 I'm not totally sure how many people would recommend this, but uh... All of us PC building tech dweebs already know about thermal paste, okay? Aka the hot stuff, aka the gray goo, aka Grammy's old sandwich spread. What? But what if you're out of thermal paste? Yeah, you could just go order more, pick some up from NCIX, or you could make your own. Linus actually got an email from a fan suggesting we do this, so in this video, we are going back to chemistry class and finding out whether any of these materials can work as a thermal paste substitute. Because Linus isn't here, and he can't stop us. But I do have Alex here to make sure that I don't blow up this PC with Nutella, because that's a real possibility. The Hexgears Impulse Mechanical Keyboard has RGB lighting, a variety of different key switches, and IP56 water resistance, so it can survive some of your worst spills. Use offer code LTT to save $10 at the link below. As Alex could tell you, but I will instead, there's two main things. Fuck. Guys, I'm not Linus. You'll get there. Sadly. Okay, so the main purpose of thermal paste is to assist the heat transfer between the CPU and the heatsink when you put them together, because you put them together, but there's still a little bit of gaps in between. So what do we need thermal paste to do? What are the two main qualifications we're looking for? So I guess the first one is that it needs to be really easily spreadable. So like you have all those little dips and stuff and you want to just fill those in. You don't want to be creating like a layer between your CPU and your heatsink. Right. And the other thing is that it has to be really good thermally conductive, so you don't have just like a bunch of resistance between the two. You want that heat to be transferred. Yeah. Okay, so with those qualifications, there are a large number of materials that we could potentially use with varying efficiencies. So what do we have here? Okay, so some of you might be familiar with this toothpaste. A lot of people have tried it and we're not going to try it by itself today, because it's been tried a lot, but it's actually a surprisingly effective substitute. The problem is that it's got fluoride in it, and that means it's slightly corrosive, and it also tends to dry out very easily. So what we're going to mix it with, thanks to some tips on the internet, is petroleum jelly, aka Vaseline, but this is the no-name brand. It's really bad stuff. Why is it bad? It's chunky. Oh, that's true. But if we mix it together, I don't know. I mean, this is a smooth type of toothpaste, because the main thing, when you're using toothpaste, you don't want the gritty kind with like the little beads in it or whatever. Do you want to just do it? Should we just do it first? Yeah, I want to just do it. Okay. You could... Oh dear. Yes, maybe. I feel like that's slightly dangerous. Why? You're a monster, Alex. What CPU is this also? That's a 7980XE. Jesus. So maybe we don't want to get toothpaste. Alex. It's like a $2,000 processor. You're supposed to rein me in. I'm not supposed to rein you in. What are we doing here? Ah. I don't know. This seems to be working. Okay. Like, I don't think it's the way that you thought that we would do it. No, that's true. Well, I think we're about good. Okay, yeah. You want to try it like that? Yep. The wrong way? All right. Well, you've made your bet and now we're going to lie in it, I guess. So I'm guessing that you've already done the testing. I ran a baseline with real thermal paste and I also ran it bareback, as they say. Did you find a board that doesn't have a power button on it? No, it has a power button. Ready? Whoa, it's on. It works. Yes. Take that high five back. It's not deserving of a high five. Take that high five back. It's not deserving. So we just got to boot it up and then run IDA64 a little bit and stress test it and see whether the computer will explode. That's how we know, right? Yeah. Yeah. All right, IDA64. Where do we have the... Wait, it should come up automatically because I'm a programmer. I'm a big tech hacker. Look at that. Oh, jeez. That's fancy. See, that's what the toothpaste does. Oh, that's pretty good. Like 20 degrees, idling very nice. What was our baseline? Head over to documents. Bareback and baseline. So baseline, we're looking at a max of what? 65 degrees. Package got up to 70. Hottest core, 65. Bareback, we are looking at 104 degrees. Yep, that's not great. Yeah, when I did the bareback, it just shot right up past 100. So let's see here. Toothpaste and Vaseline is looking... Actually not bad. CPU package is already at 68. Hottest core, okay, so we're at 65 already. So we're not beating thermal paste, that is for sure. Things go real slow in your stress test in the CPU. That's what I learned and which I already know. That's only like five degrees over actual thermal paste though. So it's a way better option than just not having anything. That's very true. So if you're like really in a bind, you're like, I gotta get my dad's old Dell from when I was a small child up and running immediately, right now. Not bad, not horrible. One of them got up to 79. That's too hot. I wouldn't go outside if it was that hot. So that one was kind of a joke. All right guys, but this next one actually might work as a real substitute because what we're using is silicon grease. It's O-ring lube. It's what? O-ring lube. It's O-ring lube and that's not something dirty. It's just things that you use for O-rings. Yeah. Yeah. So we're actually combining silicon grease with, drum roll please, diamond powder. Cool. I didn't even know that was a thing, but it is. So we're basically using the diamond as the thermal conductor and the silicon grease as the medium for that material. We're not just throwing this on, okay? We're gonna mix it properly. This is a science laboratory and I won't stand for your nonsense. So before, if you're gonna deal with diamond powder at all, guys, we need masks, all right? And I'm really glad that Alex brought that up. Yeah, let's do that. I would have remembered about the masks, okay? Yeah, after you started coughing. So I guess this is what? Zero to one micron. Don't open it yet. Zero to one micron diamond powder. I guess this is traditionally used for like polishing mirrors. Oh, it's 25 carat. 25 carat. Oh, okay. So the ratio we're supposed to use is around 60-40, whatever that means. I'm just gonna eyeball it then. I'm just gonna eyeball it then. Yep. Papa Alex. So is this kind of just like making icy diamond? Like icy diamond has diamonds in it, right? Yeah, and it kind of looks like it too. Do you think we need more grease in there? Yeah, maybe a bit. Should I be wearing gloves? That's probably fine. Got some icy diamond for comparison. Oh, wow. That's dark. Yeah, this is a lot thicker than other thermal pastes. So how much did this diamond powder cost? For that package, it was like 15 bucks or something. Oh, this is also a super weird application. Well, you're taking your mask off? What are you doing? The dust isn't around anymore. We're good. Oh, no. Science class is not in session anymore. Well, except for the science we're doing right here. Yeah, except for those. We do what we must because we can. That is a proverb and a half right there. All right, so idle are looking like 30 degrees. That feels like it's higher than what it was last time. The diamond powder and the silicon grease this is a little bit more of a practical alternative. You're not just trying to get something up and running right away. You're like, you know what? Screw the system. I'm making my own thermal paste. I'm growing my own tomatoes in my backyard. That's who this is for. Yeah, but it's working really bad. This is like when you try and make tomatoes in your backyard and then, you know, the deers eat them. And it ends up that you weren't even growing tomatoes the whole time. They were like chili peppers. It was actually weed. All right, so this here is my idea. We've got some rapid tap. You want to use rapid tap instead of silicon grease? Yeah. Okay. What if the problem also could be that our diamonds are just too big and we need smaller ones? Can diamonds ever be too big? Could you imagine just having a great big diamond in the middle? I also don't know if rapid tap is electrically conductive. It probably is. So we definitely will not want to be getting this on anywhere that's not the CPU. Okay, I guess we're about to get good to go for this thing. Cool. For your, your... My luby concoction. This was not endorsed by my internet sources. So no guarantees that it will perform as well as our homemade diamond paste. I think it's gonna be better. This is actually like how you would use this. Normally you'd like combine it with an oil and then spread it out on like a surface plate and polish something. Speaking of which, do you want to do that after? Do what? I'm seeing 67, 77. I think your diamond paste is... 81. Like it's worse than toothpaste and petroleum jelly by quite a bit. So don't, don't go out buying diamonds. Just use your freaking toothpaste. You know, diamonds are kind of useless. Like they cost a lot and they don't really do anything except look pretty. I thought this would be one functional application. Bye. See you later. See you later. I think mustard is going to destroy this. Oh my gosh. You know, you put your faith in something and then it just lets you down. Yeah. And then you go all the way down, hit rock bottom and try mustard. Here we go. Starting the test. I see 47, 52, 57, 58. We're still doing better than the diamond at this point. 63. So basically condiments are way better than diamond powder. What the hell? Okay. We just did 74, but it's like, this is usable. This is an 18 core processor. You know what this means. We got to build a lot of stuff. We could build a liquid cooled PC just using condiments. Well, it works so great with concrete. So yeah, I think we can call that basically a win for mustard. All right. Well, so it seems like anything besides diamond paste. As far as last minute things go, not the worst, surprisingly. Okay. Let's move on. Yep. So the thing about Nutella, it's the only stuff here that I kind of want to eat. I would wait to watch. So that's actually not coming off. How do you get mustard off? We need like soap. We've cooked the mustard onto the metal. Now we're in a bit of a pickle. What? Okay. Whoa, hold on. Hold on. Hold on. It's wet, dude. It's dripping. Yeah, exactly. Because we need to get it off. Okay. What about this? So let's just kind of pack that around the CPU. Alex was supposed to keep me in check for this video. I find myself stressing. Look, if we wreck this board, it's your fault. That's fine. I think it's all good. It's only like a little bit of water that's around there now and it's basically all gone. So yes, this is what we thought would do better than mustard. I'm not so confident anymore. You know, being a cameraman is hard work. I understand that. Here you go, David. Yeah, yeah. There you go. How's that? That was weird. In university, while I was studying for exams one time, I just like downed a whole bottle of Nutella, much like I had it there just like with a spoon and then threw up violently. And I didn't eat Nutella for like six or so years after that. You do weird things at the same time. Nutella addiction is a scourge. A scourge? It's no joke. Let's see if Nutella really gets results that are just as nutty as it is. Okay, so we're looking already at 52 degrees. Up 60, I see 63, 65, 71. Okay, this is not going to be as good as mustard. So I wasn't really joking when I said we might blow up the PC with Nutella. No, it might be worse than diamond paste. Everything is terrible. I guess sugar and fat content isn't everything. Maybe we should just put a Ferrero Rocher just like right in the middle. Okay, now actually I'm expecting this to maybe do okay because it's 40% zinc oxide. Is that good? Which is the main ingredient in some thermal pastes. And I don't know why zinc oxide would be helpful to baby bums, but it might be helpful to this baby bum right here. All right. Okay. 69. Oh, not worse than mustard. We're one degree off from mustard though. I think that we might find out that mustard is your best bet. Like mustard is probably better than some budget thermal pastes. So this is officially worse than mustard. For like a few minutes. For diaper rash cream? Yeah, true. It is diaper rash cream and it's not going to dry out. 76, I mean we're only six degrees up. Yeah, six degrees isn't too bad. I really did not think any of this. Hey, what is that? You want to? Whoa! That right there is a lapping plate. This is so heavy. What are we going to do with this? It's solid steel. Stick it right on top. Well, but like the whole point of thermal paste is to fill in the gaps. But what if there were no gaps? Yeah, much like s***y Tinder dates everywhere. We are going to just try and do it with no thermal paste. And I didn't say that quite right. Yeah. Whenever I go to a date and they don't have thermal paste, man, I'm just gone. Yeah, we need just a little bit of this polishing compound. Polishing compound? Is that like diamond powder? Yeah, diamond powder actually is a polishing compound of sorts. I'm going to just throw some rapid tap in here. Kabam! Do a little stir. Yeah, now we just have to put it on the lapping plate and go ham. Very rhythmic. You're essentially grinding it down the surface of the heat sink block. Yes. So that it's smooth as a baby's bottom. Smoother even. Do you want to get the CPU out? Oh, so wait, you're going to drag the CPU across that? Yep. That's the plan. I didn't know that adding Alex to this video would make it more off the walls. Wow, that's turning into just copper now. All of the protective coating is just leaving. Geez. I'm going to just put it on the lapping plate. All of the protective coating is just leaving. Geez. So I'm going to need to step up to a lower grip but higher cutting power. I have never done CPU lapping before. It is a thing that lots of people do to improve performance. We aren't doing this to improve performance. But we're doing it to prove that protection is for the weak. Yes. Yeah, people, please don't have that be your takeaway here. I don't feel amazing about this. Things weren't quite as flat as I thought that they were at the beginning. So we've had to take off all of the parts of the lapping plate. So we've had to take off all of the parts of the lapping plate. So we've had to take off a lot more material than I thought. So we've had to take off a lot more material than I thought. And I'm afraid that we're still quite a ways off of being flat. So you can see kind of like here, we haven't even touched it with the surface plate yet. And right there as well. So that means that there are really big high spots there and there. So kind of like around the edges here, So kind of like around the edges here, and in the center was a lot higher than like because it would be contacting the silicon around here. because it would be contacting the silicon around here. And then right around the die, it was higher. I'm a bit concerned about how much crap I got all over this thing. I'm a bit concerned about how much crap I got all over this thing. Around like these little resistors here, I'm not sure how I'm going to get that out. On the other edge, there's like, there's just sh** kind of all over the place. I'm not totally sure what to do. I'm not totally sure what to do. The thing that Riley brought me in so that things wouldn't be dying. Like, jeez, this is um... I'm not totally sure how many people I'm not totally sure how many people would recommend this, but uh, I certainly would not. Oh, jeez Louise. And we haven't even told Linus we're doing this, so hopefully... Imagine Linus is okay. I thought he was going to come around the corner. The thing is that when you use water and you put it all over a processor, the water can kind of stick around, so you want to just dunk it in alcohol first. And then that washes it away, and we should be good to go. Definitely do that. I have no doubts that this will work flawlessly. Good, me too. Sometimes you play with a two thousand dollar processor. Hopefully you didn't break it. Hopefully you didn't break it. Here we go! Was this worth possibly killing the processor? Possibly killing the processor? We will find out. We put it in questionable for sure. Was it worth it for the views though? If we get them. Yeah, everyone's gone. We got into the BIOS! Yep, didn't kill it. Excellent. So we're idling at about 20, 28 degrees or so. Which is about the same as last time. So we might be able to actually beat like Nutella or Diamond Paste using this. Seeing 80, oh that's climbing fast. That's climbing really fast. That's climbing really fast. Beat the Diamond Paste. Beat the Diamond Paste. 89. We still have a little bit of room. Still a little bit. 90. It's a really similar trajectory to the Diamond Paste. 93. See, but that's so surprising. Like why was the Diamond Paste so bad? I don't know. Because this is bareback and it's It's doing very similarly. It's doing nothing and it's doing very similarly. So it's back down to like 93 degrees. So flattening it did help a bit. It seems to be better than the Diamond. So if you want to keep under load, you know, you want to keep it at a nice frosty 94 then flattening is good to go. But I guess if you actually want to keep it cool toothpaste and petroleum jelly, excellent option. Diaper Rash Cream also pretty good if you have it around. Mustard, surprising winner, but also not toasted. And surprisingly, Diamond Powder with anything, not as good as we thought. So Icy Diamond must have some sort of like secret you know, secret recipe or something. Yeah, or it's just way finer than what we had or something. I don't know. At the end of the day, you know, we found that some materials can actually work for a hot minute or minutes. But on the whole, you probably want to use thermal paste. So if you're really desperate, you might turn to something else, but for the most part, just go to the store. Pick up some thermal paste. Order some thermal paste. Like 15 bucks on Prime probably. It's not bad guys. Something else you might want to pick up is the Soundcore Infini Pro by Anker. The Infini Pro is a 2.1 channel sound bar with Dolby Atmos, an immersive 3D audio technology that doesn't just pump sound at you, but above and around you. The Infini Pro uses two built-in subwoofers with base-up technology to produce booming lows, then fills out the sound with two full range speakers and two tweeters. And with the ability to pass 4K HDR signals through to your TV and wirelessly stream audio from your phone or tablet, the Infini Pro is one of the best value Dolby Atmos speakers conceived by humankind. So check it out at the link in the description. Alright guys, that's it for this video. Alex has already given up and gone right back to eating Nutella. If this video sucked, you know what to do. But if it was awesome, hit that like button, get subscribed, and click the link in the video's description to check out some of the things we featured in this video. I guess, yeah, you could go buy some toothpaste. Also linked down in the description is our merch store so you can buy shirts like this one and other awesome stuff and our community forum which you should totally join.