Thermal Paste

[x2 3600 rules sazakky]

http://www.pccasegear.com/inde...ge=index&cPath=207_163

Thats where I'm going to get it from. Which one is the best.
I'm considering the noctua nth1, ceramique or ocz freeze.

 

[taltamir]

MX-2 is the best right now, Arctic Silver 5 second best.

Mixing your own paste from diamond dust is extremely dangerous to your health, and can cost you 50$, but will be significantly better then both of these.

 

[x2 3600 rules sazakky]

Originally posted by: taltamir
MX-2 is the best right now, Arctic Silver 5 second best.

Mixing your own paste from diamond dust is extremely dangerous to your health, and can cost you 50$, but will be significantly better then both of these.

isnt ceramique better than mx2

 

[Cutthroat]

Originally posted by: taltamir
MX-2 is the best right now, Arctic Silver 5 second best.

Mixing your own paste from diamond dust is extremely dangerous to your health, and can cost you 50$, but will be significantly better then both of these.

Or you could just buy some IC Diamond 7 and avoid the hassle and health risk of making your own thermal paste.

 

[dakels]

Most reports I have seen, show AS 5, and AS ceramique to be the best.

 

[TaylorTech]

So how much more effective is diamond over silver?

Cause I've got a 1/2 used tube of AS5 at my house right now. Hell if the diamond stuff is only $7 and worth it I'll just buy that.

 

[DCGMoo]

Originally posted by: Cutthroat

Originally posted by: taltamir
MX-2 is the best right now, Arctic Silver 5 second best.

Mixing your own paste from diamond dust is extremely dangerous to your health, and can cost you 50$, but will be significantly better then both of these.

Or you could just buy some IC Diamond 7 and avoid the hassle and health risk of making your own thermal paste.

+1 :thumbsup:

It's a tad bit more expensive than typical TIMs ($6.99 + $6.99 S&H), and harder to find (only 6 U.S. websites carry it, and NewEgg isn't one of them) but diamond is significantly more conducive a substance than silver or copper, and I've seen various reviews recommend it as being as-good-or-better than MX-2 or OCZ Freeze.

http://www.hardwarelogic.com/n...2752/1/2008-03-03.html
^ Thorough comparison of TIMs, including all of pastes named so far (including AS5, so you can compare what you have now)... just about any paste I've seen on the market was included in the comparison

WORTH NOTING... if you buy a heatsink at FrozenCPU.com as well, you can "add-on" the IC Diamond 7 for $6.99 and get FREE S&H. I did this when I found the Xigmatek S1283 on sale for $32.99 plus $10 rebate a week or so ago... and shipping time was under 3 days.

Moo.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I'm still of the opinion that proper application of TIM is more important than the type of TIM that you use. AS5 has the benefit of being fairly resilient against drying out, compared to standard white paste. I wouldn't bother with diamond paste, it doesn't make enough of a difference to matter.

 

[taltamir]

Originally posted by: Cutthroat

Originally posted by: taltamir
MX-2 is the best right now, Arctic Silver 5 second best.

Mixing your own paste from diamond dust is extremely dangerous to your health, and can cost you 50$, but will be significantly better then both of these.

Or you could just buy some IC Diamond 7 and avoid the hassle and health risk of making your own thermal paste.

from what i read it is not as good as MX-2 and Arctic silver... which makes sense since it costs 50$ in RAW MATERIALS to make as much as a 7$ tube of their diamond paste.

EDIT: the link you provided shows it beating the other thermal compounds... I think it is a newer type of diamond formula then the one I read about.

7$ buys you 4grams of MX-2 or 1.5grams of that IC 7 carat... and the 7 carat is better actually.

So yea, it is the best safe method (you would have to be crazy to mix your own diamond compound).

 

[Quiksilver]

Originally posted by: taltamir

Originally posted by: Cutthroat

Originally posted by: taltamir
MX-2 is the best right now, Arctic Silver 5 second best.

Mixing your own paste from diamond dust is extremely dangerous to your health, and can cost you 50$, but will be significantly better then both of these.

Or you could just buy some IC Diamond 7 and avoid the hassle and health risk of making your own thermal paste.

from what i read it is not as good as MX-2 and Arctic silver... which makes sense since it costs 50$ in RAW MATERIALS to make as much as a 7$ tube of their diamond paste.

EDIT: the link you provided shows it beating the other thermal compounds... I think it is a newer type of diamond formula then the one I read about.

7$ buys you 4grams of MX-2 or 1.5grams of that IC 7 carat... and the 7 carat is better actually.

So yea, it is the best safe method (you would have to be crazy to mix your own diamond compound).

I think your thinking of the old arcticle someone posted last year sometime of some home-made diamond thermal paste which did not better than as5. ICD7 came out a few months later after than and was showing improvements over other thermals compounds. Then earlier this year they gave our a bunch of free ICD7 to users to test and they had to report their results which most of the time users noticed an improvement.

Anyway as far as I am concerned the best thermal compounds on the market are (these aren't in any order).

Innovation Cooling Diamond 7
Arctic Cooling MX-2
Arctic Silver 5
Tuniq TX-2
OCZ Freeze
Shin-Etsu

I think there's one other but I can't think of the name at the moment.

 

[taltamir]

well now... I am now totally tempted to remove the MX-2 from my CPU and try IC Diamond 7..

Although, I already removed arctic silver 5 from it when I upgraded from the E8400 (i used a special removal liquid, ArctiClean, it does work).

I wonder how effective removal compounds will be for diamonds? mmm... don't diamonds melt in vinegar or something? is it safe to apply a droplet of vinegar to the CPU mating surface?

Anyways, supposedly none of the compounds comes close to lapping your CPU and cooler though...

 

[Cutthroat]

I was one of the Team Anandtech members who did the testing with ICD7, our results are here. I found it lowered my temps by a few degrees over Shin-Etsu X23.

The other TIM that belongs in that list is TIM consultants T-C Grease 0098. I have yet to find or try any though.

Another good TIM review is Benchmark Reviews 33 way TIM comparison.

 

[OSWiz]

I use Tuniq TX-2; easier to use than AS5 and a couple degrees better. ThermalRight Ultra-120, TX-2, S-Flex 120mm fan = 4.1 @ 1.4875 CPU temp max load = 63C.

 

[sonnygdude]

Originally posted by: taltamir
well now... I am now totally tempted to remove the MX-2 from my CPU and try IC Diamond 7..

Although, I already removed arctic silver 5 from it when I upgraded from the E8400 (i used a special removal liquid, ArctiClean, it does work).

I wonder how effective removal compounds will be for diamonds? mmm... don't diamonds melt in vinegar or something? is it safe to apply a droplet of vinegar to the CPU mating surface?

Anyways, supposedly none of the compounds comes close to lapping your CPU and cooler though...

In removing thermal paste, you have to figure out what is useful in removing the binder. thermal paste is a suspension of particles which are chosen for their high K values (coeff. of thermal conductivity) in a binder. the reason it's a suspension is that materials of high K tend to be very rigid. In order to get them to flow and fill air gaps you have to use tiny little partices and put them in a binder that flows. Most of the common materials used for particulate are pretty much impervious to any solvent you could realistically throw at it - what you are trying to do is clean up the polymeric binder that holds all the particles together.

Also, for this reason you need to end up with as thin a layer of paste between your chip and cooler as possible - the paste is only there to reduce contact resistances between the chip and cooler as much as possible. It's bulk thermal conductance is probably less than 5-10% of your base heatsink material, so the thicker layer you use, the more insulation you are in effect creating between your chip and HSF

Oh - and don't worry about damaging or dissolving diamonds - they are one of the most chemically inert substances known to man, and neither vinegor nor anything else I'm aware of will dissolve them! As a matter of fact, they would make the ideal heatsink material if you could fabricate them in large sizes because they have extremely high thermal conductance but are not electrically conductive. If you could somehow get the die right ont a diamond substrate, the heat would get out of there in a hurry!