sethleigh
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My EK full cover 1080 water block showed up (yay!) and I'm going to shut down in a little while and install it. Being a long-time computer tinkerer I have several thermal compound tubes lying around, plus the little tube of EK-TIM ectotherm that came with the EK block. My options are: Noctua NT-H1 Prolimatech PK-3 Arctic Silver 5 Arctica Silver 3 EK-TIM ectotherm I've pretty much ruled out the Arctic Silver ones as being a little dated by today's standards. I'm leaning toward the Prolimatech PK-3, based on this chart, but the Noctua and EK are still in the running. The conservative side of me favors the EK since it would eliminate any questions from the manufacturer should it ever become an issue, but the Prolimatech seems to perform the best. Any opinions? Lastly, I do chuckle at myself over this, because as big questions of the day go, tiny differences in thermal compound performance rank pretty low on my list of concerns, and I'm sure I'd be happy with any of them. But why not indulge in a little geekdom for its own sake from time to time, amirite?
post edited by sethleigh - 2016/08/25 14:54:20
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Cool GTX
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Re: EK water block showed up, and I have a choice of thermal compounds - advise!
2016/08/25 15:01:52
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Non-conductive & Non-capacitive --- ONLY --- if they over spread no harm no issue MX-4 = my vote
post edited by Cool GTX - 2016/08/25 15:07:54
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sethleigh
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Re: EK water block showed up, and I have a choice of thermal compounds - advise!
2016/08/25 15:04:09
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Thanks for the comment. At this point I'm not going to order anything else, so it's got to be one of the ones I've got on hand. Both the Prolimatech and the Noctua are non-conductive, and I assume the EK is too, though I haven't looked it up.
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Cool GTX
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Re: EK water block showed up, and I have a choice of thermal compounds - advise!
2016/08/25 15:08:28
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Thermal paste roundup 2015 Prolimatech PK-3 ---- looked the best delta T  TIM that has little or NO curing time & does not dry out --- is what you want to go with 
post edited by Cool GTX - 2016/08/25 15:10:43
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sethleigh
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Re: EK water block showed up, and I have a choice of thermal compounds - advise!
2016/08/25 15:14:45
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Sounds Prolimatech it is! Thanks for the comments. I'm going to run some tests here to establish a baseline for my 1080 SC for temperature and clockrate and whatnot, and then do the install and see how it changes. Whether it allows more overclocking or not, at the very least lower temperatures will allow higher Boost 3.0 speeds without dropping as things heat up.
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ragevirusqq
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Re: EK water block showed up, and I have a choice of thermal compounds - advise!
2016/08/25 15:35:35
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CaseLabs SM8 - X99 Classified - EVGA 1080ti - 5930k @ 4.5 - 32GB Hyper X predator - 480mm x2 and 360mm rads for super low fan speed and quiet operation- EK blocks and pump/res - All Bitspower black fittings - 1Tb samsung 850 evo 2tb total ssd space - EVGA 1300G2 - Predator X34 - Mayflower Objective 2 DAC/AMP - Beyerdynamic DT990 Pro - Sennheiser HD6xx - Mackie CR4 monitors
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ARIOS-X1
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Re: EK water block showed up, and I have a choice of thermal compounds - advise!
2016/08/25 16:05:42
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I personally use IC diamond (non conductive) TIM. It has no break in time and near absolute no thermal breakdown over time. One application and you never have to worry about changing it again untill you get a new cooler and it will stay good literally for years. Other TIM's I have seen start to cake and crack over periods of time with high temps, but due to the synthetic diamond compound in IC it's the most durable TIM out on the market. I've looked through many compairson charts and IC diamond was the second best compared to the Liquid Metal Ultra (which is conductive) with only 1 degree temp difference between the two. Only problem with IC is that is causes scratches on the cooler block and CPU when you remove it. Due to this it usually means you lose your warranty for your CPU and Cooler, and may have trouble with re-sell value. I use it with an OC i7-6800k @ 4.45Ghz 1.45V and my temps have never gone past 70C with an ambient room temp of 80F. I personally won't use any other TIM besides IC but thats just my preference. Unless your doing extreme OC'ing then IC won't matter much compared to all the other TIM's you've listed. If I were you I'd go with the Prolimatech as I doubt it will disapoint you.
post edited by ARIOS-X1 - 2016/08/25 16:12:04
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bcavnaugh
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Re: EK water block showed up, and I have a choice of thermal compounds - advise!
2016/08/25 18:06:42
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sethleigh
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Re: EK water block showed up, and I have a choice of thermal compounds - advise!
2016/08/25 20:33:06
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Well I'm back, and the fact that I'm typing this means it hasn't leaked yet and destroyed my computer, LOL. I did put some paper towels around the fittings and run just the pump using one of those adaptors that bridges two pins from the power supply. I let it run for about ten or fifteen minutes, during which time I was also tipping it in different directions and trying to get all the air out. I'm not sure it's all out yet, but I did add coolant several times and it's pretty full right now. I used the Prolimatech PK-3 for the thermal compound. I re-used the EVGA backplate, which I'd read can't be done. It was actually easy. I have no idea why people say it doesn't work. Haven't run any tests aside from a couple minutes of Valley yet, but that will come.
post edited by sethleigh - 2016/08/25 21:00:58
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Cool GTX
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Re: EK water block showed up, and I have a choice of thermal compounds - advise!
2016/08/25 20:49:23
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Woot Bring on the Pics Living life on the edge - 10 min leak test
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sethleigh
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Re: EK water block showed up, and I have a choice of thermal compounds - advise!
2016/08/25 20:59:55
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HayzBaby
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Re: EK water block showed up, and I have a choice of thermal compounds - advise!
2016/09/21 18:12:00
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I used IC Diamond as well for years. My first build was back in 09 when the 1156 cpu chip and the 480 hydrocopper made its debut. I ran IC Diamond on the Cpu and Gpu since Last thursday( 7 year outdated). At the time, it was the best on the market, so I couldn't tell you the difference between that versus a lesser brand. I think over the 7 year span, I reapplied maybe 3 or 4 times, only because of tubing upgrades and just regular maintenance/cleaning of the build. It never let me down. It was though, not dried up, but not fresh either. it was like a soft playdough, wet clay, etc. Easy to take off with alcohol like any other TIM, but never dried up.
This go around, I bought some Gelid GC Extreme off of the EK website when I bought my blocks( cpu/gpu) along with a long awaited upgrade(6700/1070 SC/z170 ftw/16gb vengeance ram). My current temps, as I type this are 25 cpu and 26 gpu running default clocks. I have IC Diamond left over, but maybe only enough to do one chip and not both. So I couldn't give you a proper comparison between the two TIM's. But this GC Extreme seems to be pretty great stuff, non conductive, non-everything. Cpu i applied it with a blob in the center, and the Gpu i blobbed it, then spread it even with the little applicator they provide with the GC Extreme. That way, you know the whole thing is covered, and you don't have to worry about bad spread
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sethleigh
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Re: EK water block showed up, and I have a choice of thermal compounds - advise!
2016/09/23 21:41:40
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Yeah, I used Prolimatech PK3 with my 1080 SC, but ran out after that, and so for my i7 6900 I used the Ektotherm that came with my EK Supremacy EVO block. My temps are a little higher than yours, but I'm running the 6900 at 4.2ghz, and my room temperature is usually in the high 70s and sometimes 80s.
The Ektotherm was much runnier than the Prolimatech. Not sure if that's good or bad, but I think it helps the TIM spread around evenly.
Given the charts I've looked at, most of the top-tier TIMs come within 1-2 C of each other, and that's good enough for me.
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