Thermal paste review.

[Denithor]

Goop review.

Actually, the straight tap water worked best...

 

[Idontcare]

Some of those alternatives aren't likely to be non-conductive, a requirement that the commercially available pastes are expected to adhere to.

I personally tried the "no paste" option after lapping both my IHS (Q6600) and HSF (tuniq) and my max temps with small FFT was no different than when I used AS5 and TX2.

I used the TX2 anyways because it just felt wrong and wreckless to have nothing in there.

It was an interesting review you linked. The author kinda went off on a tangent there in the middle ranting about chart scaling and all. Yikes, save the drama for the blog and comment sections please :laugh:

 

[LOUISSSSS]

so no thermal paste can be comparable to having the perfect amount of thermal paste? wow...

my next rebuild i'm going to try puttin the thinest of thin layers of AS5

 

[soccerballtux]

Oh my.

 

[SickBeast]

Whoever put tap water on their CPU is nuts.

IMO their testing methodology must be flawed. Silver has the best conductivity of any element AFAIK. There's no way that toothpaste could outdo it.

 

[Idontcare]

Originally posted by: SickBeast
Whoever put tap water on their CPU is nuts.

IMO their testing methodology must be flawed. Silver has the best conductivity of any element AFAIK. There's no way that toothpaste could outdo it.

It's only nuts to put tap water on your IHS if you put so much on there that it spills down over the side and into the socket so as to short the pins.

There's nothing detrimental to come from putting water on the IHS, it is made of meta and is more electrically conductive than water.

Yep, silver is better than copper is better than gold is better than aluminum for thermal conductivity.

My suspicion is that during their limited testing period the "pastes" which have volatile components were evaporating and aiding the cooling efficiency of the entire IHS/TIM/HSF heat dissipation ensemble. No doubt water helps in this regard. But it isn't sustainable as the volatile components aren't recaptured and cycled like a heatpipe would do, so eventually the pastes would become cake and no doubt the thermal conductivity would decline dramatically.

The author has, IMO, a classic case of the "just enough knowledge to be dangerous, not enough knowledge to be value-add" in this "review".

 

[SunnyD]

I wonder about a thin layer of ethylene glycol...

 

[biostud]

....toothpaste and vegemite might work as long as there's water in them, but when they dry up I doubt the will be efficient.

 

[taltamir]

Here's the honest version.

If all this is new to you, then I strongly recommend you get yourself a copy of How To Lie With Statistics.

It's informative. It's useful. It teaches you exactly what the title implies, and along the way also teaches you how to use stats to tell the truth, should you for some reason wish to.

While I'm on a roll, allow me to also recommend The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, which not only makes you look smarter than Yoda if you leave the hardcover lying on your coffee table, but is also approximately one million times more interesting than the title might suggest.

It is, however, good if thermal compound doesn't dry out. Ordinary cheap white grease will, in time. It's also good to get compound that comes in a neat little syringe instead of a hard-to-meter tube (which typically leaves you putting far too much of the stuff on and then cleaning it up) or a treacherous little bag (which can explode inside the CPU cooler box before you even open it, as has happened with a couple of the coolers I've had for review).

 

[LittleNemoNES]

Originally posted by: biostud
....toothpaste and vegemite might work as long as there's water in them, but when they dry up I doubt the will be efficient.

Ding Ding Ding

 

[Denithor]

Water has a much higher specific heat than silver/copper/aluminum (5-20x more) so it can absorb more heat energy before increasing in temperature. It is also a single phase so the heat will be transferred most efficiently between the two metal surfaces (CPU & HSF).

Unfortunately water also has a bad habit of conducting electricity (but then again - so does AS5 & the Cu-based pastes) and tends to evaporate when you heat it up (which the traditional TIMs won't).

Does make me curious about how EG or PG would work though. Of course, they're rather thin liquids and wouldn't stay where you put them for long (especially with a vertically mounted CPU).

I also wonder if there could be a way to put circulating water loop directly onto the CPU (so the water is in direct contact with the IHS). That should be the ultimate in cooling (unless you like LN2 or something extreme).