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silicon thermal compound

mushroom3

Member
Hi, I was wondering how generic thermal paste perform. I recently ordered a kingwin rvt-12025 but no thermal paste, is the stock one fine? I heard that it oxidizes the copper of the heatsink.
 
The diffrence between the thremal compounds is only a couple of degrees or so. The diffrence is even smaller when your compairing one silver based compound to another. When your talking about ceramic vs. silver then you have up to 4 degrees between them. Silver being better then the ceramic.

Ceramic= White
Silver= Grey
 
This doesn't answer your question directly, but that's already been done. I personally use ceramic for EVERYTHING that doesn't have an integrated heat spreader or anytime sub-freezing temperatures may occur. The ceramic is non-conductive and more stable than the inexpensive silver compounds. There are some non-conductive(electrically) metal based compounds on the market I have not however personally tested their performance levels. I have a slightly hard time believing the 4* number, not because it's unlikely but, because it's too precise. Is that 4* on an Athlon, Athlon XP, Athlon 64, Athlon 64 X2, Pentium, Pentium Pro, Pentium II, Pentium III Pentium 4, Core, Core Duo, Core 2 Duo, Core 2 Quad, Opteron, Xeon, Itanium, etc? And what model, at what speed and what voltage? In what case with what heatsink and how much ram and what video card and with how many hard drives? With what fans at what speeds? Or is it water cooled? And is that 4* idle or load or case and at what ambient temperature?

The bottom line is their going to be a little on the warmer side but, quite frankly, not enough to rule out all the other factors from the equation, all the way down to how well it's been mounted.
 
Most companies include a decent TIM with their heatsinks these days. At least initially, I always use whatever comes with and haven't been disappointed. But I've not had a Kingwin (or other of the many similar ones) yet, so I have no specific input to provide. Brasso or similar tarnish removers can reverse or remove any tarnishing that may happen.

.bh.
 
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