> the thing just spikes straight to 100c and starts throttling like crazy To add to the point above: honestly, i had similar issues with the 14th gen chips and its super frustrating. Unfortunately, those thinner pastes like the old stuff we used to use just cant handle the thermal expansion cycles on these high-power i9s. They end up suffering from the pump-out effect where the constant heat literally pushes the paste out from the center of the die over time. Not as good as expected for professional work, tbh. If you want reliability without the risk of liquid metal, i usually stick to thicker, high-viscosity options. Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut Extreme 2g is basically the top tier here because it doesnt dry out as fast under those insane load spikes. Another solid choice if you want something safer that lasts a long time is Noctua NT-H2 3.5g Thermal Paste. It has better stability than the original H1 and wont degrade as quickly when you are rendering for hours on end. Just make sure your mounting pressure is totally even... you got this!

Saw this earlier but just getting around to this now. Unfortunately, even the best grease usually fails on these i9s after a few weeks of heavy use because of the pump-out effect. To add to the point above: i had issues with high-end pastes being not as good as expected because the lga1700 socket actually bends the cpu ihs. It's super frustrating and definitely feels like a design flaw. I was pretty let down until i tried the Thermalright LGA1700-BCF Anti-Bending Contact Frame which finally leveled things out so the cooler actually touched the chip properly. If you want a real solution for those 4k renders, look into Honeywell PTM7950 Phase Change Thermal Pad. Its basically a solid sheet that turns into a liquid when hot. It fills the gaps better than paste and wont degrade when the chip hits 100c. It costs more than a tube of mx4 but honestly its the only thing that kept my rig from throttling.

Honestly, the basic stuff was a huge letdown for me. I had issues with cheaper pastes drying out way too fast under that heat, which was really disappointing. Since im also too nervous to try liquid metal, these worked much better for my rig:

• Thermalright TF8 2g 13.8 W/mK Thermal Paste
• Kingpin Cooling KPx 3g High Performance Good luck with that deadline, those i9 spikes are just scary...

Building systems for over a decade has taught me that obsessing over those single digit temperature drops usually isnt worth the hassle. I remember my first really hot workstation build where I kept swapping out the compound every few months because the temps would slowly creep back up during my video exports. It was super annoying to have to keep opening the rig up right when I had work to do. What I learned is that with these high wattage chips, the consistency of the stuff you use is way more important than the initial benchmark score. I once used the top rated stuff everyone was talking about, but it was too thin and basically disappeared from the center of the chip after a month of heavy use. Switching to a much thicker, almost sticky compound for my current setup made a huge difference. It was harder to apply but it has stayed rock solid for over two years now without any temp spikes. Reliability is king when the deadlines are tight. Thick grease is a decent option if you dont want to mess with it again for a long time.