Best non sticking thermal Paste?

[LordsOfShields]

I need an aftermarket cpu cooler. But I had bad experience with some thermal paste such as the cpu getting out the motherboard with the damn heatsink. What is the best thermal paste that doesn't stick? Also I heard the Arctic mx 4 is good, i don't know if it sticks or not.

 

[t53186]

Arctic Silver

 

[TJ Hooker]

I don't know exactly what you mean by "stick", but it is a paste after all; if you put it between two surfaces they'll probably stick together a bit. I feel like pretty much any thermal compound will do this (except maybe liquid metal, but those have their own issues).

 

[LordsOfShields]

I don't know exactly what you mean by "stick", but it is a paste after all; if you put it between two surfaces they'll probably stick together a bit. I feel like pretty much any thermal compound will do this (except maybe liquid metal, but those have their own issues).

Some thermal paste makes cpu stick to the heatsink when removing the heatsink

 

[dudmont]

Toms did a review of Thermal Pastes a few years back. Gelid Extreme beat everything but the somewhat-very dangerous to use liquid metal ultra.
I, personally, use Gelid Extreme. If you put it in a resealable plastic baggie, get all the air out of it, then boil some water in your microwave, then put the plastic baggie in the water for a few minutes, it applies pretty well. If you do a search for thermal paste tests on Tom's, it's there, it's from late 2013.

 

[Solandri]

The paste doesn't "stick" per se. As it slowly dries out, it hardens and shrinks. The shrinking causes it to "grab on" to microscopic ridges on the CPU and heat sink surfaces, holding them. And the hardening turns it into a solid making it difficult to separate the two parts.

It's a mechanical effect, not a chemical (adhesive) effect. As such, you're unlikely to find a paste which doesn't suffer from it. Maybe one which doesn't dry out and stays gooey even after years, if it exists. If you're concerned about it, next time try gently rotating the heatsink a little before you lift it off, to break apart the paste which has solidified.

 

[Superkoopatrooper]

I once had a cpu ripped from the socket when pulling out my cpu cooler, It was an older fx8320. It didn't bend the pins and the motherboard still worked fine. You can prevent this by running a benchmark called prime95 for 10min before swapping the cpu. This heats up the thermal paste and allows easy separation between the cpu and sink. Anyway, the easiest to use paste is ic diamond in my experience. It's great stuff and if you use too much, it doesn't spill over the edges of the cpu and get all over the board. I never experienced that sticking again though after heating up the chip. It's only a danger for amd chips because intel has a metal shroud holding the cpu down while AMD does not.

 

[TJ Hooker]

Spoiler

The paste doesn't "stick" per se. As it slowly dries out, it hardens and shrinks. The shrinking causes it to "grab on" to microscopic ridges on the CPU and heat sink surfaces, holding them. And the hardening turns it into a solid making it difficult to separate the two parts.

It's a mechanical effect, not a chemical (adhesive) effect. As such, you're unlikely to find a paste which doesn't suffer from it. Maybe one which doesn't dry out and stays gooey even after years, if it exists. If you're concerned about it, next time try gently rotating the heatsink a little before you lift it off, to break apart the paste which has solidified.

This. Except I don't think it's a result of the paste drying out, or at least not exclusively. When you mount a cooler with paste, you squeeze out all the air between the cooler and CPU (or try to anyway). This creates something of a vacuum seal. So when you try to separate them, it feels like they're sticking together. Probably be more pronounced the more viscous the paste is I'd imagine.

So I guess the OP's best bet would be to find a thermal compound with low viscosity. Although I think I remember reading that low viscosity tends to also mean it's messy and hard to apply...