Arctic MX-6: Thick, Cool, and a Little Bit Loud

It’s always a circus getting your system open—dust bunnies, thermal paste leftovers, lost screws—but at least the world of thermal goop has something that actually does its job. Enter ARCTIC MX-6, marching in with promises of better temps and sheer longevity. Let’s cut through the noise.

What Comes in the Box

This kit gives you a 4g syringe of MX-6 paste and six cleaning wipes soaked in citrus-powered limonene. There’s no spatula—so if you’re one of those folks who like to spread paste with surgical precision, either grab an old card or find a tiny kitchen utensil. The lack of a spreader seems like a weird cost-saving move considering older Arctic pastes often came with one.

The Paste: Viscosity with a Vengeance

Forget those runny, watery pastes that ooze all over your socket pins. MX-6 is seriously thick, way thicker than what came before. Squeeze out a blob and it’ll hold its shape like nobody’s business. That’s great for the “pea-in-the-middle” crowd—just drop, slap your heatsink on, and let physics handle the rest. Try to spread it manually? Prepare for a minor arm workout and a tool coated in goop. If you’re aiming for direct-die precision or covering edge-to-edge, this is not the most beginner-friendly consistency.

Thermal Performance: Actual Results, Not Hype

MX-6 is actually decent at moving heat. Swapping from aged or stock paste, you’ll see a 2–4°C drop in temps on CPUs and even old consoles. For gaming PCs, laptops, and retro gear like that ancient Xbox or PlayStation languishing under the TV, it’s a solid upgrade over the junk manufacturers smear on. Just don’t expect to smash benchmark records or see miracles—this isn’t liquid metal or some $40-per-gram snake oil. For most folks, it’s a meaningful improvement, and enough to keep boost clocks from plummeting under load.

Longevity: Built to Stick Around

Some pastes get crusty or hard as a brick after a few months, especially the stuff loaded up with metal or “extreme” branding. Not here—MX-6 holds its consistency well over time, so next time you check under the cooler, it should still be pliable and effective. No redoing your paste every semester.

The Wipes: Clean, Fast, and Loud

Here’s a heads up: those six included wipes do a solid job melting away old crust and prepping your die, but wow does the smell stick around. Limonene means power-cleansing, but it’s citrusy and way too much for tiny dorm rooms or anyone sensitive to strong odors. Stings a bit if you’ve got dry skin or tiny cuts, too. Plenty of people just toss the wipes immediately in the outside trash after use—you won’t want the scent lingering indoors. If you’re scent-averse, go with classic isopropyl alcohol on a lint-free cloth instead.

What’s Not to Love? (And Maybe a Dealbreaker)

• Application isn’t beginner friendly—way too thick for easy manual spreading.
• No spatula, so hope you’ve got a workaround for tiny builds.
• Cleaner wipes smell like they’re trying to purge you from your own room—ventilation is almost required.
• It’s not the cheapest, but the amount in the tube plus the wipes goes a long way.

Should You Use It?

MX-6 is rock solid for people who want a reliable, non-conductive, moderately high-performing paste that just works and keeps working. It’s a perfect middle ground between ultra-premium liquid metals and the crusty bubblegum stuff that ships from the factory. If strong scents and chunky application bother you, or you’re the type who needs perfect spatula spreads for weird-shaped dies, maybe look elsewhere. Otherwise, toss this in your build kit and you’re set for the next few upgrades and hand-me-downs.

No drama, no snake oil: it cools like it says on the box, it won’t fry your stuff, and it’s built to last, even if it does stink things up for a while.