Thermal Compounds

[PC_User]

Which thermal compound do you guys use/recommend? I have heard good things about Arctic Silver 5 and Arctic Ceramique. I need to get a small tube of this stuff for my next build... Any suggestions/recommendations?

 

[Bigbacon]

if I recall, AS5 isn't really recommended because it is conductive. not sure about the Ceramique. MX-2 is suppose to be good.

 

[BlindedByScience]

IMHO, unless you're going for world record overclocks where a quarter of a degree is make or break territory.....there's little difference between them.

I just put a new machine together and I used Ceramique. It's reasonably priced and pretty much as good as any. Score a fresh tube and follow the instructions on AS's web site. Hard to go wrong.

 

[PC_User]

Would a tube of 2.5g of Ceramique be enough for application to a CPU and heatsink?

 

[haffey]

MX-2 > AS5 > Ceramique

 

[Kangg]

MX-2 > AS5 > Ceramique

What he said.

 

[engiNURD]

Didn't we just have a thread like this? Yes... yes we did... http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1397973

Check out the link for another link to a 33-way TIM shootout.

Would a tube of 2.5g of Ceramique be enough for application to a CPU and heatsink?

Yes.

 

[Woofer00]

2.5g of ceramique will last through at the very least 10 cpus, if you don't waste too much. Probably more like 15, depending on the size of the spreader. I have a 3.5g tube of AS5 that I've had for, oh, I dunno, 6 years now? Use it to reseat all my laptop heatsinks and a couple desktops here and there, and the plunger has barely moved.

 

[pxc]

Check out the link for another link to a 33-way TIM shootout.

It's worth linking here too: http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.p...sk=view&id=138&Itemid=62&limit=1&limitstart=3

People go crazy over this, for pretty much no reason. I used up my AS5, but I never saw more than 1C difference between it and lowly $2 for 5g NTE303 (silicon oxide). I prefer NTE303 because it's a snap to clean up and it doesn't dry out.

 

[Woofer00]

any thermal compound is usually better than the compound provided by the heatsink manufacturer or that has been applied by a mass-market retailer like Dell/HP. However, the compound included with heatsinks is getting better as they smarten up. The 33-way shootout article includes some good notes on that.

 

[PC_User]

any thermal compound is usually better than the compound provided by the heatsink manufacturer or that has been applied by a mass-market retailer like Dell/HP. However, the compound included with heatsinks is getting better as they smarten up. The 33-way shootout article includes some good notes on that.

Yeah. I received a tube of thermal compound with my Thermalright Ultra-120 but didn't use it. I think I'll go with the MX-2 that people are recommending, and it's only $2 more than the Ceramique. Thanks everyone.