Computer

Arctic MX-6, complete analysis of this CPU thermal paste

For the rest, it should be noted that it is a thermal paste made with micro carbon particles and silicone gel, without harmful or excessively expensive materials (some thermal pastes even have diamond dust or metallic particles but this is not the case), which enables it to have excellent performance at a reasonable cost. A 2 gram syringe, which costs about €12, can easily last you 10 applications or more.

Unboxing and external analysis

As we have mentioned before, Arctic offers this thermal paste in various formats, but in addition to the single syringe, it also has a pack that includes wipes to clean the previous thermal paste, in a much larger container. In our case, they have sent us both formats, in both cases with 4-gram syringes.

Arctic MX-6

the wipes MX Cleaner To remove thermal paste they come in individual sachets, and be careful because they are wet wipes that have a very, very strong smell of disinfectant. We have tested them, and of course we recommend using them to remove the previous thermal paste naturally, without pressing too much and folding the wipe so that you always wipe it with a clean part, but once that is done, we recommend wiping it down a bit. toilet paper to the surface to remove the remains of the disinfectant liquid that may remain.

Arctic MX-6

Thermal paste syringes have the same appearance as the vast majority of these products, of course with their identification label and with a cap that is pressured and not screwed.

Arctic MX-6

Of course, in the back there are some “windows” that allow us to see how much is left inside.

Arctic MX-6

Little more to teach you about this thermal paste, so let’s start putting it to the test.

Test of performance

Before proceeding to measure its performance using thermal paste on a processor, let’s see what it looks like and assess its viscosity. To do this, we pour a good amount on a piece of paper, and the first thing we notice is that a “stream” comes out, perhaps too fine and a bit difficult to control. In fact, at this point we already see that perhaps it has too much viscosity because it sticks to the syringe, and we have to rub it a little on the paper to make the paste come off.

Arctic MX-6

Now, we fold the paper and apply enough pressure with our fingers on it to see how the paste spreads.

Arctic MX-6

The dispersion is quite good, denoting that it is not as viscous as it seemed to us in the first instance, especially when we have not applied as much pressure as a heatsink will apply to the processor and, in fact, we have put much more thermal paste on the paper of the which we will cast on the IHS of the processor normally.

Now yes, we are going to proceed to apply the thermal paste on the processor, in this case on a Core i7-13700K from intel. The way to apply it is the one that we personally have always used and it has given us the best results; You already know that there are many theories about what is the best method to apply thermal paste, but in our experience the one that has given us the best result has always been to apply thermal paste with the size of a grain of rice and spread it with a card or similar.

Arctic MX-6

Once this is done, what interests us is not to check what temperature we get in the processor, since this depends on the processor, the heatsink, etc., but to compare if there are differences between using this thermal paste or using others, with exactly the same processor and the same sink.

So, in our tests we have used a total of 4 thermal pastes: the Arctic MX-6 that we are reviewing today, of course, but also the Noctua NT-H2, the CORSAIR TM30 and the CORSAIR XTM70, all in the 13700K and with a dissipator be quiet! Pure Rock 2 FX.

Arctic MX-6

The modus operandi has been the same: extended thermal paste grain of rice, we mount the heatsink, we leave it on for 20 minutes at rest, 10 minutes of Prime95, we turn off the computer for 10 minutes and, with this, the paste is settled. Then we turn on the PC again and stress the processor with Prime95 for 10 minutes, capturing the maximum temperature that any of the cores has ever had.

In the following graph you can see the result, expressed in Delta temperature, that is, measured temperature minus ambient temperature, so that even if the ambient temperature varies, the comparison is still reliable.

Temperature

As you can see, the Arctic MX-6 is the winner of this comparison, taking 0.7 degrees from the excellent Noctua NT-H2 and 1.9 degrees Celsius from the CORSAIR TM30, which is not bad thermal paste either. Of course, in terms of performance, it seems that Arctic has done an excellent job again.

Conclusion: Is Arctic MX-6 the best thermal paste on the market?

With the new MX-6, Arctic has once again launched one of the best thermal pastes on the market, of that there is no doubt. Is the best? Empirically, we have not been lucky enough to be able to test all the thermal pastes on the market, but certainly from those that have passed through our hands in the last 10 years (and there have been many), it is the one with the best thermal performance has provided us.

As always, Arctic has created a product that has excellent performance, and in a format that is easy to use, very practical (especially in the pack that comes with the wipes) and at a fairly reasonable price, since although it is not a thermal paste that we can consider cheap, yes, it is one of the ones with the best performance / price ratio, without a doubt.

At the time of writing this analysis, you can buy the Arctic MX-6 on Amazon Spain at a price of €5.59 for the 2-gram variant, €7.59 for the 4-gram variant, and €17.99 for the 8-gram variant. There is also the one we have analyzed, the 4-gram syringe with six MX Cleaner wipes that costs €8.49and that we believe is the best offer.

For all these reasons, we believe that this Arctic MX-6 deserves our Platinum award, as well as our recommendation for both its performance and its quality / price.

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