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Thermal Paste Roundup

@ 2007/09/29

Advances have been made in many fields of computer technology from displays to video cards and hard drive capacities to thermal pastes. So it shouldn't come as a surprise that no self-respecting enthusiast would ever be caught using generic white paste to help cool their expensive computer equipment. Thermal interface material or TIM is something that anyone with a bit of patience and a few dollars can use to help lower the temperatures of their computer's CPU, video card and even their Northbridge. Back in the day it was perfectly acceptable to use the included white paste that came with heatsinks as the heat output of PC's was much lower than it is today. With ever increasing energy requirements it quickly became apparent that this generic goop just wasn't going to cut it anymore. Company after company began developing the next best thing since sliced bread to help aid in heat transfer. With so many different options available from silver particles to diamond dust it is easy to become overwhelmed in a sea of paste. So let us do the work for you. Come with me as I put some of today's most popular TIMs along with the timeless classics to the test against the white goo to see just how much of a difference it can really make.

Comment from Rutar @ 2007/10/07

a bump, one user at the futuremark forums changed 9 month old AS5 applied with the spread method to AS5 applied with the line method and gained 3° on without letting it set in

I'm really curious now for some tested results.

Comment from Rutar @ 2007/10/02

Mythbusters is one of the best shows on TV.

Comment from jmke @ 2007/10/02

thanks for dropping by, excellent work on the thermal goop testing there! please let us know if you do some tests on the "application method"

Comment from The gonz @ 2007/10/02

Thank you guys for taking the time to read my article.
I try to cover the areas that we all know need covering but somehow get overlooked.

I love the idea of testing Spreading vs. Blobbing (very Mythbuster-esque).

Stay tuned for an update to the article!

Comment from jmke @ 2007/09/30

a negligible difference at best

Comment from Rutar @ 2007/09/29

Quote:

Originally Posted by jmke

let's not go too far either

I think a lot of people would love to finally have a comprehensive answer to the "spread or blob" question

Comment from jmke @ 2007/09/29

let's not go too far either

Comment from Rutar @ 2007/09/29

I did, but it still inroduces a variable that is not tested.

Comment from jmke @ 2007/09/29

you can read all the application instructions and reasoning here: http://www.arcticsilver.com/ceramique_instructions.htm

Comment from Rutar @ 2007/09/29

If I look at the CPU results which most likely represent a higher thermal load than the 8600GT and are less limited by the heatsink itself, MX-2 and Ceramique are the winners, especially when considering the bonuses of being stable over time and being non-conductive/non capacitive.

The spread method might influence the results as well, MX-2 had the razor one and the AS products the blob one or the line one and here comes the part that AMAZES me that AS is recommending to do a full line for Intel CPUs and a blob for AMD CPUs.

Comment from jmke @ 2007/09/29

This roundup is quite in depth, tested on both CPU and GPU, at different time intervals (5 min, 1 hour, 72 hours, 5 days) and it shows different results than what we've seen in the past.

Nor MX-2, IC Diamond or Zalman's grease can beat the golden oldie AS5

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