Is it worth it for me to overclock...?

Darren

Darren

Moderator
Staff member
Thermal paste is thermal paste really. Arctic Silver is what I usually use but as long as you're not using like toothpaste or really really low quality stuff you're only going to be talking about a 1-3 degrees difference at the most. You're better served tweaking voltages or throwing an extra fan for how much impact it would have. Yes the higher dollar stuff will do a slightly better job, but I would just get what you're familiar with.

That said, Arctic Silver really doesn't age in my experience. It might settle a bit so squeeze out the first bit on a paper towel but I've reused the same tube several times over a few years with zero problems.
 
Agent Smith

Agent Smith

Well-Known Member
gillmanjr said:
is there anything new on the market better than Arctic Silver that you guys recommend? I'm kind of out of the loop on new stuff like that.
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You're not going to see a significant difference between name brand stuff and other cheaper stuff. Maybe a few degrees and that''s about it. In fact, if the thermal grease comes with a CPU cooler you should use it as the manufacturer has used that with their product. That's exactly what I did with my Evo 212. I placed a drop on the CPU and spread it all over the CPU with an index card making a fine layer. You can also use a razor blade. My temps are pretty damn good and I only have the one fan in the cooler. I really don't need a push/pull config at this point.

Edit- And I missed page 3. LOL
 
Darren

Darren

Moderator
Staff member
Agent Smith said:
You're not going to see a significant difference between name brand stuff and other cheaper stuff. Maybe a few degrees and that''s about it. In fact, if the thermal grease comes with a CPU cooler you should use it as the manufacturer has used that with their product. That's exactly what I did with my Evo 212. I placed a drop on the CPU and spread it all over the CPU with an index card making a fine layer. You can also use a razor blade. My temps are pretty damn good and I only have the one fan in the cooler. I really don't need a push/pull config as this point.
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Spreading is completely unnecessary. The pressure of the cooler on the CPU will spread it out anyway, you pretty much never see thermal paste residue only in the middle of a CPU unless they used way too little. It's pretty much always squeezed flat and to the edges. You're more liable to just make a mess trying to flatten it, although it won't hurt temps.

FWIW I had a 212 and used the stock paste for several months and then redid it with Arctic Silver and tested as long. Idle temps were 3ish degrees cooler with Arctic Silver but load temps were 1-2 at most during benchmarking and pretty much the same in gaming and the like.
 
Agent Smith

Agent Smith

Well-Known Member
I've seen many CPU's that only shown the dab in the middle after use, so to make sure I don't do that I spread a fine layer. It's just how I roll. Everyone is different.
 
gillmanjr

gillmanjr

Member
I also spread it out just for piece of mind. If you only put a dab in the middle it is impossible to know for sure if it spreads out evenly and completely after you install the cooler. There could be gaps or you could have used too little and you wouldn't know. When you spread it out you know for sure its covered properly, I've done it a bunch of times and I've never had a problem. I was just wondering if any newer paste would make any difference. I did read some Newegg reviews about Arctic MX-2 and now MX-4, which is the newer version, and the reviewers swear the stuff is an improvement over Silver. Given the fact its only 2 bucks more I'll try it...
 
beers

beers

Moderator
Staff member
66C isn't bad at 1.2v full load, different paste isn't going to do too much for you.

If you lock the voltage there you could probably take it up to 4.4-4.6, just be familiar with how to clear CMOS in case you click frequency too far. I wouldn't bump voltage much more if at all though.
 
Shlouski

Shlouski

VIP Member
Darren said:
Spreading is completely unnecessary. The pressure of the cooler on the CPU will spread it out anyway, you pretty much never see thermal paste residue only in the middle of a CPU unless they used way too little. It's pretty much always squeezed flat and to the edges
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This is spot on most of the time, but I have experienced times when enough paste has been applied to create excess spilling over the side of the cpu, but for whatever reason the paste hasn't quite got into all the corners fully, which triggers me even though I'm sure it makes almost no difference temperature wise :D
 
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gillmanjr

gillmanjr

Member
Another question for you guys: I just got my new case and I'm going to do the transplant pretty soon. I've actually never done a transplant, my only question is do I need to have the hard drives (and my blu ray player) plugged back into the same SATA ports on the motherboard? I ask because the BIOS is setup to detect windows on a particular drive, I don't want that to get messed up.
 
WeatherMan

WeatherMan

Active Member
It will not make a difference where you plug the drives in, the BIOS will still boot from the drive specified as it's not port specific but drive specific. As long as the bios sees the boot drive after the transplant then it will try and boot from it
 
Shlouski

Shlouski

VIP Member
You could use a permanent marker to mark the sata port that the hdd was plugged into, but its really easy to change in the bios and it would be useful if you learned how to do it.
 
gillmanjr

gillmanjr

Member
Transplant in progress. Everything is out of my old case and I pulled the cooler off my CPU. Now I am waiting for my new thermal paste, which is supposed to be delivered today...

2018_04_23_08_13_09_838.jpg
 
gillmanjr

gillmanjr

Member
btw, what do you guys think about re-applying thermal paste to a GPU? I was thinking about doing it to my R9 390 tonight while I have everything out. While playing Far Cry 5 I am getting GPU temps around 82C (it is also OC'd mildly to 1125 and 1650). My new case may help a little with all the additional airflow but from what I've read a good application of aftermarket paste can drop those temps by 10C. True?
 
Darren

Darren

Moderator
Staff member
gillmanjr said:
btw, what do you guys think about re-applying thermal paste to a GPU? I was thinking about doing it to my R9 390 tonight while I have everything out. While playing Far Cry 5 I am getting GPU temps around 82C (it is also OC'd mildly to 1125 and 1650). My new case may help a little with all the additional airflow but from what I've read a good application of aftermarket paste can drop those temps by 10C. True?
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Ehh that's probably fine still.

Protip, with the 390's they gain pretty much zero performance increase by increasing memory clock, in fact mine dropped benchmark scores when I overclocked as it reduced overall stability. If I were you I'd just knock it down to stock memory clock and leave it to help with temps. You can benchmark this to confirm but I pretty heavily tested and overclocked my 390 so pretty familiar with how they work.

80's is on the higher side but not unreasonable. I'd see what it's like in the new case and if you want to mess with it after that knock yourself out. Mine would hit 82ish at full load benchmark with my overclock but gaming was usually low to mid 70's. The MSI ones I know run hotter than the Sappphire (which I had). A friend of mine had the MSI variant and I always gave him crap since mine ran cooler.
 
gillmanjr

gillmanjr

Member
Darren said:
Ehh that's probably fine still.

Protip, with the 390's they gain pretty much zero performance increase by increasing memory clock, in fact mine dropped benchmark scores when I overclocked as it reduced overall stability. If I were you I'd just knock it down to stock memory clock and leave it to help with temps. You can benchmark this to confirm but I pretty heavily tested and overclocked my 390 so pretty familiar with how they work.

80's is on the higher side but not unreasonable. I'd see what it's like in the new case and if you want to mess with it after that knock yourself out. Mine would hit 82ish at full load benchmark with my overclock but gaming was usually low to mid 70's. The MSI ones I know run hotter than the Sappphire (which I had). A friend of mine had the MSI variant and I always gave him crap since mine ran cooler.
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I read that too, basically that the 390s just don't overclock well. And I did actually notice some degradation in game, I was getting more studdering after I overclocked it. What about core clock?
 
gillmanjr

gillmanjr

Member
Guys, I have a general question about something that I just noticed, maybe someone can briefly explain to me: Why in the world are Haswell chips selling for more money than Coffee Lake chips right now????? Is this typical or is it an outlier?
 
Darren

Darren

Moderator
Staff member
gillmanjr said:
I read that too, basically that the 390s just don't overclock well. And I did actually notice some degradation in game, I was getting more studdering after I overclocked it. What about core clock?
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1125 on core is a pretty decent core overclock. I could get mine up to 1150ish with a voltage bump but even on stock voltage 1125 was stable. My friend with the MSI version couldn't get his above 1115ish even with voltage bumps.
 
beers

beers

Moderator
Staff member
gillmanjr said:
Guys, I have a general question about something that I just noticed, maybe someone can briefly explain to me: Why in the world are Haswell chips selling for more money than Coffee Lake chips right now????? Is this typical or is it an outlier?
Click to expand...
What's your source or where do you see this? A lot of times crap like Amazon, people will gouge old hardware. I had a buddy try to argue with me that a geforce 660 was as good as a 1060 since some Amazon listers had them up for ~200.

I snagged a new 4690K in box like 6-9 months ago for about $80-90 so they are definitely going down in general.
 
gillmanjr

gillmanjr

Member
Back up and running. I reapplied thermal paste (Arctic MX-4) to my CPU and my idle temps dropped by 5C! I think this also has something to do with the new case, however, because the temps of my GPU dropped by 4C as well (both idle and gaming). I didn't expect that big of a difference.
 
Darren

Darren

Moderator
Staff member
More than likely the case having an effect, particularly since your GPU did the same.
 
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