Arctic MX-6 vs MX-4

A year and a half ago I compared Arctic’s MX-5 thermal paste to their extremely popular MX-4 paste. MX-4 remained my thermal paste of choice despite a half-degree temperature drop with the use of MX-5, because it is very easy to apply due to low viscosity. MX-5 certainly performed well, but it was very viscous and sticky in comparison to MX-4. Arctic has now discontinued MX-5, apparently due to issues with consistency, and they’ve recently launched a new thermal paste, with MX-6. Just like with MX-5, I decided to give MX-6 a try and compare it to MX-4 side-by-side to see if it offers any improvement. Based on the technical specifications, MX-6 has a higher viscosity and higher density than MX-4. They both appear very similar, with a dull grey color. I prefer to manually spread thermal paste across a CPU’s surface to make sure that it coats the entire heat spreader. Be careful with Intel’s 12th and 13th generation CPUs however. They can be bent due to the force applied by the stock locking mechanism, leading to less-than-ideal contact with the cooler in the middle of the CPU. I use bending correction frames like this one from Thermalright to prevent the CPU from bending. It is clear that the MX-6 paste is more viscous, and it does not spread as easily as MX-4, but it is better than MX-5 in this regard. For my test setup, I am using an open-air PC frame, called the Monolith from Cooltech. Cooltech sent this PC frame to me for review, and I’ll do a separate video the Monolith...