How often do you replace the thermal compound?

[maxx1327]

Curious as to how often I should be replacing the thermal compound between my GPU and the heatsink.

Cleaned out my case two weeks ago and SpeedFan reported the corea at 45-50C, sometimes up to 55C. This week, took off the heatsink, noticed the silver stuff was a little spotty, reapplied it using the same stuff I had five years ago when I built it.

Also had to assume that silver compound never goes bad and that usually within five years someone who builds their own system likely upgrades the CPU so there'd be new silver compound there anyhow.

Now, I'm getting 39C-44C while running the same applications. I'd love to drop it lower and I've been eyeballing Cooler Master Seidon 120M - PC CPU Liquid Water Cooling System for a while now.

 

[tambeshakunt]

Yes the 5 year mark sounds right for high quality compounds like the the Arctic Silver. For cheaper compounds, maybe around 2-3 years. If you have changed the paste and still want lower temps, I'm afraid you will need a better cooler. I would recommend the new Corsair H60 instead of the Seidon 120M. It is a better design, much thicker tubes and better quality. It might be slightly more expensive but I have used it many many times and it is well worth the investment.

 

[maxx1327]

Yes the 5 year mark sounds right for high quality compounds like the the Arctic Silver. For cheaper compounds, maybe around 2-3 years. If you have changed the paste and still want lower temps, I'm afraid you will need a better cooler. I would recommend the new Corsair H60 instead of the Seidon 120M. It is a better design, much thicker tubes and better quality. It might be slightly more expensive but I have used it many many times and it is well worth the investment.

Corsair Hydro Series High Performance Liquid CPU Cooler H60. I like how it looks and it has great reviews!

A lot in my system needs updating and I realized that after I cleaned it out. Only things I've updated over the past five years is a SSD, new GPU, and new RAM cuz the old ones died on me.

 

[tambeshakunt]

Yes the H60 is great!