Thermalright TFX + Odyssey - Making the 5950X and 3090 RTX Even Cooler!

[@enchantereddie]

Came from Reddit and this video confirmed that it's a good past for GPUs which you don't want to pull apart every another month. Thanks for the info!

[@UnhingedSystems]

Yes, TFX is awesome! I don't use anything else anymore. Will do some more tests eventually. Thank you for the comment!

[@Markknightexeter]

Oh man, I had major pump out with the mx4 on my 6800xt! I'm definitely going to try this

[@UnhingedSystems]

TFX has been the most reliable paste for me to date 👍, I applied it to my workstation laptop and it's been running consistently cooler than stock for over 2 years now.

[@kluangh1tam]

I replaced the stock thermal paste of my Dell G15 laptop that's notorious for having heat problems, running at 85-95°C idle and over 100°C while gaming with Thermalright TFX and it tamed them down to 69-75°C idle and below 100°C while gaming. It's the real deal.

[@InnerFury1886]

the difference in temps being that crazy is common for many people who suffer from pump out. pastes like mx4 were not designed for direct die applications like gpu repasting. tfx bubblegum consistency is exactly what one wants from a paste. it doesnt create IHS messiness if applied carefully, avoids the big (unlike broski in the vid who loves giving the IHS a pastebukkake which is not negative,, even if simply messy). i tried all pastes and pads in my life by now, wasted so much money simply because i distruted thermalright. there are only 3 i trust anymore, honeywell ptm, thermalrigh tfx or staying with arctic silver 5 from the olden days though i find cryofuze to replace arctic silver very well. my fav certainly is ptm, but pads are expensive. so tfx seems the modern day paste to play gpu temp savior.

[@cyrelc]

Everything looks cooler in time lapse... Also wish I had this much passion to maintain my system lol

[@azukrul]

have you tried the newest thermalright's TF9 compound? I have recently purchased it, and TF9's work wonders as well.. tho I'm not sure if they are on par with their older sibling's TFX.

[@UnhingedSystems]

Thank you for the question! I haven't tested out TF9 yet. According to their own spec sheet it should perform just slightly under where TFX is, but so marginally that you could probably say they perform the same. I'll throw some into my next thermal paste roundup!

[@edwins2056]

Great video and very insightful! i have an Asus strix 3080 vector waterblock, its my first custom loop! I just wanna ask if its okay to replace all of the pads with thermalright odyssey pads? but ofc following the manual still, (i have got all the thickness that is required for the block and back plate). Is there gonna be any contact issues etc. Thanks in advance !

[@UnhingedSystems]

Thank you for the question! As long as you use the correct thickness of pads matching their design/spec you won't have any issues.

[@Z1M0Z1M]

These pads are suppose to be almost as good as the Fujipoly UE-x pads and cheaper so I figured I use them since the Fuji's were out of stock. Still Thermalright pads aren't cheap but considering what I spent on my current pc build (in progress) I shouldn't complain about spending almost $250 on good thermal pads. Better safe then sorry I guess I'm currently building in a O11D Mini. I didn't need 16 cores so I went with the 5900x in a Crosshair VIII Impact DTX board, 3080 FTW3, 64gb of 3600 cl 15-17-17-34, 2x 2tb 980 pro, 1x870 Evo 2tb ssd, 1x870 QVO 4tb ssd and 2x12tb WD Red Pro HDDs. I have a EK Quantum Kinetic FLT 120 D5 running to 1 EK 360XE rad on the bottom, 1 EK 360 PE up top, 1 EK SE 240 on the side, 8 (maybe 9) Lian Li UNI fans, EK Magnitude AM4 Block, EK Quantum Vector GPU Block, EK Quantum fittings and tubing (acrylic) cooling everything. It's insane how much you can fit into this case. JUST INSANITY! Oh yeah Im using KPX Thermal paste Anyways I just happened onto your channel and after watching your build playlist and a half a dozen or so others I had to subscribed. Great content. Keep it up.

[@UnhingedSystems]

Thank you for the comment! I am very happy with the Odyssey pads for sure, they are great! Your build is quite the beast! That is a ton of storage! What kind or workloads are you throwing at it?

[@John-The-Farmer]

Great Video! I'm going to grab a tube of TFX for my 3080 FE.

[@UnhingedSystems]

Thank you!

[@Cheeseypoofs85]

i applied mx6 to by 7900xtx twice now. the temps start out great then it pumps out and hotspot starts to give a 20-30C delta. im gonna give this paste a try.

[@UnhingedSystems]

Do it! TFX is fantastic.

[@JM-pj1xh]

Thanks for this video, I'm going to skip the EK pads and just use the Thermalright when I do my 3090

[@UnhingedSystems]

Thank you for tuning in!

[@cyrelc]

Couple questions: what are you doing at 7:54? And what are the maximum temperatures you're comfortable running these parts at? I assume with overclocking you're going to push the temperatures up, but not indefinitely. What is the upper "safe" temperature you're aiming for (or will this be in a future video)?

[@UnhingedSystems]

I'll be releasing my overclocking video this upcoming weekend! That being said, I have enough thermal headroom to max out the parts at their highest possible loads without throttling. This particular CPU thermal throttles at 90C and the GPU closer to 95C (I can't get it higher than 60C overclocked so far). I personally don't like running my components above about 80C if it can be helped. Better thermal headroom means less throttling and more peak boost ;)

[@UnhingedSystems]

7:54 is where I am just swapping out the old EK thermal pads with some new ones, cleaning off old thermal pad goo and absorbing some of the oils that leaked from the old pads.

[@UnhingedSystems]

8:28 one of the thermal pads also disappeared, but it was properly positioned on the backplate but was just stickied to it lol

[@rachadyannarotama7499]

Do you think that the tfx is better than kingpin kpx for laptop? In case of pumped out effect. Cause now i use kpx and its have been pumped out for only a month

[@UnhingedSystems]

Kingpin KPX is a good paste, but it is very fluid so it's no surprise that it pumps out on something like a laptop. I've been using TFX on my workstation laptop for 2 years and it is going strong. I also haven't changed out the TFX on my PC build in nearly 3 years and there are no temperature issues (GPU+CPU both using TFX). I have switched everything I do to TFX, and I'm not even getting paid to say that. Consistent and reliable results with it have kept it in my personal #1 spot.

[@514aam]

About to get SYY 157 or TFX for my MSI GF65Thin (3060) laptop, bye bye pump out effect! Hope ite solves the problem, cpu goes up to 97 even with a -165mv undervolt.

[@phenos]

Just ordered a new batch of SYY-157 but the formula has changed to mainstream easy to spread paste. It was my main paste for laptops and GPU's but switched to Shin-Etsu 7921-5 sturdy paste for "normal" laptops and Honeywell PTM7950 phase change paste sheets for high-end (gaming) laptops (Phase change paste needs some curing time of around 2 hours to air out the solvent before attaching the cooler and the pads are ready to use) AFAIK it's the most pump-out resistant paste for high temperature devices. My method of spreading sturdy paste is by touching it very lightly almost with the weight of the spatula itself, working it to the other side with tiny steps. That way it doesn't stick and separate on the spatula.

[@514aam]

@@phenos lucky me, got the good stuff, temps now never go over 87

[@eskimolost2012]

just order this with different thermal pads. Kritical thermal pads 20k/mk. dont have heat gun so i will warm it up in hot water for cpu and gpu

[@SethOmegaful]

What is better... tfx or honeywell? I cant decide between the two.

[@UnhingedSystems]

Are you talking about the Honeywell PTM7950 thermal pads? They are rated at 8.5W/mK so they would technically transfer heat less efficiently than TFX. I have used TFX a lot, it has proven to be a great paste. I won't use any other paste for my high-end builds. I'd like to do another thermal paste roundup later this year just to buy 15-20 different products and pit them against each other, but for now I really do recommend TFX.

[@buran2527]

So you approximately need 2g TFX tube for just 1 GPU application?

[@UnhingedSystems]

I did my GPU and my CPU with one 2g tube

[@buran2527]

@@UnhingedSystems Yeah, but CPU didn't take much. So it's probably gonna be 2g tube per GPU. Btw, thanks for showing how to spread it. Gonna use a hairdryer. I've learned that TFX or SYY-157 is the better paste for these GPUs in terms of longevity.

[@UnhingedSystems]

@@buran2527 You'll love the temp reduction! Thank you for watching and thank you for the comments!

[@ChatGTA345]

Very cool (literally :P)! Did you get a chance to compare the compound to Kryonaut? Also, is it worth replacing all of the other pads or just keep it to mem/VRMs? Finally, how is the coil whine with these (I've heard they're super-soft, maybe providing additional stress relief/dampening?)

[@UnhingedSystems]

Kryonaut is on-par with TFX (TFX is very slightly better for thermal performance). Both are more difficult to spread than traditional pastes and much easier to apply if you heat them up. TFX is 14.3 W/mK while Kryonaut is rated at 12.5. this might amount to 1-2 degrees at full load depending on your CPU. I'm going to be using TFX exclusively for my high-end builds going forward unless otherwise requested. The other thermal pads aren't really doing much in the way of transfering heat, so I only did the hottest components that would hinder my overclocking attempts. If I had purchased a large bulk amount of thermal pads I personally wouldn't use any of the stock pads or EK pads. It won't make much of a difference for the cooler running components though.

[@UnhingedSystems]

Coil whine is almost completely gone now. Still there, but almost completely gone. Can't notice it when gaming anymore as it is quieter than the fans running at 1200RPM.

[@ChatGTA345]

@@UnhingedSystems Amazing, thanks for such a good explanation! I might go for the Fuji one then (heard that 2 pads are sufficient for the memory and maybe VRMs). Also debating if it's worth adding them to the CPU VRMs on Dark Hero..

[@ChatGTA345]

Just one more question :) For Thermalright, did you use 1x 1.0mm for the front and 1x 2.0mm for the back? Thinking that maybe Fuji is an overkill overall (plus 2mm Fuji doesn't exist), so I might just get these..

[@UnhingedSystems]

@@ChatGTA345 I used 1mm for the waterblock side and 2mm/1mm for the backplate side depending on component location. I used EK's revised recommendations for pad thickness on the backplate. Are you replacing the thermal pads on the air cooler or slapping them on with the waterblock? I had ordered 2x1mm and 1x2mm for use with the EK block and EK backplate.

[@alexmay9284]

what was the RPM for the GPU you have been using for the benchmark?

[@UnhingedSystems]

The GPU is water cooled on the same custom loop as the CPU, two 360mm rads, top rad is 30mm with 3 fans push config, bottom rad is 45mm with push/pull config. Fans hover around 1200-1300RPM at full speed after saturation with a liquid temp between 38-40C. On a fresh startup and benchmark on a cold morning the coolant is at 18C so the first benchmark run of the day is kind of a cheat, but I run multiple benchmarks with the coolant at mostly consistent temps for testing. I'll be replacing the pads on my 3090FE eventually and can test there too, but it's less fun because the FE doesn't really OC the same way.

[@SuspiciousPixels]

TFX and SYY Thermal compounds are a bitch to work with but they do make a great difference to temps. Good tips using a hairdryer or heatgun on lowest setting to make the paste more workable.

[@UnhingedSystems]

I've also tried putting the tube in a closed Ziploc bag (air mostly removed) and then submerging it in hot water. Works very well, cooling has been consistent over years now and still going! I love this thermal paste, but later this year I will be doing a big VS mode with tons of different pastes so we'll see if I like anything else better (spoiler: doubt it)

[@SuspiciousPixels]

@@UnhingedSystems yup that's how I applied mine also, helped a bit but still not as easy compared to less viscous compounds. Looking forward to your thermal paste tests in the future

[@luismendieta6348]

Nice video! Please what is the thickness of the thermal pads that you are using in your GPU? Thanks!

[@UnhingedSystems]

Thank you! I'm using the thickness recommended by EK per their design. 1mm on one side mostly and some 1mm and 2mm on the backplate side. Check out EK's manual for their Vector Strix waterblock for their recommended thickness on each location (diagram).

[@luismendieta6348]

​@@UnhingedSystems Oh I don't have a water cooling block on my GPU, only the stock cooler but I need to do some maintenance and I'm planning to change the thermal pads too, but I don´t know which thickness I must use, I'll check my owners manual, It's a GTX 1070 Gigabyte Gaming 1 by the way. I have to extend its life till the GPU prices drop :(

[@UnhingedSystems]

@@luismendieta6348 Best thing to do is to open it up and measure the pad thickness. Change out using the same thickness pads and you're golden! I'll be doing a 3090 FE pad swap how-to and measuring them all out and doing some diagrams soon, but I don't have a 1070 to do the same on.

[@luismendieta6348]

​@@UnhingedSystems Jesus Christ! how didn't I thought in such a basic thing haha lol on me... thanks for the tip

[@UnhingedSystems]

@@luismendieta6348 My pleasure!

[@eskimolost2012]

ever thought of getting coolmygpu mod for your 3090?

[@UnhingedSystems]

I've been seeing those all over lately, interesting little items. I'm happy with the thermal pads though, I don't see memory temps above about 60C on a normal day which is still well below the 115C they can safely hit. I won't gain any more performance than what the thermal pads offer so I don't really see a point other than it being an interesting alternative to thermal pads. I might give them a go just for science.

[@eskimolost2012]

@@UnhingedSystems I'm getting it for my 3080 ti with aio from alphacool for the fun of it waiting on 5800x3d for cpu upgrade till 2025 for 5th gen rtx

[@UnhingedSystems]

@@eskimolost2012 Nice! I have another 3090 FE I want to swap the pads on, so perhaps I will give them a go just for fun. The 5800x3d is pretty rockin, I can't wait to see the Zen 4 CPUs performing with the 3D cache. Should be cool!

[@bakedpotato8602]

Thanks for testing the TFX thermal paste! I'm wondering if I should replace Kryonaut in my laptop to thermalright's TFX paste. Assuming my laptop starts pumping out thermal paste again (MX-4 did just that) Surprisingly, my 1080TI FE doesn't suffer from any temperature creep issues even after close to 3 months of use. Same goes to my 5600X

[@UnhingedSystems]

Kryonaut and TFX perform very similarly, but I personally prefer TFX. The consistency feels "thicker" than Kryonaut. It is tougher to spread, but it has great staying power so far. My 3090 sees a lot of abuse, but it still idles at 28-29C when it isn't in use and still barely ever exceeds 50C when in use.

[@personaltrainersg]

What thickness pads did you use?

[@UnhingedSystems]

I used the same pad thickness that EK recommends in their manual(s). Mixture of 1.0, 1.5 and 2.0 between the block and the backplate. I'll be re-doing the thermal pads on a 3090 FE using primarily 1.5 soon.

[@personaltrainersg]

@@UnhingedSystems THank you:)

[@Jalopymedia]

noice!

[@davidepannone6021]

Ye nah i had to give up with this paste on my GPU. I'm not questioning the quality but it wasn't worth the hassle to spread. I don't even own a heat gun and I'm not about to buy one for a thermal paste lol.

[@UnhingedSystems]

What paste did you end up with instead? The less dense pastes tend to pump out within a year or so. I agree it can be a hassle, especially on the slippery GPU die surface, but its one and done, no need to re-paste every year.

[@davidepannone6021]

​@@UnhingedSystems nth2 from noctua. Had it for 3 years on my CPU (granted, which is not as toasty) but when I went to repaste last week it was still pretty much like new. I honestly don't mind repasting my GPU every year as it's like a 30 minutes process (and I deep clean it every year anyways) but not having to spend 30 of those minutes just to apply the thermal paste. Again, you had difficulties with an heat gun. Imagine someone like me that does not. It's pretty much impossible on a smaller GPU die (on the CPU it might be easier). Even more so if the die is not perfectly straight (like mine is) it's impossible to spread on sides, which would create hotspots very easily. Oh and my card is not liquid cooled, so it's not as much of a pain to open up for a clean and repaste like liquid cooled ones would be.

[@UnhingedSystems]

@@davidepannone6021 Alternatively you could apply the paste to the heatsink side instead of the die, would be pretty much the same result, albeit a bit messier potentially.

[@pjtomtai]

Good thermal pastes are all hard to apply ... including 7921, GD-2 and TFX. They last very long (almost your machine life time). Easier to apply using your finger (just tapping it little by little wearing a finger condom).

[@SekRanger]

I find TFX is very hard to get it to spread evenly.

[@UnhingedSystems]

Try putting the tube into a Ziploc bag and then putting it in a bowl of hot water for 5-10m, loosens it right up. I use a heat gun normally to get it a little warmer, but hot water while bagged does just as well.

[@SekRanger]

@@UnhingedSystems That's a great tip. Will do tonight and let you know.

[@metalhead-6448]

@@UnhingedSystems it doesnt go bad if you do this?

[@UnhingedSystems]

@@metalhead-6448 Nope. You aren't emptying the tube into the Ziploc, just placing the sealed tube inside a Ziploc, then putting the sealed Ziploc into hot water. You are just transferring heat to the paste to heat it up. Getting the paste wet would be bad. The newer tubes are much easier to spread, haven't had to heat it up first now for ages.

[@metalhead-6448]

@@UnhingedSystems thanks i tought heat it while inside the tube could make it less efficient or maybe ruin it, it will work even if put inside an oven or any other heat for a couple of minutes? oh thats good news i definitely want to check it out, i hope in amazon will be the newer tubes.

[@THeBoZZHoGG]

QL fans are terrible for cooling radiators. they are not recommended for that application

[@UnhingedSystems]

You are correct, these aren't the best for use with radiators. Works great for my use case though. Fluid temps never over 42C with full utilization and 1200RPM is completely silent with the QL fans. There are definitely better fans for use with radiators, but these suited finding a balance between aesthetics, quiet operation, and cooling. Better fans might drop the overall fluid temp by 3-4 degrees (or even 5-7 degrees if I switched the top to pull air in), but it's still miles ahead of anything air cooling alone can accomplish. It's one of the reasons I went push-pull with the lower radiator and sized the radiators the way I did to compensate, to help overcome some of the resistance. Couldn't be happier with the performance considering a lot of AiO coolers have fluid temps between 50-60C (or over 70C when undersized). In truth I wanted the Lian-Li SL120 Unifans, but they were completely out of stock and unavailable for over 6 months after they launched, couldn't wait so I settled with something that still acheived the look I wanted. Sometimes if you strive for perfection you only find disappointment. Thank you for the comment! Very astute observation and absolutely true.

[@THeBoZZHoGG]

@@UnhingedSystems Yeah im using them on a Corsair Capellix H150i with a 5950x and my idle temps are in the low 60s, load temps aren't bad though. I'm about to repaste and add some Noctua fans above the rad to make a push/pull across the radiator(will be a bit janky but if it it works, it works right? if it doesn't work i'm gonna just go with the Noctua fans). I love the looks of the QLs in the O11, but I want the temps a bit lower. It is a shame really as the QLs are not cheap.

[@UnhingedSystems]

@@THeBoZZHoGG Get yourself some TFX thermal paste. Love the stuff!

[@THeBoZZHoGG]

@@UnhingedSystems thanks I will look into it. Noone has done long term paste review (i have looked) Repasting is pain, it would be great to see someone do a long term paste review. a beefy, spicy setup. Identical platforms and how they fair after periods ranging from weeks to months to years. Not a cheap experiment, but would be great to see.

[@hadifelani]

MX-4 is rather outdated imo, I'd suggest anyone to use either TG Kryonaut or Kingpin KPx instead, ease of application-wise.

[@UnhingedSystems]

MX-4 or the new MX-5 at around 8 W/mK are definitely still great for mid-range and entry-level hardware options, but TFX, Kryonaut and other higher-end pastes are definitely 100% better for high-end cooling. IMO water cooling with anything less than high-end thermal materials is a shame. It's why I am so frustrated with things like EK's cheap thermal pads, or Nvidia using sub-par thermal pads on their 3090 FE.

[@hadifelani]

@@UnhingedSystems yeah fr, and what's worse is that almost all company do that, cheaping out on some crucial parts (pads are one of many examples that often became their victim) even for their top tier products. I've also recently switched to TF Odyssey pads for my MSi P65 (i7-9750H + 1660Ti) laptop for about 3 weeks now. When I combine them with KPx and also looking at how effin' hot the 9750H could be, so far so good.

[@InnerFury1886]

kryonaut is overrated garbage. pumpout on my 3080 after couple months. primarily a cpu paste. tfx is leagues ahead. kingpin paste was designed for short run best temps LN2 etc. not longevity either. use honeywell ptm7950 or tfx. believe me, you wont regret. do not risk pump out just because you want a few minutes of more comfort. will bite you in the ass in the longrun.

[@maulcs]

Backplate pads totally unnecessary

[@UnhingedSystems]

Thank you for the comment! That depends. You absolutely need pads on the memory on the back of the card, but you don't "need" them on the backside of the power delivery. The memory on the back will absolutely overheat without thermal pads and heat dissipation.

[@maulcs]

@@UnhingedSystems I only have front side pads on my 3080 and don't go over 78c for memory - others have reported the same, in terms of back plate pad effectiveness

[@UnhingedSystems]

@@maulcs Right, on the 3080 you don't have memory on the backside. The 3090 has 24GB of memory which includes memory on the backside, requiring a backplate and pads. I appreciate your comment, but it is important to be specific and not spread misinformation that could cause someone new to the hobby to damage their cards. "Backplate pads are unnecessary on the 3000 series models that do not have memory on the back side" would be an appropriate statement in your case.

[@LustSinJin]

i did the same but mine temps are higher i got 3090 ftw 3 ultra, but i didnt do spread method tho i use x shape and 5 dots without spreading with spactula cause the tfx paste is so dry, should i open it later again and try to spread?

[@UnhingedSystems]

What temperatures are you seeing on the GPU?

[@LustSinJin]

@@UnhingedSystemswhen playing monster hunter world on 4k it was getting core 84/85 memyr were fine around 88 max tho, but i had the card with 120 core clock oc and 400 men oc, i went and undervolt it and now is giving me 75 max but instead of going 4k i went back to 2k