We're not saying the advice below is the absolute best method or the only correct method. We're just saying it works, and it's more or less what's recommended by PC thermal experts like Noctua and others. Corsair Commander Pro, 100%/50% PWM Speed profiles (liquid cooling pump always @100%, if applicable)

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. 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. Lowering the PPT to 75W further reduces the cooling difficulty, bringing CPU temperatures down to 40C over a 23C ambient temperature. As with the previous results, when paired with AMD’s Ryzen 7700X the Frozen Notte performs on par with Iceberg Thermal’s IceSLEET X7 Dual air cooler.During mining, a slight decrease in temperature was recorded on the video card chip, but it is not significant, within 1 degree. The fans are easy to mount, the metal clips don't require much force to stretch them over to the heatsink GC-Extreme I was using only on older GPUs and CPUs and there performance was meh for me, sometimes was on par with EK Ecotherm or Hydronaut but sometimes was worse than cheap TIM Arctic Cooling MX-4 or MX-5 I was using on 3 builds in past and to the date(I built them like 8 months ago) I didn't replace TIM there, temperatures are still same and took apart only one of build and from TIM spread and viscosity of TIM, TIM is still okay and didn't dry out on GPUs, all 3 builds are running 3080 or 3080Ti and 3090 a.) This means no power limits on Intel’s i7-13700K, and AMD’s default power limits on AMD’s Ryzen 7 7700X.

A good example of a skewed characteristic is how thermal paste with higher thermal conductivity doesn't provide better heat transfer efficiency. Logically, it stands to reason that for a thermal paste to have a high heat transfer efficiency, it would need a higher thermal conductivity. However, when taking other factors (such as the thin, flat, and even layer or viscosity) into consideration, we find that actually a thermal paste with high thermal conductivity performs worse than one with lower thermal conductivity if it cannot be spread in a thin layer. This is what we mean when we talk about thermal paste in a real-world scenario. From personal experience and personal testing of thermal pastes, I used on my loop like NT-H1, NT-H2, Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut, Hydronaut, GC-Extreme, Arctic Cooling MX-4,MX-5, Thermalright TFX, SYY-157,ZF-EX and Kingpin KPx Measured the temperature of the CPU while using the thermal paste for the first 3 minutes while idle and calculated the idle average As you can see from the data, Kooling Monster KOLD-01 beats out the next leading thermal paste by close to a full degree and the lowest-performing thermal paste by more than 4 degrees. I slightly shopped out the fugly lines that Thermalright prints on their otherwise wonderful 12th Gen Correction frame. I couldn't stand looking at them. LOL.All testing is performed at a 23C ambient room temperature. Multiple thermal tests are run on each CPU to test the cooler in a variety of conditions, and acoustic measurements are taken with each result. These tests include: Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut or Hydronaut, these pastes I have used like on air cooled builds or water cooled builds, they're best performers to extent, on older CPUs and GPUs not seen big difference between Kryonaut and NT-H1, where I have seen slight change in performance is on RTX 2080Ti where Kryonaut was better maybe like 1°C, on RTX 3090 or 3080 and 5950X Kryonaut usually dries out within 3-4 months or at least in my case this was happening, you can see that on temperatures increasing on core and GPU hot-spot temperature 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. 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.

It’s important to know these criteria because even if your thermal paste can support a high heat transferability, if it can’t be applied easily and evenly in a thin and flat layer, then that aspect can negate its heat-transferring qualities. Additionally, electrical conductivity will give you a hint as to how meticulous the application process will be overall.

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The acoustic results for the Frozen Notte aren’t bad in this worst case acoustic scenario, measuring just slightly louder than Fractal Design’s Celsius+ S28. 95W PPT It’s important to note that for this experiment, we did not include any liquid metal-based thermal pastes. Despite being great thermal conductors, Liquid metal-based thermal pastes are electrically-conductive and require their own special application and removal process. With your thermal paste applied, you're ready to install your cooler. There's no need to spread the paste around, as the metal base of the cooler will do this for you as you mount it. In fact, if you try and spread it manually, there's a good chance you'll spoil the distribution you were aiming for with the dots. Make sure you have all your mounting hardware handy before placing the cooler evenly on the center of your CPU. Then use the latches, pins, or screws of your cooler's mounting hardware to secure the CPU in place.