Thermal Paste: AS2 vs AS5 or Other?

J

justapix

Weaksauce
Joined
Jan 14, 2005
Messages
92
Forgive me it’s been a long time since I've built a system, Almost 5 years....

What Thermal Compound should I use when attaching my Heat Sink?

I have a half used tube of Arctic Silver 2 from 2005, does that stuff go bad?

The Thermal Compound from that comes with the Scythe Mugen 2 heat sink, is it any good?

or should I grab some Arctic Silver 5 from Fry's? Or something else?

This is going to be a gaming and living room machine, (yes I built this because my 4yo laptop cannot handle portal 2) Probably doing some overclocking just to see what numbers I can get, but then dialing it back down because I mostly want this to be a fairly silent machine for watching movies on Netflix and other video files I have acquired.

Please let me know if I left anything out, like I said it's been awhile since I have built a PC.

System Specs:
Antec 300
Enermax 1000
DVD-WR
HITACHI Deskstar 5K3000 2 TB
AMD Phenom II X4 3.2GHz
MSI 870-G45 AM3 AMD 770 ATX
CORSAIR XMS3 8GB DD3 1333
Sapphire Radeon HD 6950 2GB
Scythe Mugen SCMG-2100
 
IC Diamond, I can get you a free sample just PM me your name, email, and address. All we ask is you post the results out here. Or you can buy it onl;ine or at MicroCenter
 
Most of them are within the margin of error for performance. You can use what came with the cooler and it will be fine. Otherwise something like MX-3 is a good choice. AS5 (not sure about AS2) is capacitive, so you don't want to get it on anything else, but most of the newer pastes are non-conductive and non-capacitive, so you don't have to worry about making a mess.
 
Falcon_CMH I sent you a pm thanks for the offer!

Forceman I had forgotten that AS2 was capacitive, thanks for the heads up on that, and I appreciate the other info as well, and will probably use the thermal paste until the IC Diamond gets here and I we can see how the two stack up!

I guess the next question would be what works best for removing thermal paste? Acetone?

And do people pretty much recommend the using a pea size amount of paste and then applying the heat sink instead of spreading a thin layer across the CPU?

Thanks again!
 
Arctic Silver actually makes a very good TIM remover. It's 2 bottles, 1 cleaner & 1 purifier.
 
I found NH-T1 to be better than MX-2 by a degree or so. There's so many to choose from these days but they are all within a few degrees of eachother so it doesn't really matter all too much. I'd still recommend MX-2/3 though.
 
Well,since you got the IC Diamond from Falcon then my suggestion is no longer necessary.

But Noctua NT-H1 and Thermalright CF-3 is good.better than AS5.
 
mannyman, I thought you were supposed to see a reduction in temps not gains!?!

But seriously any words of wisdom worth imparting regarding ICDiamond application?

What was the temp differential you saw?

thanks again guys!
 
justapix said:
mannyman, I thought you were supposed to see a reduction in temps not gains!?!

But seriously any words of wisdom worth imparting regarding ICDiamond application?

What was the temp differential you saw?

thanks again guys!
Click to expand...
I think he meant the gain performance of TIM a.k.a reduction of temperature.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top