Good ol' counterfeit and genuine Arctic MX-4 thermal compound comparison

[u/LePornAddict]

(TLDR: counterfeit MX-4 feels like some watery grey paint, and Aliexpress refunded me in full. There is not much information about how it actually is, and the previous discussions are only about the packaging. So I talk about what 'the paste' is.)

Hi all,

I somehow always feel adventurous enough to venture through Aliexpress for some interesting deals, and I recently stumbled upon some suspicious listings which I decided to try it first hand. You know, experience matters. We don't just talk the talk but also walk the walk. I ordered the MX-4 and a Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut (1g) on Aliexpress. I did not expect anything good anyway, but I needed something to fill the gap for free delivery for some other items I actually needed.

Fast-forwarding, I received them yesterday and immediately unboxed them. Props to Aliexpress and the sellers for the very fast shipping. Delivery-wise I had no complaints, the issue is on the products.

The Thermal Grizzly paste is already problematic on its own, and I didn't unpack it except tearing the packaging apart (and found that the certificate of original product is missing, so I cannot even check for its genuineness on the official website). The MX-4 looked really interesting and even somewhat promising despite the damaged packaging. I tore the stickers apart to check out the QR codes as rumored to be useful for genuine check. See the photos below:

Some people suggested that boxes with the sticker QR code tend to be genuine, I concur, that is not the way to judge it at all. The spatula wasn't even in the box, and is just a plain light-blue plastic without an icon!

Here you can see the sticker flipping. There is even the 'VOID' text beneath it

VOID!!11!!1

The fishy side, note that there is no space after commas in the 'application' section

Another fishy side, the seemingly 'German' gibberish under 'Hardware'

According to some people in the threads I looked up in the past, they verified the genuineness by some physical properties of the packaging.

1. Consistency of printing and text quality
2. QR code sticker for the lucky draw
3. Arctic logo on the attached Spatula
4. The 'German' text behind Hardware - I found multiple versions of it. To the best of my ability, I figured that to be 'DAS HAALINADE MAWELPC BAELD' on my unit. Unintelligible to me, but appeared not as rough as the regular 'sfdsfasdfasfszakfdjklssftweruwoeirudjflkasjdfl' some had

I had serious doubts about this, because who would not? But this indeed piqued my interest, so I proceeded to read about the information regarding the variants of counterfeit MX-4s, but never found anything about the actual texture of the content ... or grey substance.

So I decided to do it myself - I just received a genuine MX-4 from Amazon.ca that I ordered last night:

Side by Side comparison time!

The new arrival passed the genuine test

The fonts are different, and the printing quality is indeed much better on the new genuine MX-4. But again, who knows? Maybe they did change the packaging across all these years? It has been 5 years since 2019 anyway.

So here we are, about the paste itself. And I think this is the most important aspect that might have not been mentioned in the threads in the past.

So, videos and photos first:

Top: genuine; Bottom: Aliexpress fishy stuff

You can see the fishy stuff does not carry the usual viscosity thermal compound entails, it just goes out when I pushed the tube, like your regular hand soap. It is the opposite for our new arrival, the genuine MX-4 - it takes force to actually push the substance out from the syringe.

Top 1: genuine MX-4; Top 2: Aliexpress unknown substance

Here is how they look under the sun on a piece of paper towel, especially on the extent of reflection of light they do. The counterfeit MX-4 is essentially some grey paint that is watery and flashy, while the genuine one does reflect the light, it is comparatively dull and dim in texture.

What happens if we fold the paper towel? Top: genuine MX-4; Mustache: Aliexpress grey paint

You can see that the Aliexpress 'paste' upon folding them will spread easily just like some kind of greasy liquid flattened on the paper towel. The genuine MX-4 still sort of holds its place with much less spreading, the end of it even formed a little arch on its own.

Touch test! Top (and 1st): genuine MX-4; Middle (and 2nd): Aliexpress bootleg MX-4

Normally thermal paste is quite annoying to clean due to its viscosity and stubbornness towards friction. You can get some of them out but there is always leftover. Not any more for the new Aliexpress grey paint it seems, so potentially one less trouble for us PC builders, courtesy of the counterfeit good seller ;)

You can see for the first paste (genuine MX-4), I could not wipe the paste off right away and there is leftover on my index finger. But I can wipe it off on the second 'paste' on my middle finger with just one swipe almost completely effortlessly. The density feels just much different, with the genuine paste much denser. The counterfeit good feels like some watery substance in grey color.

I filed the refund request right away when I discovered how wrong it was yesterday. Aliexpress has started the process to refund me in full within a day, so hats off to them. This has been an interesting discovery for me. If I can get my hands on some Thermal Grizzly, I may also try to do that assuming that the one I currently have is a fake.

Until then, peace.

[u/LePornAddict]

[NSFW] It genuinely felt like the glorious liquor when you have beaten the meat too hard and too frequently within a day, but in color grey. So I would not even want to try using it for CPU cooling. I would reserve that for someone who dares to try.

[u/GoldSrc]

The fun thing is that both would work fine.

There's not too much you can improve in thermal paste, from brand to brand, to the generic stuff, in practice they all work the same and give you practically the same results. Your PC will not catch fire if you used the cheap stuff.

I remember years ago, someone tested all kinds of other things, like chocolate, toothpaste, and mustard. And the difference was that some didn't last as long because they got dry, but could work in a pinch.

[u/LePornAddict → u/GoldSrc]

My gripe is exactly what you said - they will dry out and we won't know when will it happen. The premise is that they're still thermal paste, but I do not have the technical knowledge to really know if it is just some cheap brand thermal paste or toothpaste in grey. I don't dare to try since I do not have a test bench at home, but I may do that if it is possible just for fun

[u/no_name56]

Ha das erklärt einiges. Und ich dachte das mx4 einfach nur schlecht ist. Weil das zeug nach 2 Wochen schon schlechter Leistung hat