Any reason I shouldn't use standard heatsink compound on AMD CPU?

[NeoPTLD]

Should I install an Athlon XP 2400+ using the standard white heatsink compound? This is the industry standard and have been around for decades.

I personally feel that Arctic Silver is just a snake oil meant for retail profit.

 

[mechBgon]

Since the interface is small and has to conduct a fair amount of heat, you don't want stuff that dries out quickly. Is your thermal compound high-quality stuff?

Bigger picture: last I knew, there was only one thermal grease that AMD approves if you want to preserve a retail CPU's warranty, and that's the Shin-Etsu 751 stuff IIRC. You can read into that whatever you want to, but the fact that only one thermal grease is AMD-certified seems to underline the position that not all thermal greases are equal.

 

[Zebo]

Snake oil that runs processor 6-10C cooler. Snake oil that once you have a tube will last years and I biuld systems at least once a month and swap stuff all the time. Snake oil it's imppossible to not have if you're a serious over clocker who pumps high Vcore though thier chips.


But since this is a CPU forum I say standard compund is just fine if you're a vanilla builder.

 

[joe2004]

Shin-Etsu is as good as Artic Silver but as said if you are tinkering with processors often (I do) then you need some thermal paste and AS is as good as they go plus it is really cheap.