HeatSink cream

[hishamelprince]

Can any one tell me whats the use of the white subestance that placed between the heatsink and the CPU, and whats gonna happen if i didn't put it?
Thanks

 

[raincityboy]

Text

enjoy

 

[hishamelprince]

Thanks, but i also wanna know what will happen if i dont have it?

 

[Baked]

Originally posted by: hishamelprince
Thanks, but i also wanna know what will happen if i dont have it?

If you're so curious, why don't you try it and report back to us when your CPU fries?

 

[JEDIYoda]

Originally posted by: hishamelprince
Can any one tell me whats the use of the white subestance that placed between the heatsink and the CPU, and whats gonna happen if i didn't put it?
Thanks

First of all what type of heatsink?
Second I have many many top of the line heatsinks and when they do come with thermal paste all of them came with a dark coloered thermal paste that was of a very good quality!!

 

[hishamelprince]

Originally posted by: Baked

Originally posted by: hishamelprince
Thanks, but i also wanna know what will happen if i dont have it?

If you're so curious, why don't you try it and report back to us when your CPU fries?

i'm already using the heatsink with out this thermal paste for almost a year and nothing happend.
The point of my question is i want to know the difference.
Thanks

 

[Baked]

List your system spec first. The difference between thermal paste and no thermal paste is temperature. Modern CPUs will throttle back the clock speed to prevent themselves from frying.

 

[hishamelprince]

ok here you go:
2.8/1M/533
512 MB RAM
160 GB HDD (2x80)
128 GeForce fx5200 AGP 8X

 

[hishamelprince]

And CPU temberatue now is 45 C

 

[Hidden Hippo]

The thermal paste increases the ability of the heatsink to conduct heat away from the processor. That is the only real purpose. I believe it works by creating a conductive layer which makes contact with all of the CPU, whereas with no paste, a small defect in the heatsink may mean that a certain part of the processor is not being cooled, causing damage.

 

[SparkyJJO]

The bottom of the heatsink is not going to be perfectly flat so there can be very tiny air pockets. Enough of them and the efficiency of the sink is compromised. Thermal grease/goop/whatever you wanna call it fills in said air pockets and helps with the heat transfer. Result is lower temps. I wouldn't even think of running my current system without the stuff, I don't want to know what the temps would be.

 

[Baked]

Ok I get it now, you're using the stock HSF which includes the TIM pad. You only need 3rd party thermal grease if you using a special HSF and plan on OCing.

 

[JEDIYoda]

Originally posted by: Baked
Ok I get it now, you're using the stock HSF which includes the TIM pad. You only need 3rd party thermal grease if you using a special HSF and plan on OCing.

You do not need to use any other thermal paste than that which comes with a third party heatsink. Most 3rd party heatsinks come with thermal paste that is as good as AS5!!!

 

[RallyMaster]

as soon as i read the title of the thread, my mind said "splooge!"

but yes, you should definitely apply thermal paste. otherwise you run the risk of frying something if it's a hot chip 😛

 

[cmdrdredd]

Originally posted by: JEDIYoda

Originally posted by: Baked
Ok I get it now, you're using the stock HSF which includes the TIM pad. You only need 3rd party thermal grease if you using a special HSF and plan on OCing.

You do not need to use any other thermal paste than that which comes with a third party heatsink. Most 3rd party heatsinks come with thermal paste that is as good as AS5!!!

I wish you'd stop blasting people with this statement. How would ArcticSilver stay in business and people use it and report that it's better than the Thermalright, Gigabyte, Coolermaster, Zalman TIM...if it wasn't in fact superior in some way?

 

[gamefreakgcb]

Originally posted by: cmdrdredd

Originally posted by: JEDIYoda

Originally posted by: Baked
Ok I get it now, you're using the stock HSF which includes the TIM pad. You only need 3rd party thermal grease if you using a special HSF and plan on OCing.

You do not need to use any other thermal paste than that which comes with a third party heatsink. Most 3rd party heatsinks come with thermal paste that is as good as AS5!!!

I wish you'd stop blasting people with this statement. How would ArcticSilver stay in business and people use it and report that it's better than the Thermalright, Gigabyte, Coolermaster, Zalman TIM...if it wasn't in fact superior in some way?

Exactly, ofcourse others are just now coming out with better paste, AS5 is pretty old so its a solid one in my opinion.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Originally posted by: gamefreakgcb

Originally posted by: cmdrdredd

Originally posted by: JEDIYoda

Originally posted by: Baked
Ok I get it now, you're using the stock HSF which includes the TIM pad. You only need 3rd party thermal grease if you using a special HSF and plan on OCing.

You do not need to use any other thermal paste than that which comes with a third party heatsink. Most 3rd party heatsinks come with thermal paste that is as good as AS5!!!

I wish you'd stop blasting people with this statement. How would ArcticSilver stay in business and people use it and report that it's better than the Thermalright, Gigabyte, Coolermaster, Zalman TIM...if it wasn't in fact superior in some way?

Exactly, ofcourse others are just now coming out with better paste, AS5 is pretty old so its a solid one in my opinion.

It's also cheap here locally for me. I can get it at shows for like $.99+tax.

 

[Zap]

Originally posted by: cmdrdredd
How would ArcticSilver stay in business and people use it and report that it's better than the Thermalright, Gigabyte, Coolermaster, Zalman TIM...if it wasn't in fact superior in some way?

I'd say the "better" part is on the order of a degree or two, but the difference between using any compound and not using any at all is much larger. IMO when people who are using something else "switch" to Arctic Silver and find a huge difference, what they are seeing is the result of cleaning out their HSF and a fresh and properly applied layer of paste, rather than the Arctic Silver itself.

For your reading pleasure regarding "cream"

Is fancy thermal goop as good as the manufacturers would like you to believe, and as various Junior Overclockers do believe? Nope.

Is it, therefore, a complete waste of money? Absolutely not.

Just be aware that it's not magic, and don't expect the most expensive stuff to work very much better than generic grease.

Some stats from the link:
nothing at all 0.66º C/W
generic Zinc Oxide goop 0.50º C/W
Arctic Silver 3 0.50º C/W
Arctic Alumina 0.50º C/W
Cooler Master PTK-001 compound 0.48º C/W
Cooler Master HTK-001 compound 0.50º C/W
Nanotherm Blue 0.50º C/W (after curing)
toothpaste 0.47º C/W
Vegemite 0.48º C/W
water 0.41º C/W

Now argue all you want, I'm just presenting the results of one person. Of course no matter how good water is, as soon as it dries up you go back to 0.66º C/W. The end conclusion of the article was that you want to use heat transfer compound - WHAT to use doesn't matter. The reason is even though it's no better than anything else, it was designed to last a bit and (in most cases) be easy to deal with.