What is good thermal grease/paste?

[Noriaki]

I've heard Radio shack has good thermal grease/paste, do they have more than one kind and how much does it cost?

I'm going to head over there today and pick up some grease, what should I look for on the package?

 

[BurntKooshie]

their thermal paste is the baseline material. It works, and is cheap. It is by no means the best. The really good stuff is "artic silver", and you will not be able to find that at radio shack. I think you can only find it online. I've seen several benchmarks with different pastes, and this one has always come out on top.

 

[Frenchie]

Link

 

[Noriaki]

hmmm weird...I wonder why I've heard so many people talking about how great Radio shack thermal grease is.

Maybe I'll try out this Arctic Silver stuff, thanks for the link.

 

[DaddyG]

Noriaki,

Radio Smack is fine for Pee3's and Celermines, they only put out in the region of 20watts. Tbirds put out more than 50watts at the higher speeds and silicone based thermal greases just can't handle the heat. The dry out faster than a keg on a Friday night.

 

[Noriaki]

Hrmm
I have an Athlon Classic .25um
I have a feeling it will put out a fair amount of heat yes?

maybe I should look into the arctic silver.

 

[Frenchie]

Arctic Silver has the best heat transfer rate of any thermal compound on the market....plus it is not electrically conductive unlike other silver or copper compounds. If you are going to overclock and have a nice HSF, why not get a nice thermal compound to take the best advantage of the HSF?

 

[dkozloski]

The stuff that comes free with an Alpha cooler is decent.

 

[Noriaki]

Well I'm ordering an Alpha P7125? Does that come with decent heat transfer grease? Or should I buy some arctic silver?

Edit:
hmmm that arctic silver is said it's made for Socket type CPUs.

Do I need artic silver on the heattransfer plate of my SlotA athlon?

 

[pac1085]

Take off the heatplate and put the AS right on the core will help alot.

 

[Frenchie]

There are two types of Arcic Silver: 1 for small contact areas (eg. flip chips and the like) and 1 for larger contact areas (slot 1, socket 370, etc.). Only real difference is the consistency.

 

[Noriaki]

<< Take off the heatplate and put the AS right on the core will help alot. >>

Hmmm no

So I should get the artic silver for large areas, and put it between the copper plate on the P7125 and the heat transfer plate on my Athlon and this will help lower core temp some?

And how many applications worth of grease comes in one 6.5 gram tube of the grease ? (6.5 gram from one of the links you sent me to)

 

[Frenchie]

You get lotsa applications outta one tube. I ahve done at least 5 cpus and three or four chipsets and still have a majority of the tube left.