AMD Recommended Thermal Pastes ??? Please Help with Advice.

[SleepyTim]

Hello everyone. I am just getting ready to build a new system, and I have a T-Bird 900, and an Alpha PAL-6035. The place I bought it included some silicone based themal goop, but it's just a tiny little packet, and I don't see any numbers or anything on it, telling me what it is. I have heard that silicone stuff is not very good anyway. Is that true?

And somebody told me there was a page of "AMD Approved" thermal compounds but I looked and I can't find it. I found the "AMD Approved heatsinks" but no thermal materials.

I know you will probably say "Get Artic Silver", but I am buiding my new system tonight/tomorrow, and its not available anywhere at stores where I am.

And here is the other thing. I am not going to be overclocking (don't yell at me), and I just want to put the Alpha PAL 6035 on there with some good pastes, keep that T-bird 900 cool, and forget about it.

So what should I do?

Is that little packet of silicone stuff (not Alpha's) that came with my heatsink from K&D Computers good enough?
It says "SIL More, Taiwan. Silicone Compound 3ml" on the packet.

The only store I have by me is Fry's Electronics and they do have several different kinds of thermal paste.

What should I look for?

And does anybody know where/ or have the list of AMD Approved thermal paste?

Please give me advice.

Thanks.

 

[KouklatheCat]

The stuff i used with my ALPHA PAL was from 2CoolTek. Part number ARCTIC1 Artic silver thermal compound. I dont kno if it AMD "Approved" but works great.

 

[flyfish]

Silicon is an insulator, not a conductor! If you are going to use something make sure it is thermal conductive.

 

[mechBgon]

If the silicone grease is white, it's surely a thermal grease with an oxide filler. Go ahead and use it. If you want to try something else, Radio Shack has their thermal paste too, it's only about $2 and has always worked well for me, even for overclocking, but I think it's probably approximately the same thing as what you have now.

I have an Abit BP6 with a temperature sensor that touches the underside of the CPUs (dual Celerons with Alpha 6035's), so a meaningful difference in the abilities of the heatsink compound would have been detectable as a lower CPU temp. Replacing the Radio Shack thermal compound with Circuitworks silver-based grease (next-best to Arctic Silver, supposedly) didn't lower the temperature appreciably... 1 degree Celcius.

 

[thermite88]

<< And somebody told me there was a page of &quot;AMD Approved&quot; thermal compound >>

Yes, AMD published such a list as follows:

AMD validates thermal interface materials for socketed
designs. A list of suggested materials tested by AMD is
provided in Table 3.

Table 3. Suggested Thermal Interface Materials

Vendor, Interface Material, Material Type

Chomerics T725 Phase change
T443 Phase change
Bergquist 200U Phase change
300U Phase change
Shin-Etsu G749 Thermal grease
G750 Thermal grease
Ferro TG5125 Thermal grease
TG051-17 Thermal grease
Furon 1055 Phase change
1060 Phase change

You can find more of the detail at the AMD web site.