Just learned most thermal paste is basically just filler... kind of annoyed now

I was looking up why my shop's batch of budget thermal paste was giving weird temps on a build last week... and stumbled onto a breakdown from some lab testing site. Turns out like 70% of the cheap pastes out there are just zinc oxide and silicone oil with almost no actual conductive particles. I've been slapping that stuff on customer rigs for years thinking it was doing the job... now I'm wondering how many of those returns for "overheating" were really my fault. Found the article on a repair blog called The Hardware Hut... they tested 12 pastes under a microscope. The one we buy in bulk had barely any metal in it. Has anyone else checked what's actually in the paste they use, or am I just late to this party?

3 comments

3 Comments

mark36115d ago

Check which brand was the worst offender?

the_evan15d ago

Kryonaut is the main one people trust but even that has different batches now. Found out some brands just relabel industrial silicone grease from the same supplier and charge triple. The real trick is checking the datasheet for thermal conductivity spread. If it says "less than 4 W/mK" and costs under $5, you're basically paying for a name.

rowan72514d ago

Well ain't that a kick in the pants. I used to swear by the cheap stuff thinking it was all the same, but after reading that breakdown I've got a tube of the old stuff sitting in the trash right now. Guess I was just paying for the brand name all along.