examples from our list:
Thermal Conductivity
| Thermal Paste | Thermal Conductivity (W/mK) |
|---|---|
| Arctic Silver 5 | 6.0 W/mK |
| Thermaltake TG-8 | 4.7 W/mK |
| Thermal Grizzly Conductonaut | 73 W/mK |
Generally speaking, the higher the number, the better the paste should be at conducting heat away, but there are always other variables and this may not always be the case.
Thermal Design Power (TDP)
The TDP of your processor will tell you how much power it will use. You can use this as an estimate of how hot it’s going to get. Those with a higher TDP will use more power, which generates more heat.
This is something to consider when choosing a thermal paste, as a hotter processor is going to need a thermal paste that can match it.
You can find this number listed on your processor specs under TDP.
Ambient Temperature
The air around your system can play a huge part in determining how cool (or hot) your system runs. If you live in an area where the temperature is constantly hot, you might want to look at upgrading your thermal paste.
The air inside of your system that is situated around your processor can affect results as well. If your other components run hot (say like your GPU), that ambient air can affect your system as much as the temperature outside can.
Cooling Solution
Choosing the correct cooling solution can have a huge impact on your system overall. Even if you have the best thermal paste on the market, if the rest of your system isn’t set up to handle the amount of heat your processor generates, it’s not going to matter.
Level of Familiarity
How comfortable you are with working on your own components may play a factor into what thermal paste solution you decide on.
If you’re a beginner and you’re worried about the possibility of harming your components, you may want to look into thermal pads instead of a paste. While not as effective as a paste, it’s very quick and easy and won’t harm your components.
Whether or not it’s electrically conductive is something else you should think about if you’re comfort level isn’t very high, as some thermal pastes are made with materials that conduct electricity.
There are also liquid metal thermal pastes, and these require special care to apply without harming your components.
Find out more about the processes of properly applying thermal paste.
How We Tested
When we sat down to bring you the best thermal pastes of 2019, we did our research and found out how many options were available as a consumer.
The options are endless, and they all proclaim better performance than the last. We knew we had to test them out personally, to make sure we recommended only the ones that work as well as they claimed.
The Systems
We used an old in-house system to do all the testing so we could maintain consistency. We went with our Ryzen 1700 setup. Here’s what it’s running.
- AMD Ryzen 1700 @ 3.7 GHz
- 32GB of G.Skill Flare X @ 2666 MHz
- Gigabyte Aorus Radeon RX 580 XTR
- CoolerMaster MasterLiquid 240 AIO
The Test
When designing the test, we wanted to make sure to cover all of our bases to bring you the best results.
We measured:
- Ambient temperature
- Temperature during idle
- Temperature during full load
- Temperature during full load, while also using the GPU to generate more ambient heat
Before testing we cleaned the processor using a thermal paste cleaning and polishing kit from Arctic Silver. While isopropyl alcohol will work, we wanted to make sure to get the heatsink and processor as clean as possible so that the results for the next thermal paste weren’t contaminated.
For the test itself, we used Prime95 as a CPU stress test. This program makes good use of a processor’s computing power to generate as much heat as possible.
While most of your gaming time probably won’t be spent with a maxed-out CPU running complex mathematical equations, we wanted to make sure we got the proper data for testing our thermal paste.
If the thermal paste can handle the stress of Prime95, it can handle gaming.
We ran Prime95 for an hour on its own to bring the processor up to temp. After the hour, an additional hour of gaming was added on top of it WHILE Prime95 was still stress testing.
This lets our memory and GPU start generating heat, adding to the ambient temperature inside the case. This can affect load temperatures as the heat difference of the processor and the air around it start to come closer. The heat from the processor will start to dissipate less efficiently at this point.
After the testing was done, we reset and went again with the next thermal paste.
Best Thermal Paste In 2021
Arctic Silver 5
Type
Thermal Paste
Item Weight
0.123 ounces
Electrically-Conductive
Yes
Thermal Conductivity Rating
8.9 W/mK
Arctic MX-4
Type
Thermal Compound
Item Weight
0.16 ounces
Electrically-Conductive
No
Thermal Conductivity Rating
8.5W/mK
Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut
Type
Thermal Paste
Item Weight
0.16 ounces
Electrically-Conductive?
No
Thermal Conductivity Rating
12.5 W/mk
In-depth Review
Arctic Silver 5
Type
Thermal Paste
Item Weight
0.123 ounces
Electrically-Conductive
Yes
Thermal Conductivity Rating
8.9 W/mK
Price Point
Editor's Pick
Company claims it will never dry out
Thermally conductive
It’s already 2019 but if you’re looking for a thermal paste that’s been tried and tested, then look no further than Arctic Silver 5. As mentioned earlier, I’ve been using this thermal paste for years and I’ve never had a heat-related component failure due to my thermal paste going bad.
Testing
In our testing, Arctic Silver 5 did very well, being one of the coolest-scoring pastes on our list. Even under full processor load, our processor never made it over 53°C (127°F).
Arctic MX-4
Type
Thermal Compound
Item Weight
0.16 ounces
Electrically-Conductive
No
Thermal Conductivity Rating
8.5W/mK
Highest rated thermal paste on the list
8 year advertised life span
Non-conductive
Comes at a higher price point, but you get a 4g tube
The Arctic MX-4 is the highest rated thermal paste on our list, and the results show why.
It’s a little on the expensive side but you get a large, 4g tube of paste, which they claim has an eight-year life span, so it should last you for a long time to come.
Tests
The results don’t lie! This thermal paste showed it can handle some heat, coming in at a nice chilly 57°C (134°F), even under full load during gaming.
Non-conductive
Designed for introduction to overclocking
The next selection up from Thermal Grizzly is their Hydronaut. And yup, you guessed it, it’s designed for water-cooling setups. Although it’ll work for any coolers, not just water.
Tests
The Hydronaut did even better than the Aeronaut paste, never getting any warmer than a nice and a cool 54°C (113°F). There was nothing I could throw at this paste that it couldn’t handle while gaming.
Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut
Type
Thermal Paste
Item Weight
0.16 ounces
Electrically-Conductive?
No
Thermal Conductivity Rating
12.5 W/mk
Best non-conductive thermal paste
Price point
Another heavy hitter from Thermal Grizzly: Kryonaut. The naming scheme doesn’t quite follow the others when it comes to this one as it’s not designed for sub-zero cooling solutions; it’s just a word that indicates cool temperatures. Name aside, this is another great product from Thermal Grizzly.
Tests
I don’t know how Thermal Grizzly does it, but this one tested even cooler than the previous one. Coming in at a nice and frosty 53°C° degrees celsius (127°F), this is probably the best CPU thermal paste (it’s also likely the best thermal paste for GPUs, but we didn’t test it on GPUs).
Price point
Non-conductive
Company claims it will never dry out
N/A
Made by the same guys as Arctic Silver 5, Arctic Silver Ceramique uses a ceramic base instead of silver.
Giving their consumers a non-conductive, beginner-friendly thermal paste was a good choice by Arctic Silver. This thermal paste won’t short anything out if you accidentally get some overspill when applying it to the processor.
Tests
In our testing, the Arctic Silver Ceramique didn’t score quite as well as its predecessor, but the results were still very favorable for gaming. This paste never got over 61°C (141°F), keeping our processor cool even during intense gaming.
Non-conductive
Price point
Comes with a spreader and templates for easy application
Not the best performance
I guess being great at making cases and power supplies wasn’t enough for Cooler Master, as now they’ve now branched out into thermal pastes!
The first one we tested was the Cooler Master High Performance branded thermal paste. Designed to be a great overall thermal paste, it doesn’t quite hit the mark in our opinion compared to the other selections here. It does however come with a credit card-like spreader and sticker templates to help you apply the thermal paste to the processor with no mess-ups!
Tests
In our testing, this thermal paste came in with a load temp of around 63°C (145°F), which is the second-highest temp result of any paste on this page, though not much higher than the 61°C many achieve. Still, in that 60-degree area, it’s more than suitable for intense gaming.
Easy to spread
Comes with a spreader
Non-conductive
Price point
Not much better than cheaper options
The second product we tested from Cooler Master was the MasterGel Maker Nano branded ‘high-performance’ thermal paste. Claiming to get even better performance than the other one we tested, Cooler Master touts this paste for more extreme cooling solutions. This thermal paste also comes with a spreader for easier application.
Tests
This thermal paste did end up testing better than their other high performance paste, coming in at a nice cool temp of 61°C (141°F), making this a worthy choice for keeping your system cool while gaming, although the higher price tag for a mere 2°C less than the cheaper Cooler Master High Performance Thermal Paste may make you want to consider the cheaper option.
Comes with spreader
Non-conductive
High price point
Gelid Solutions is another one of those companies that I hadn’t really heard about, but the thermal paste was suggested to me, and so on the list of pastes to test it went! The Gelid Solutions GC-Extreme performed to a respectable standard in our testing trials, comparing favorably to some bigger names on this list.
The Gelid Solutions GC-Extreme is non-corrosive, non-toxic, and requires no curing time. It also comes with a handy spreader to take the guesswork out of the equation when applying the paste.
It does come in a larger tube, though, which means you are paying more overall for thermal paste you might not necessarily need too often.
Tests
I was pleasantly surprised with the GC-Extreme, as it came in at 61°C (141°F) under full load while gaming, making this a worthwhile consideration.
Non-conductive
Comes with a spreader
High price point
Thermaltake enters the mix with a thermal paste touted as a solution for extreme performance, it’s made this thermal paste out of a diamond powder compound.
They also say it has a longer lifespan than other thermal pastes, but they don’t specify a definite answer.
Tests
Surprisingly coming in at 70°C (158°F), this was the hottest thermal paste tested next to the thermal graphite pad. While it’s still within reason for gaming, the higher price point and higher temps make is a less desirable option. All told – a bit of a disappointment – we can’t recommend this thermal paste over any of the competing efforts on this page.
Non-conductive
Made by a company widely known for making great thermal paste
Comes with spreader
High price point
Thermal Grizzly is where we start to enter the little bit more expensive, “premium” thermal pastes. However, they are widely known as being a company that makes great thermal pastes for extreme solutions.
The first in their line is the Aeronaut. As you can probably guess from the name, it’s made more for people running air cooling solutions, such as a simple fan and heat sink.
Tests
The Aeronaut paste did very well in our tests, never reaching higher than 57°C (134°F). This will keep your system nice and cool, even if you’re on any air coolers you’d find in the market.
FAQs
Can I Use CPU Thermal Paste on My GPU?
Whether you can use a thermal paste you bought for your CPU on your GPU and vice versa is an incredibly common inquiry, but you’ll be happy to know that there’s really no difference; thermal paste is thermal paste. What’s of more importance is what your thermal paste is made up of, how effective it will be, and how you should apply it.
GPU chips are incredibly delicate, so you’ll need to be extra careful when giving it a thermal touch up. We highly recommend avoiding metal or liquid-metal-based thermal pastes as their ultra-conductivity can kill your GPU if it gets anywhere it’s not supposed to. Carbon, ceramic, or silicone-based thermal pastes are your safest bet.
Is it Worth Changing CPU Thermal Paste?
Whether it’s worth your while to change the thermal paste on your CPU largely depends on its performance and how you wish to use it. The factory paste should do a good job for the first two years of solid gaming. After this period, you may notice your average CPU temperatures are creeping upward. This is because thermal paste has a shelf life and eventually expires, becoming dry and brittle. In this instance, applying a new layer of thermal paste will definitely boost your PC’s performance.
Bear in mind that thermal paste will expire whether a CPU is being used or not, so if you’ve found yourself a bargain CPU with a stock cooler that’s been sitting on the shelves for a while, you may need to switch up the paste sooner rather than later.
If you ever remove or replace your cooler, it’s definitely worth changing the thermal paste on your CPU, as when you screw your cooler back into place, there will be tiny air pockets in the link, preventing optimal heat transfer from your CPU’s heat spreader to the cooler.
If you’re something of an OC wizard, you may want to change your CPU’s paste right out of the box because factory paste doesn’t have the best thermal conductivity. Stock paste is usually a silicone formula, and silicone has the weakest heat conductivity of all the types of paste.
- Place five small dots of thermal paste about the size of grains of rice on the heat spreader, one in each corner and one in the middle, so it resembles the 5 face of a die.
- Putting one large blob about the size of a pea in the middle and using a small bit of paper or card to spread it is another popular method.
- The best method of all is to put a blob the size of a pea in the middle of the heat spreader and screw your cooler straight back on to spread it. This ensures there are no minuscule gaps between your cooler and CPU.
How Much Thermal Paste Should I Use on My CPU?
If your cooler covers your whole CPU, you only need enough paste for a thin layer over the surface of the heat spreader. It can reach near, but ideally, should never stretch beyond the edges of the chip.
There are a few methods of application, but these are the best…
If you have a direct touch cooler with copper piping, simply apply a thin straight line along each contact pipe and screw the cooler in place.
What Happens if You Put Too Much Thermal Paste on CPU?
As long as excess thermal paste doesn’t come into contact with any important workings of the motherboard socket, applying a little too much shouldn’t have any side effects. You can simply wipe most of the surplus away as it’s squeezed out when you tighten your cooler into place. That said, you should be extra careful with metal-based pastes due to their conductivity.
If the worst has happened, and you’ve applied way too much thermal paste, a couple of awful things can happen. Firstly, it can actually increase the chances of overheating. Secondly, there’s a small chance that when you next remove your cooler, your CPU is going to come right on out with it due to the suction of the thermal paste. Separating them can be a real pain.
How Long Does Thermal Paste Last on GPU?
The factory thermal paste between the GPU and cooler should last at least 2 years, possibly longer depending on the formula. Unless you need to upgrade your GPU’s thermals for manual overclocking, it might not be worth the money and effort to change the paste before this time has elapsed.
When the time does come to spruce your GPU up with a fresh application, you can buy certain pastes that last upward of 8 years, so unless you switch out your cooler, you’re probably set until you upgrade your GPU.
Should Thermal Paste Cover the Entire CPU?
How widespread a thermal paste needs to be depends on your cooler. Basically, any points of contact between your cooler and your CPU’s heat spreader need to be coated.
If your cooler’s designed to make contact with the whole heat spreader, an even coat from edge to edge is preferable. If your cooler features copper contact pipes, you’ll only need to apply the thermal paste along those pipes and screw the cooler down to spread the paste automatically across the contact zones.
It may seem obvious to the experienced gamer gods out there, but under no circumstances should you get any thermal paste in the socket areas of your CPU or motherboard. It should only ever be applied to the heat spreader, which is the metal backplate of your CPU.
Will Thermal Paste Fix Overheating?
Thermal paste can help to prevent overheating because it eliminates any gaps between your cooler and CPU, ensuring optimal heat transference. However, you shouldn’t rely solely on changing the thermal paste to prevent your system from overheating.
Combine reapplication with some fan maintenance and testing to check they’re working efficiently. This multi-pronged approach is far more likely to bring running temperatures down.
Final Word
Now we have been through what the best thermal paste could be, what will you pick for your system? Personally, I’ve been running Arctic Silver 5 on all my previous systems (this one too).
Arctic Silver 5 has worked out very well for me, and I’d recommend them to anyone looking to up their thermal paste game.
But what about you? What do you use? Is it on this list or something else entirely?
