Best Thermal Paste (For CPU & GPU) in 2023

Aug 01, 2023

You are confusing thermal conductivity with electrical conductivity.

Yes, we want all pastes to have high THERMAL conductivity.

We DO NOT want them to have any ELECTRICAL conductivity.

"Non-conductive" thermal pastes are electrically non-conductive. If you make a mess and smudge/ooze/flick/fling it onto the circuit board, it is much less likely to cause a problem and short something (or everything) out.

Different pastes are made from different types of bases. Ceramic, silicone, metal, "diamond", etc.

Silicone and Ceramic based pastes are generally non-conductive and safe, but it depends what else is in them. That's up to the manufacturer to tell you.

"Diamond" pastes have a tendency to scratch your CPU and heatsink/cold plate.

Liquid metal pastes are not recommended for beginners. You do not need a lot, you need to spread it on both mating surfaces, and you have to be careful. These pastes will run everywhere like water, and will eat away at certain metals. Also, being a metal (Indium), they will short out things if you make a mess.

I used Arctic silver(2,3, and 5) from 2001 until 5 years ago. It was the best, but it's not anymore. It also claims to be "non-conductive". Silver is a metal. There's always a chance that if you get it in the wrong spot – bad things will happen.

If your plan is "set and forget", and your attitude is "all pastes are the same, just more money", use Arctic MX-4.

If you want what's the best currently, get Kryonaut, or anything from Thermal Grizzly, really.

Current top picks are – Kingpin KPX, Kryonaut, GELID GC-Extreme, Noctua NT-H2, or Thermalright TF8.

Out of those, for normal everyday use cases I would recommend Kryonaut, NT-H2, or GC-Extreme.

In reality, almost any paste will keep you under max temp, unless you’re using a laptop, live in a hot climate, have poor case airflow, have a poor cooler, set too high of voltage, or have clogged air filters. An expensive paste isn't going to fix any of those issues. It can only get the heat to the heatsink/plate more effectively. It doesn't cool the system itself.