ARCTIC MX-6 (4 g) - Ultimate Performance Thermal Paste for CPU, consoles, graphics cards, laptops, very high thermal conductivity, long durability, non-conductive, non-capacitive

Product Information

Artic's Silver series is extremely popular among enthusiasts. The Silver series has also been around for quite some time now and the company has managed to keep it relevant in the space by adding newer, better variants to match the current standards. The Arctic Silver 5 is currently one of the most popular thermal paste solutions on the market. It's a high-density polysynthetic silver compound that's known to be very effective in a variety of builds. It contains micronized silver and several other thermally conductive ceramic particles to offer a high level of performance and stability. The performance value chart shows most of the liquid metal compounds with a poor value-per-gram rating, but once again, Phobya LM proves to be the outlier for that sub-category with its budget price tag. Arctic's MX-5 did not replace the MX-4 and the two pastes continued to co-exist up until recently, even though the new one often performed better than its predecessor. By contrast, the MX-6 actually replaces the MX-5. Why should you buy this: It is one of the best-performing pastes with excellent thermal conductivity.

We'll go into our breakdown of how we test these thermal pastes below, but the key takeaway here is that a single thermal compound can perform differently based upon several variables, such as what type of cooler and mount you use. To cover all the bases, we've tested every thermal paste with three variables: Thermal compounds might always be compared and debated over, but the simple fact remains: PC system building needs thermal compounds to effectively dissipate thermal loads. Without them, our beloved gaming and content-producing machines would struggle to keep components cool during heated frag sessions, heavy workstation computations, or just simply browsing the web. Ideally, we would have wanted to do 3 tests as a minimum for a single thermal paste and show the average of these three runs. I am recovering from a total hip replacement surgery and slowly resuming the testing hence only one test result is used However, there is a catch to it. These wipes have very strong and unpleasant smell that doesn’t go away instantly. ARCTIC is not adding or mixing any artificial flavor for the fragrance to alter this smell. Each wipe is 115x115mm. The wipe is made of 100% Limonene extracted from citrus essential oil. This would mean that these wipes don’t have alcohol or benzenes as this substance is used in industrial applications for cleaning as it is effective and gentle on metals and alloys.Liquid metal compounds are almost always electrically conductive, so while these compounds perform better than their paste counterparts, they require more focus and attention during application. They are very hard to remove if you get some in the wrong place, which would fry your system. Small differences in temperatures jostle the chart a bit, but overall the more budget-friendly compounds show much more promising performance value due to relatively close load ranges. We see a trend that most good and great thermal compounds perform very similarly, but might be worlds apart in price per gram. Liquid metal offers the best performance compared to any thermal paste out there, and the Thermal Grizzly Conductonaut proves that with its rated thermal conductivity of 73 W/mk. It has the potential of reducing temperatures by over 10 degrees Celsius in certain cases. The incredible performance of this liquid metal compound comes at a cost, though. Since it is electrically conductive, it can damage parts of your system if you don't apply it properly. The fans of the air cooler were set to run at their full speed for which the settings were made in UEFI/BIOS. We're also putting a new take on an old approach to the test — thermal pads. These pads can be used as TIM and come as a single sheet you simply apply to your heatsink, with Thermaltake's Heilos Pad being the first new thermal pad entrant to see our test bed in the coming weeks.

For a compound that costs less than half as much as leading competitors , Phobya's Liquid Metal Compound LM offers impressive performance, often besting the the CoolLaboratory Liquid Pro or Thermal Grizzly Conductonaut in our tests. Here is a statement from ARCTIC about MX-6. “With its improved composition, the ARCTIC MX-6 has a measurably lower thermal resistance than the MX-4. The basis for calculation is the temperature difference between the cooler base and the heat source (in C) in relation to the applied heat load (in W), which also results in the unit C/W. The higher the thermal resistance, the worse the heat can be transferred through the TIM layer. Thermal insulators, as an example, therefore always have a particularly high thermal resistance, while thermal interface materials usually have a particularly low one.”

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It’s no surprise that the liquid metal compounds once again sit atop the thermal comparison. Still, a 6C difference between all 15 thermal compounds tested shows there isn’t a lot of variation, even with a 360 all-in-one cooler with a push+pull fan setup for performance.

the wipes MX Cleaner To remove thermal paste they come in individual sachets, and be careful because they are wet wipes that have a very, very strong smell of disinfectant. We have tested them, and of course we recommend using them to remove the previous thermal paste naturally, without pressing too much and folding the wipe so that you always wipe it with a clean part, but once that is done, we recommend wiping it down a bit. toilet paper to the surface to remove the remains of the disinfectant liquid that may remain. Please note that not every run of the stress test may yield the same result. This could well be due to many factors like mounting pressure, thermal paste application, and varying ambient temperature. Not to mention the silicon differences even among the same category of chips. Hence, it is pertinent to mention the testing methodology along with the specifics. Each time the even spread of the thermal paste was verified and where the thermal paste spread was not even or gives the impression of a tear or a poor application, the result was dropped and the new test with correct spread was repeated. This is done to ensure the validity of the data.

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The application of the MX-6 is particularly easy thanks to its high viscosity, which also makes it particularly suitable for direct-die applications, which occur, for example, with graphics cards or console processor GPUs. Now yes, we are going to proceed to apply the thermal paste on the processor, in this case on a Core i7-13700K from intel. The way to apply it is the one that we personally have always used and it has given us the best results; You already know that there are many theories about what is the best method to apply thermal paste, but in our experience the one that has given us the best result has always been to apply thermal paste with the size of a grain of rice and spread it with a card or similar. Liquid metal compounds make their way to the top of the temperature chart with slightly cooler values than the traditional pastes. Interestingly, the difference between the top and bottom of this chart is less than 4C. The dispersion is quite good, denoting that it is not as viscous as it seemed to us in the first instance, especially when we have not applied as much pressure as a heatsink will apply to the processor and, in fact, we have put much more thermal paste on the paper of the which we will cast on the IHS of the processor normally. The XTM50 paste by itself has low viscosity, so can also just use the 'Dot method' to apply the paste and let the mounting pressure do its thing. But if you're too worried about applying using that method, then the bundled stencil and spreader make it very easy to get things done. In theory, you can use any application method for a compound with low viscosity, but the stencil makes it that much easier to apply. It's for new builders who don't necessarily have the technical know-how of properly applying thermal paste and how improper application can have a lasting impact on the overall performance of the CPU.

Thermal paste syringes have the same appearance as the vast majority of these products, of course with their identification label and with a cap that is pressured and not screwed. You may have heard of thermal pads being used by many as a replacement for thermal paste. That's entirely normal because thermal pads are also highly efficient. Thermal pads are primarily used on M.2 SSD modules. As such the heatsink or the motherboard shroud covering the M.2 SSD module holds thermal pads to dissipate the heat produced by the modules. It works the same way as thermal paste, except these are solid pads as opposed to pasting or liquid solutions. We think the Thermal Grizzly's Carbonaut is one of the best options on the market. This can be used on both processors and GPUs too. The application of thermal pads involves placing the pad on top of the CPU IHS, thereby filling the gap between the IHS and the heatsink. PC was powered off for a minimum of 30 minutes after a stress test run. This would allow the completion of the thermal cycle with hot and cold runs giving the thermal paste some time to reach its near-optimal condition. Now coming to the main point of this article, the following configuration is used for thermal paste testing: –In contrast, traditional thermal paste compounds are relatively simple for every experience level. Most, but not all, traditional pastes are electrically non-conductive. Noctua's NT-H1 is a super-reliable paste that has been around for years. It is regarded as one of the best with more than 150 awards and recommendations, and it's one of the best options for building or repairing computers, especially for amateurs who may not yet have a lot of experience with thermal pastes but are confident enough to use them. The NT-H1 formula also gets excellent marks for usability, with an easy-to-apply consistency. It's easy to clean when dry and is designed to not corrode. Corsair Commander Pro, 100%/50% PWM Speed profiles (liquid cooling pump always @100%, if applicable) ARCTIC has mentioned that this thermal paste is suitable for many applications like direct die applications, graphics cards, console chips, and laptop chips.