It matters a ton

Submitted by DRAGONWEEZEL on Fri, 05/29/2009 - 2:17pm

It matters a ton when a few degrees matter.  Recently I had gotten a core i7.  (TY JAY!)  I had the stock HSF, scraped the crap off, smothed it down, and applied ceramique I had from like a 5 yr old tube.  crazy temps.  Idling in the 50's... load temps were... KickASS if you needed to fry something, but otherwise not so cool.  Switched to AS5 and I took 10 degrees of the top of idle, and dropped my load temps to the low 70's.  (stock HSF) 

Now the stock HSF for core i7 blows, so I'm looking at getting a new one, probably a zalman cnps9900 (I think thats the model?) but I gotta score some dough from a few computer clients first. 

THERE ARE ONLY 11 TYPES OF PEOPLE IN THIS WORLD. Those that think binary jokes are funny, those that don't, and those that don't know binary

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Innovation Cooling Diamond 7

Submitted by Avan on Fri, 05/29/2009 - 10:33am

AS5 is not the top dog anymore. You all need to read this thread on the XS forums. It's a 33 page thread with TONS of testing of the IC Diamond7 versus many other. It beats AS5 almost everytime. It's a long thread, but very much worth the read.

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=182778

Enjoy

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Correction:

Submitted by kiaghi7 on Thu, 05/28/2009 - 1:43pm

"In the world of thermal compounds, it used to be Arctic Silver and everyone else."

 

Correction: It's STILL Arctic Silver and everyone else.

 

This isn't to say you can't buy perfectly good thermal compounds that aren't Arctic Silver, but the market share and name recognition alone simply make it an Arctic Silver world, and everyone else is just playing in it.

 

As to this specific brand, it may well be a fine product, but you should NEVER EVER EVER buy thermal compound because they give you more of it... You shouldn't be using much of it to begin with! 

 

Your heatsink should practically be a mirror finish on the base and it should also be perfectly flat in both axis (machined/lapped bases are your friend). When applying the compound itself, a small portion barely larger than a grain of rice is quite typically sufficient for your needs. Remember it is NOT the thermal compound that cools the PC, it's the heatsink, the compound just allows a more complete and cohesive connection BETWEEN the CPU and the heatsink. More is NOT better, and more can very literally be a detriment. Once applied, it should be spread just enough to be opaque and cover the necessary area of the chip, any excess is exactly that, EXCESS to necessity.

 

The smallest Arctic Silver tube could/should easily be able to do multiple CPU's or a single CPU multiple times, so for them to market "but we give you lots more" is rediculous. It's like the old joke:

 

Two old ladies are in a restaurant, and one says to the other "This food here is terrible", to which the other lady responds "And such small portions!".

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article

Submitted by Caboose on Thu, 05/28/2009 - 11:23am

 Should MPC do an article about the different types of thermal compound, hopefully they would do both AMD and Intel CPU's (pick the most mainstream of the two). And also proper and suggested cleaning methods

 

-= I don't want to be dead, I want to be alive! Or... a cowboy! =-

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Too late in the game...

Submitted by Alphadog on Thu, 05/28/2009 - 8:59am

Too late, in my opinion.

Gelid is trying to intice with potential buyers by offering more product that its competitors.  However, I doubt that this paste is any different than most competitors in its class.

Arctic Silver 5 has been around for so long that I doubt many veteran OCers would switch to a new brand.  Heck, I have a 3 1/2 year old tube of AS 5 paste that's still at least half full. 

I would have to read more reviews (MaxPC article?) that compares the various popular compounds and their thermal tests before considering making a switch to another brand.  If Maximum PC does an article, it would be nice to see the temperature readings for a proc/fan combo that still uses a thermal pad and then move up the thermal compound (quality) ladder from there.  I think the temperature difference would be small--perhaps 1-3 degrees difference.

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Arctic Silver 5 or bust for

Submitted by DoctorX on Thu, 05/28/2009 - 8:15am

Arctic Silver 5 or bust for me.... never has failed me and one tube lasts a long time.

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Here in our lab we use

Submitted by BinaryMonkey on Thu, 05/28/2009 - 7:20am

Here in our lab we use Arctic Silver or Type Z9 depending on how often we're doing CPU swaps.

Arctic Silver is good if a CPU is staying in a board for more than a week while Type Z9 is great when you're constantly throwing CPUs in and out of boards.

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 I primarily use Arctic

Submitted by Caboose on Thu, 05/28/2009 - 6:59am

 I primarily use Arctic Silver 5 thermal paste. it seems to work well and as long as you don't goop it on, the risk of shorting out your system is pretty slim. I've also tried the Ceramique, but found that the curing time was too lon, and found it didn't spread as nicely as others.

 MPC should do an article on proper thermal paste application and cleaning, and rate some of the top brands!

 

-= I don't want to be dead, I want to be alive! Or... a cowboy! =-

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I used Arctic Silver, but I

Submitted by three6mafia1665 on Thu, 05/28/2009 - 6:54am

I used Arctic Silver, but I doubt different thermal compounds could cause a very significant difference. Hmmm. I smell article! I'd bet even chepo generic thermal compound from Radio Shack would work comparably.

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