Arctic Cooling MX-2 vs. Noctua NT-H1 Thermal Paste Showdown

Product(s): Noctua NT-H1 Thermal Paste
Provided By: Noctua
Price: ~$9.00 USD (4 Gram Package)

Product(s): Arctic Cooling MX-2 Thermal Paste
Provided By: Arctic Cooling
Price: 4 Gram Package ~$8.45 USD - 30 Gram Package ~$39.95 USD

Introduction: 

Thermal paste is something you might not think about very much, but it can really provide a little bit of a cooler performance boost. Most users are probably still using the same paste that came on the bottom of their cooler when they bought it, but today we are going to take a look at two products that can help knock a couple degrees off your CPU temperatures, and maybe give you a little more help with that big overclock.

Over the past year or so, BCCHardware has been using Arctic Cooling MX-2 thermal paste in all of our CPU cooler reviews, we've done this so we can provide a fair comparison between coolers, and have been happy with the performance it has provided.

Today we are going to put the new Noctua NT-H1 Thermal paste up against the Arctic Cooling MX-2, and we will see how they compare. As time goes on we will try and add to this comparison so that we can get a bigger picture of how thermal pastes compare against each other.

First Impressions:

The Arctic Cooling MX-2 comes in two sizes, 4 gram and 30 gram packages, while the Noctua NT-H1 comes in only 4 gram packages.

How much is 4 gram of thermal paste? 4 grams should be enough for approximately 15 applications according to the manufacturers, but realistically it's probably going to last you for about 10 applications. The 30 gram package of MX-2 is going to last you a long, long time, chances are this amount of thermal paste is only going to be used by system builders, since the normal computer user would take years to use up that much thermal paste.

Arctic Cooling MX-2 and Noctual NT-H1 Thermal Paste