does thermal paste ACTUALLY expire?

Today we test out how 11 year old, 19 year old, and even 30 year old thermal paste performs in a modern PC! Would you feel comfortable using these "expired" thermal pastes in your computer at home?

0:00 setup
1:06 MX-4 visual comparison
3:10 MX-4 performance comparison
3:55 Arctic Silver 5 visual comparison
6:12 Arctic Silver 5 performance comparison
6:54 30 year old thermal paste
7:58 does thermal paste expire?

[mryeester]

The company that made the 30+ year old thermal paste replied to my email and quote:

"We wish we could be of more assistance but we can not tell anything from picture. I will say it is very old as we do not use the green and white logos anymore."

The mystery continues! Will continue asking around to see if we can pinpoint the exact manufacturing date!

[vitor]

One thing you didn't account for / didn't bring up is changes in formulation over the years.
Even tubes manufactured in the same year may not have the exactly same formulation depending on where it was manufactured. Factures in different places will source similar / compatible raw material that are easier to get in their region.

[mitchellhunter]

The saddest part of this video was that 2019 was 5 years ago

[gamecuber]

That 30 year old thermal compound is probably still better than what most computer OEMs use

[Snakivator]

Searched the internet so long trying to find a comprehensive answer to this question. You have saved my ever growing forgotten thermal paste collection from obsolescence. Thank you sir!

[BlenderRookie]

I just used the last bit of mx-4 from a 5 maybe 6 year old tube and it looked like new and performed like new. But it was more runny than 2:30 on day one. I wonder if they changed the formula.

[ThePuffGD]

I've been buying new thermal paste every day for the past 32 years. Glad to know that hasn't gone to waste completely! My house is 90% thermal paste tubes

[jimtaylor]

The real test is how this old paste holds up in use. I've used 10+ old unbranded thermal paste in a server and wasn't able to get more than a year of 24/7 duty before it tripped the temp alarm and spins up the fans to max.

[rustkitty]

Okay, but how do they differ in taste??!

[TrueThanny]

06:40 That is not thermal throttling. That is reaching a different boost speed. If you were using different processors to test each paste, even if they are the same model, your tests are completely invalid.

You have to use the same exact processor, on the same exact board, and do at least three separate mounts for each paste.

[chadvanderlinden]

What your test determined was that your pc will throttle as much as it needs to do to keep the CPU from exceeding 90 degrees. We don't know how many degrees correspond with throttling points, so maybe put in that center fan that is missing so your cooling works better and we can see some real-world temperature differences between the thermal compounds.

When you do this, you'll only know what temps you get from freshly-applied compound, which has never spent years degrading under heat stress. Degradation over time is what we really need to know.

Also, compound formulation may have changed over time so newer compound might work better only because it has been improved.

I find that thermal compound dries out very quickly after application, so being dried out isn't a big problem for performance, it's more a problem with application of the compound. That's the only reason I can think of that "old" compound would need to expire. Compound that is applied to a working CPU should work forever unless it has a tendancy to develop insulating bubbles, or the stress of use degrades it chemically so much that it really stops conducting heat as well.

[stephen]

the mx4's formula has changed over the years

[aleksazunjic]

Thermal paste is basically made up of two components: liquid (mostly silicon oils) and solid (mostly metal-oxides) . Role of the paste is to get in various cavities, nooks and crannies between two metal surfaces. Thermal paste is NOT better than pure metal-to-metal contact, but is better thermal conductor than air. Liquid part of the paste is mostly to give viscosity and get it into aforementioned cavities, solid part (metal-oxides) actually conducts heat. Once you get paste in place, liquid part is no longer essential, and it could evaporate. Solid parts remain stable for years (centuries) and will continue to function as long as you do not move your cooler and displace them from cavities.

[nothingelse]

Nice! I had a 15 year old tube of Arctic Silver 5 sitting around. I used it on a spare PC, worked just fine. Finally threw it away because was like 10% left.

[gorfelbt]

Next vid idea: how does old thermal paste compare to the best thermal paste replacement?

[guily]

That MX-4 seems to have changed recipe cause I don't remember having a brand new one looking like that newer one. All the MX-4 I had was more like the old ones you have even when brand new if I remember well...

[teardowndan]

The "active ingredient" in thermal paste is the solid filler. The oil is only there to facilitate application and help particles stay put. The "expiration" has more to do with optimal ease and repeatability of application than performance. Once applied, powder-based pastes can be 50+ years old and still perform perfectly fine. Most of the times where people run into thermal performance issues with a 5+ years old paste application is because they nudged their HSF while cleaning their PC and broke the paste after it had fully settled down.

I'm still using a tube of 20+ years old GCChemicals ZnO thermal paste in my PCs today, got about 1/5th of the tube left. The tube has lost quite a bit of oil through the aluminum squeeze tube having ripped in a few folds.

[Double_iice]

I bought yeesterpaste and it's great fr! props to mryeester for making something unique and high quality!

[slsl]

I have a large tube of Arctic Silver 3 from around 2000, still has good consistency and works fine. I also have a smaller tube of Arctic Silver 5 I purchased a few years later (as soon as it came out) which I applied last year to the CPU I'm using to write this comment - it also works great and I have noticed no difference except for a very slight increase in viscosity.

[Shawn-QNA]

That's not an aging difference that's just the generation difference