I bought a 30g tube of generic thermal compound from DealExtreme for about $3 a while ago. I stick to MX-2 for my more important hardware (although my Zalman heatsink came with a tube of STG-2 so I used that), but for everything else the generic stuff works fine, and since it was dirt cheap I don't have to worry about wasting a bit or doing frequent reapplications. For that matter, I haven't actually measured the difference between that and my better paste, so for all I know it might be performing just as well.
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