Arctic Silver - Still the paste of choice?

[Zaim]

Arctic silver is still a decent thermal paste (most are), currently I'm using Noctua's own thermal paste which seams to be doing the job pretty well.
http://www.noctua.at/main.php?show=p...s_id=13&lng=en

[SwiftJustice]

Iv'e headed good things about the Noctua paste I have yet to try it out myself tho.

[Gideon]

I usually go with what ever is cheap. I think (although I have no evidence) that some of the cheaper goops dry out quicker than the expensive ones, so they may end up not working so well after a while.

Speaking of the differences in thermal performance, dansdata (http://www.dansdata.com/goop.htm) has an article comparing various substances performace as thermal compound, including vegemite and toothpaste, it is well worth a read.

Nice read but i may not try the vegemite test with an IB

[Jaylesh]

Mx4/2 is my choice, why part with the best

[Am*]

No. AS5 is way outdated and even worse than stock paste that comes on most cheap coolers nowadays. There are much better thermal paste tubes available -- like Noctua's NT-H1, OCZ's Freeze and dozens of others. Regardless of how good it was on the Pentium 4 era CPUs, it is useless compared to the cheaper pastes available nowadays, since it requires cure/burn in time of about 200hrs, is conductive and a pain in the rear to clean off the CPU. Saying AS5 is still the paste of choice is like saying Athlon 64 is still the CPU of choice or aluminium heatsinks with 80mm fans are still the coolers of choice -- it's just not the case.

[watercooled]

I don't think it's as bad as all that in terms of performance, realistically you might get a C or two depending on the paste you choose (probably less difference than variations in application makes), but I agree it's unfavourable because of its other properties; PITA to remove and capacitive/possibly conductive.

[dfour]

Yeah I gave up my arctic silver habbit a few years ago and moved to ac diamond 24 upon a recomendation from a friend. Just as easy to use and no curing or electrical worries with it.
Killed a top of the range radeon graphics card with AS many years ago so was always warry using it after that.

[Greecean]

I moved from AS5 to MX4:

- much cheaper/gram
- non conductive
- available in larger quantities

[=assassin=]

I bought an Akasa Freedom Tower to go with my 875K 2 years ago, and just used the thermal goo that came with it, as the old tube of AS5 I had was virtually dried up. I have to say the generic stuff has been perfectly fine, and temperatures have never ventured above the late 50's celcius when i've ran stress testing apps like Prime 95 and Intel CPU Burn.

[Mini_Me]

I've never used Arctic Silver's pastes, but Im currently using some noctua paste and it seems to work. I was using some cheap diamond based paste which I got from maplin's prior to the noctua paste. The difference was marginal though so I may just stick to cheap pastes that I can find

[dipzy]

For me it has to be the Noctua NT-H1 thermal paste, best i've used so far. Just recently, took apart my GTX460 and put some on there, made a noticeable difference

[csgohan4]

For me it has to be the Noctua NT-H1 thermal paste, best i've used so far. Just recently, took apart my GTX460 and put some on there, made a noticeable difference

+1 To Noctua's Own TIM. It's the best I've used and reviews have shown it's up there with the best. Although in reality the difference between the best TIMS are only a few degrees.

The other good thing about it is you don't need to spread the stuff. just a pea drop and then put the CPU cooler on top. SO you save your credit cards getting Tim'ed

[watercooled]

Yeah spreading it generally creates an unnecessarily thick layer so lower conductivity, and air bubbles, so again lower conductivity. However there are some pastes which are too thick to spread with the pressure of the HS alone, like shin-etsu, but the warming it in some hot water before application usually helps, or you can stop the fan and let the heatsink get warm for a few minutes (keeping an eye on temps obviously).

[MilkyJoe7]

Noctua's paste is excellent

[CivilDrone]

MX4 is the only way forward, silver paste just isnt safe enough or provides anything over mx4

[davew]

MX4 is what I use