which is best thermal paste or thermal strip for a c orb & thunderbird

[mikerand]

I am setting up a system with a 1 gig thunderbird kt7a mobo and a chrome orb
should i use the thermal strip (this may not be the right name for it) or remove it and use
thermal paste instead? which cools better?

 

[kaitain]

If you're talking about that lump of plasticine on the bottom of certain brands of heatsink (eg the Orb), it's rubbish - scrape that stuff of right now and use some silver paste - if, like me, you scratched up the bottom of your heatsink doing this, you'll probably want to polish it off with some 600-grade emery paper first...

 

[Mikewarrior2]

How about just using hte default pad. The heatsink doesn't perform all that well with 1ghz T-birds, so changing pastes isn't worth the money if you're gonna stick with the orb.


Mike

 

[Viperoni]

The orbs sucks so bad I doubt better paste will make the temp difference worth it.

 

[kaitain]

The default pad is more of an insulator than a conductor - it's about 0.5mm thick and doesn't have the best thermal conductivity in the world. I agree that the orb isn't great, but there's no point in compounding its problems by using a lousy thermal compound. Besides, you only need the thinnest layer of paste (barely visible) to achieve the best results, so there'll be more than enough left for when you decide that the orb isn't up to it and get a more efficient HS/F

 

[Mikewarrior2]

Actually, the pad melts to form a better/thinner layer at 58C. hence the name PCTC.

It also outperforms Radio Shack Grease.



Mike

 

[mikerand]

If the orb isnt good what would be better?
I noticed some like the Taisol CEK733092,
or how about the global win32...

 

[Mikewarrior2]

if you're looking for quiet/low cost, the CEK733092 is awesome.