Thermal paste has been a mainstay in the CPU cooling space as the most commonly used thermal interface material (TIM). It's cheap, easy to apply, and does the job. For most people, the best thermal paste available might be more than enough even if they're overclocking the CPU. And for the most extreme overclockers, liquid nitrogen or other such materials would make more sense. So, does liquid metal have a reason to exist, then? Liquid metal has become more popular in recent years as some of the myths surrounding it have been debunked. But, should you still choose it over conventional thermal paste?

Is liquid metal really better than thermal paste?

Marketing fluff or real benefits?

Liquid metal, or more accurately, liquid metal TIM is often recommended as an upgrade over conventional thermal paste. While thermal paste mostly includes silicone-based polymers alongside conductive compounds like aluminum oxide and zinc oxide, liquid metal TIMs are mostly composed of metal alloys made up of elements like gallium, indium, and tin that have high heat transfer properties. This makes liquid metal TIM have extremely high thermal conductivity (and very low thermal resistance) compared to conventional thermal paste.

For instance, Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut — one of the best thermal paste — has a conductivity of 12.5W/mK (Watts per meter Kelvin). Compared to this, a liquid metal TIM like the Thermal Grizzly Conductonaut boasts a conductivity of 73W/mK, nearly six times that of premium thermal paste. Using liquid metal between your CPU's IHS (integrated heat spreader) and cooler is a huge increase in cooling efficiency as compared to thermal paste.

In fact, many enthusiasts often delid the CPU and apply liquid metal between the CPU die and the IHS, improving cooling performance even further. Although delidding definitely isn't for everyone, there's no denying the considerable advantages liquid metal brings to the average user when cooling the CPU.

Is liquid metal safe for your PC?

With great cooling come great risks

As impressive as liquid metal sounds, it's not without its downsides. And some of these downsides might be dealbreakers for most of us. Unlike conventional thermal paste, liquid metal TIMs are electrically conductive. What this means is that if you let the liquid flow in the wrong direction and it comes in contact with either your CPU pins, motherboard circuitry, or any other delicate component, it could quickly short and fry it.

Applying thermal paste on the CPU is fairly simple and can be done by beginners as well. But, liquid metal, in contrast, isn't as viscous. Of course, it's "liquid metal" and hence, if you apply too much or too little pressure, it's prone to spilling on areas where it should never be found. This difficulty in applying liquid metal on the IHS is further complicated when it comes to cleaning the thing later.

Cleaning thermal paste from the CPU is pretty simple and it comes off without doing any damage to your precious chip. But, liquid metal can be corrosive to the heatsink of your CPU cooler. Due to this reason, aluminum heatsinks are completely out of the question. You can use copper heatsinks without major issues but even the outer layer of the heatsink will be slightly damaged when you clean the liquid metal eventually. This wouldn't cause any performance issues but can cause needless harm to your mental peace.

Where do thermal pads fit in?

More performance or just more money?

Besides regular thermal paste and liquid metal, there's another TIM that's caught the fancy of the community of late. Thermal pads come in the form of soft pads or thin sheets of graphene or carbon-based materials and are used as a replacement for thermal paste. The benefits of using a thermal pad for your CPU are that you can reuse it, the application is much more convenient, and there are no performance drawbacks. Soft thermal pads are often used for memory, SSD, and VRAM.

But, that's the thing — despite costing more than thermal paste, even the best thermal pads bring virtually no increase in cooling performance. Yes, there are quality-of-life benefits when handling thermal pads instead of thermal paste, but this makes sense mostly for people who frequently need to install and remove CPU coolers, such as reviewers and YouTubers.

For the average user who applies the thermal paste once while building a PC and forgets about it for years, thermal pads aren't too attractive. Unless you're tired of frequent and messy thermal paste applications on your CPU, you can give thermal pads a pass.

Liquid metal: Yay or nay?

All things considered, what should you choose?

Liquid metal TIMs offer significantly better thermal conductivity than thermal paste. If applied carefully on a compatible heatsink, you stand to gain considerable benefits from picking liquid metal. But, you also need to keep in mind that given the risk of electrical damage to your components, you might be better off with conventional thermal paste, especially if you don't stress about a few degrees worth of performance.

Thermal paste is a tried-and-tested and affordable solution for cooling the CPU. Compared to liquid metal, performance is not too far off, and for the majority of use cases, it should be the preferred option. Liquid metal TIMs are used by experts, seasoned enthusiasts, and reviewers looking to maximize performance.