Is arctic silver really worth that much?

[amuffin]

Since I am going to switch over to a water cooling setup with an xspc rasa kit, would the 10 dollar arctic silver paste be worth it? If not are there any good pastes for watercooling/overclocking?

 

[sosofm]

Here is a benchmark with a lot of thermal pastes http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/Thermal-Compound-Roundup-September-2011/1377/5

 

[amuffin]

Oh wow, so do you think it is worth it?

 

[swifty_morgan]

I used a lot of it. It's good but not worth $10 a tube. It's also conductive. look for Thermaltake white grease/lube. Works better/non conductive.

just looked at newegg. it's not the same stuff i have. says something different on the label. spring for noctua paste.

 

[sosofm]

Ill used Zalman and Zerotherm and are good. If buy Arctic Silver buy http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835100017 is not conductive.

 

[DEVILVSANGEL00]

best non conductive thermal paste is mx 4, artic silver 5 is good but conductive also has a 200 hour wait untill best performance is reached,

if temp is very impoartant to you get the mx 4 thermal paste, if not get the standard stuff,

hope this helps

 

[kinggraves]

Clearly from the thermal paste benchmarks above, chocolate is a poor solution.

 

[delluser1]

Arctic Silver is not conductive, it is capacitive, there is a difference, look it up
http://www.arcticsilver.com/as5.htm
"Not Electrically Conductive:
Arctic Silver 5 was formulated to conduct heat, not electricity.
(While much safer than electrically conductive silver and copper greases, Arctic Silver 5 should be kept away from electrical traces, pins, and leads. While it is not electrically conductive, the compound is very slightly capacitive and could potentially cause problems if it bridges two close-proximity electrical paths.)"

 

[teleaddicted]

Here is a benchmark with a lot of thermal pastes http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/Thermal-Compound-Roundup-September-2011/1377/5

They tested chocolate ?! XD

 

[sosofm]

Yes. And more ...Pink Lipstick ...Spray oil...Toothpaste

 

[someguynamedmatt]

http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=150&Itemid=62&limit=1&limitstart=1

Found it. There's an 80-way thermal compound roundup for you. Enjoy.

 

[jaguarskx]

Overall I recommend AS5. It may take a long time to properly cure, but the most important take away from the linked chart is the difference between room temp and CPU temp of only 33C. Only the Prolimatech Thermal Compound and Tuniq TX-3 performed better; a difference of 32C.

Although not part of the review IC Diamonds is pretty good and I believe it cures in less than 20 hours. However, it costs around $20. It supposedly cools better than AS5 as well.

 

[jerry6]

I use OCZFreeze on all my builds , easy to apply , reasonably priced . So far have not had any trouble with the 8 laptops and 10 desktops I have used ocz freeze on . All have lower temps with OCZ over factory , especially on laptops where they trowel on the paste .

 

[rds1220]

I really like the Timtronics thermal paste. It ranked the best in Toms thermal round up with water cooling. I tried it out and got similar results with a custom water cooling loop.

 

[HEXiT]

thats a pretty poor comparison list there ambient temps are so different they do not represent fairly the conductive heat properties of the compounds...
get a list that has a similar ambient base temp and you will find the list is totaly different... with tuniq-x4 and arctic mx-4 topping the list while arctic silver trails much much lower down... not often do i criticize hardware secrets but this time its a must, because on a more even scale there are a lot of compounds that do a much better job then AS5... dont take my word for it check out toms own roundup.

 

[rds1220]

thats a pretty poor comparison list there ambient temps are so different they do not represent fairly the conductive heat properties of the compounds...
get a list that has a similar ambient base temp and you will find the list is totaly different... with tuniq-x4 and arctic mx-4 topping the list while arctic silver trails much much lower down... not often do i criticize hardware secrets but this time its a must, because on a more even scale there are a lot of compounds that do a much better job then AS5... dont take my word for it check out toms own roundup.

Which one is not good, the one some guy listed or Toms Thermal Roundup?

 

[Deleted member 217926]

I will throw in a vote for IC Diamond. Lowered the temps in my EVGA GTX460 5-7C over stock paste. Only needs a 2 hour cure time compared to 200 hours for Arctic Silver 5.

$5.20 at Amazon.

http://www.amazon.com/DIAMOND-CARAT-GRAM-THERMAL-COMPOUND/dp/B0042IEVD8

 

[amuffin]

Gah, so many to choose from

 

[rds1220]

I will throw in a vote for IC Diamond. Lowered the temps in my EVGA GTX460 5-7C over stock paste. Only needs a 2 hour cure time compared to 200 hours for Arctic Silver 5.

$5.20 at Amazon.

http://www.amazon.com/DIAMOND-CARAT-GRAM-THERMAL-COMPOUND/dp/B0042IEVD8

I wanted to try IC Diamond but I wasn't crazy over how it scratched the heat spreader and heatsink. 4Ryan posted this last week and it was enough to make me not want to use IC Diamond. I know it's not that big of a deal but again I don't like that it scratches also it would void your warranty and make re-selling harder.

The picture below is a P4 2.66mhz socket 478 before.

Using IC Diamond Compound and a Q-Tip for a 2 minute circular rubdown.

And the fastest lapping award goes to? IC Diamond! (Crowd Goes Wild)

Now what you are looking at I just did, with a Q-Tip and IC Diamond in 2 minutes.Intel writing is completely gone and the warranty, if this CPU had one.
 
Not that you or anyone would do that to your new under warranty CPU, but just proving you can actually lap your CPU with IC Diamond.
 
What the heck! Below is 5 minutes of fingertip rubbing, you can see the copper beginning to show through in the area of the Q-Tip rubbing.

I was going to lap it all the way to full copper face and ran out of IC Diamond.

 

[amuffin]

So should i spend 5 bucks more for the as5 or go with ic diamond?

 

[Deleted member 217926]

I wanted to try IC Diamond but I wasn't crazy over how it scratched the heat spreader and heatsink. 4Ryan posted this last week and it was enough to make me not want to use IC Diamond. I know it's not that big of a deal but again I don't like that it scratches also it would void your warranty and make re-selling harder.

The picture below is a P4 2.66mhz socket 478 before.
http://i130.photobucket.com/albums/p250/4ryan6/P4PGA4782.png

Using IC Diamond Compound and a Q-Tip for a 2 minute circular rubdown.
http://i130.photobucket.com/albums/p250/4ryan6/ICDiamond2minLapTest.png

A valid point. But the IC Diamond is doing exactly what it is supposed to do, it permanantly fills in the imperfections on the surface of the CPU/GPU. Removing it also removes the imperfections.

Besides, I always either sell my old stuff to a friend or give it to family members. And as a longtime overclocker and builder I have had DOA parts quite a few times but never had to use a warranty on a CPU.

I usually buy EVGA graphics cards and they have the best warranty in the world, covering overclocking and even moding the HSF. The only company that does as far as I know.

 

[rds1220]

A valid point. But the IC Diamond is doing exactly what it is supposed to do, it permanantly fills in the imperfections on the surface of the CPU/GPU. Removing it also removes the imperfections.

Besides, I always either sell my old stuff to a friend or give it to family members. And as a longtime overclocker and builder I have had DOA parts quite a few times but never had to use a warranty on a CPU.

I usually buy EVGA graphics cards and they have the best warranty in the world, covering overclocking and even moding the HSF. The only company that does as far as I know.

When thermal paste is suppose to fill in imperfections it seems like a contradiction that it creates imperfections.

So should i spend 5 bucks more for the as5 or go with ic diamond?

If you don't mind that IC Diamond scratches the heat spreader and voids your warranty than the IC Diamond is fine. If that does bother you than I guess go with Artic Silver 5.

 

[Deleted member 217926]

When thermal paste is suppose to fill in imperfections it seems like a contradiction that it creates imperfections.

That is the whole point of using a Tim........if the metal was perfect there would be no need for it.

It's not creating imperfections, its polishing out the imperfections because it fills them.

 

[HEXiT]

Which one is not good, the one some guy listed or Toms Thermal Roundup?

i ment the 1 where the guy tests toothpaste and chocolate as tims???. http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/Thermal-Compound-Roundup-September-2011/1377/5 . like i said theres to much variance in the starting ambient temps so its not really a level playing field... the higher initial temps means the cooling has to work harder from the get go. because of that you would get a higher variance in performance.

 

[jerry6]

Ran out of OCZ Freeze , now using TIM Tronics grey ice 4200 , looks and spreads just like the OCZ Freeze , temps are exactly the same . Looks like TIM Tronics is my new paste , rates well just like the OCZ and works well .