Arctic MX-5 vs MX-4

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Arctic’s MX-4 has recently been my go-to thermal paste of choice. It balances high performance with great value, and is very easy to apply due to its low viscosity and more fluid consistency compared to many other high-performance pastes. Arctic recently launched its MX-5 thermal paste, and I decided to compare it to MX-4 side by side to see if MX-5 offers any improvement.

Based on the technical specifications, MX-5 has a lower viscosity, but higher density than MX-4. It also has a unique blue color, whereas MX-4 has a dull grey color. I prefer to spread thermal paste across a CPU’s surface to eliminate the chances of a portion of the heatspreader not getting any paste. Despite its supposed higher viscosity, MX-4 glides very easily across the CPU’s surface. MX-5 on the other hand, is a lot stickier, and does not glide across the CPU surface easily. It is not as bad as some other pastes, but if you want to manually spread your thermal paste, MX-4 is a little easier to apply.

For my test setup, I used the PC that I recently assembled to test the SpyLabs JOAT case. It included the AMD Ryzen 5 5600X CPU, Phanteks TC14PE CPU cooler, PNY Nvidia Quadro P2200 graphics card, Raijintek Morpheus II GPU cooler, and ASRock B550 Phantom Gaming-ITX motherboard. I used Prime95, FurMark, and HWInfo to stress the system and collect thermal data. I tested the CPU at 10-watt power limit intervals between 45 watts and 75 watts. For the GPU, the power limit was locked, so it was tested at its stock power limit only. I performed the same exact tests with MX-4 and with MX-5. The coolers were removed and the thermal paste was replaced three times for each paste. The data I am presenting here are the lowest thermal results for each thermal paste. The ambient room temperature was maintained at about 17.5 degrees Celsius, plus or minus 1 degree. The room temperature was tracked and subtracted from the CPU and GPU temperatures to equalize results.

For the Ryzen 5 CPU, temperatures were slightly lower with the MX-5 paste. The average temperature drop from MX-4 was 0.7 degrees. The MX-4 result at 65 watts doesn’t appear because it is right behind the MX-5 result. Both pastes had a result of exactly 61.1 degrees above ambient at 65 watts. For the Quadro P2200 GPU, temperatures were again slightly lower with this MX-5 paste. This time by exactly half a degree.

So, Arctic’s MX-5 does offer a benefit when compared to their MX-4 paste. The benefit is about half a degree lower temperatures. On the other hand, MX-5 is a stickier paste, is not as fluid, and is somewhat more difficult to apply as a result. Both pastes have a claimed durability of 8 years. On Arctic’s website, 2 grams of MX-4 costs 7 Euros, and 2 grams of MX-5 costs 7.5 Euros. 20 grams of MX-4 costs 20 Euros, and 20 grams of MX-5 costs 22 Euros. On Amazon in the US, MX-5 is actually less expensive than MX-4 right now, so prices vary, but they are similar between MX-4 and MX-5. It is difficult to argue against even half a degree lower temperatures, but the fluidness of MX-4 still draws me to MX-4.

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