Arctic MX-5 vs MX-4

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 y