Should I use a shim or thermal compound?

[c27]

I have decided to upgrade my computer using an AMD XP processor. I plan on ordering an SK6 high performance fan to keep my CPU nice and cool. Should I use a shim between the CPU and fan or should I buy a high quality thermal compound like Silver Arctic II? I am new to socket CPU's, so I need to know what is the best solution to use. Thanks.

 

[Mikewarrior2]

Use the grease...

Shims do not function as thermal paste.. .they do not replace or enhance thermal paste... IN fact, if your heatsink is moutned correctly, shims at best do nothing for cooling and at worst actually hurt cooling performance.



Mike

 

[CStroman]

This is definitely not a "or" situation. It's either thermal grease or both.

SK-6s are good heatsinks. My temp difference between idle and load is only about 2°C.

Since you are new to socket cpus, you might want to buy a shim anyway, if you are nervous about crushing your core. If you do, make sure you get one made for the athlon xp, because those chips have lower dies. A shim made for a tbird would not allow your heatsink to touch the die at all, and you'd have a fried chip.

One more thing, with the Athlon XP (with any athlon, actually,) you should most definitely buy a motherboard that uses ddr, rather than sdr.

 

[c27]

It sounds like going with the AS II will be the best bet. As far as my motherboard goes, I plan on purchasing an ABIT KR7A-RAID which does support DDR. Thanks for the info.

 

[FlowerMan]

I would highly recommend purchasing a shim. It will practically guarantee that you do not crack the core due to poor installation techniques. An $6-8 investment is well worth spending on a $170+CPU.

Again, thermal compound is a MUST.

 

[Laz]

Actually the shim for XP and standard Athlons are the same thickness, what is diffferent between the two is the thickness of the packaging (ceramic one is thicker), the other difference is the cutouts for the the bridges. If you use a non conductive shim there will be no problem, if it's conductive it will have to be cutout for the XP or you will short the bridges. I'm using my non conductive shim from my Athlon on my new XP and have no problems with it, if you plan on using a heavy or massive heatsink I would recommend using the shim as it will be easier to install and later remove the heatsink. I've installed about 20 Athlons without shims but on my own machine I use a shim as I tend to remove and reinstall the heatsink often