Jeff7181
11-13-2003, 07:03 PM
$6 shipped for 3.5 grams from Best Byte (http://www.bestbyte.net/)
I couldn't resist trying this... it's been a month or more since I've done any tinkering, so I figured this would be an interesting test. Also I needed to clean out my computer thoroughly, so it was one of those 2 birds with one stone kinda things =)
ANYWAY...
People asked me about it's ease of use. Initially it's more difficult to work with if you're use to how easily AS3 spreads... AS5 is significantly thicker... I would best describe it as a cross between peanut butter and chewing gum. It takes a little more time to spread evenly across the core (I use a credit card... for those of you who use plastic bags over your finger, that will no longer be possible with this stuff). But because it's thicker, it's not as easy to slop over the edges of the core onto the substrate... however, it also makes it more difficult to spread, so the novice may slop MORE on to make it easier to spread evenly.
I put some on the base of the heatsink and tried to work it in with a plastic bag over my finger, and it's extremely difficult, AS5 WILL NOT spread out easily like AS3 does... it almost rolls up like silly puddy when you try and spread it with your finger... so... I wiped the rest off with my finger covered by the bag. Which was amazing to me... didn't even need alcohol to clean it off! But... it was rather difficult to get off, required a lot of time... so I reapplied some from the bag and decided to see how easy it was to take of using isopropyl alcohol and cotton swabs. It cleaned up instantly, no rubbing, no work at all, just ran an alcohol soaked swab over it, and it lifts right off and sticks to the swab.
The moment of truth came once I reassembled everything. I briefly checked BIOS temps right away to make sure the heatsink was properly seated, and it was, so I boot into Windows and start writing down temps =)
Here's the before temps...
(diode/socket/ambient case temp)
Idle: 51/44/21
SETI@Home after 30 minutes: 58-60/53/21
Here's the after temps...
(diode/socket/ambient case temp)
Idle: 48/40/21
SETI@Home after 30 minutes: 51-53/48/21
I'd like to point out that this is with a 2.3 Ghz Barton on 1.725 volts with an SK-7 heatsink and 80mm 3500 RPM Panaflo. The significance is not the actual temperature measurements, but the DIFFERENCE between the before and after measurements.
Cleaning out the case and the heatsink probably contibuted some... I'd guess 2 degees since that's what I normally see when I clean things out. So, that leaves an average of 5 degrees C measured from the internal diode. Not bad for just changing thermal compounds!
I was asked to rate AS5 on a scale of 1-10... so I decided to rate both AS3 and AS5 so you can get an idea of what I think of the two compared to eachother.
AS3
Application: 9
Clean up: 7
Effectiveness: 6
AS5
Application: 7
Clean up: 9
Effectiveness: 9 (we'll see how it's performing after it's break in period and 2-3 months down the road, supposedly AS5 is not subject to thermal pumpout)
Is Arctic Silver 5 worth the $6 for the 3.5 gram tube? ABSOLUTELY
I couldn't resist trying this... it's been a month or more since I've done any tinkering, so I figured this would be an interesting test. Also I needed to clean out my computer thoroughly, so it was one of those 2 birds with one stone kinda things =)
ANYWAY...
People asked me about it's ease of use. Initially it's more difficult to work with if you're use to how easily AS3 spreads... AS5 is significantly thicker... I would best describe it as a cross between peanut butter and chewing gum. It takes a little more time to spread evenly across the core (I use a credit card... for those of you who use plastic bags over your finger, that will no longer be possible with this stuff). But because it's thicker, it's not as easy to slop over the edges of the core onto the substrate... however, it also makes it more difficult to spread, so the novice may slop MORE on to make it easier to spread evenly.
I put some on the base of the heatsink and tried to work it in with a plastic bag over my finger, and it's extremely difficult, AS5 WILL NOT spread out easily like AS3 does... it almost rolls up like silly puddy when you try and spread it with your finger... so... I wiped the rest off with my finger covered by the bag. Which was amazing to me... didn't even need alcohol to clean it off! But... it was rather difficult to get off, required a lot of time... so I reapplied some from the bag and decided to see how easy it was to take of using isopropyl alcohol and cotton swabs. It cleaned up instantly, no rubbing, no work at all, just ran an alcohol soaked swab over it, and it lifts right off and sticks to the swab.
The moment of truth came once I reassembled everything. I briefly checked BIOS temps right away to make sure the heatsink was properly seated, and it was, so I boot into Windows and start writing down temps =)
Here's the before temps...
(diode/socket/ambient case temp)
Idle: 51/44/21
SETI@Home after 30 minutes: 58-60/53/21
Here's the after temps...
(diode/socket/ambient case temp)
Idle: 48/40/21
SETI@Home after 30 minutes: 51-53/48/21
I'd like to point out that this is with a 2.3 Ghz Barton on 1.725 volts with an SK-7 heatsink and 80mm 3500 RPM Panaflo. The significance is not the actual temperature measurements, but the DIFFERENCE between the before and after measurements.
Cleaning out the case and the heatsink probably contibuted some... I'd guess 2 degees since that's what I normally see when I clean things out. So, that leaves an average of 5 degrees C measured from the internal diode. Not bad for just changing thermal compounds!
I was asked to rate AS5 on a scale of 1-10... so I decided to rate both AS3 and AS5 so you can get an idea of what I think of the two compared to eachother.
AS3
Application: 9
Clean up: 7
Effectiveness: 6
AS5
Application: 7
Clean up: 9
Effectiveness: 9 (we'll see how it's performing after it's break in period and 2-3 months down the road, supposedly AS5 is not subject to thermal pumpout)
Is Arctic Silver 5 worth the $6 for the 3.5 gram tube? ABSOLUTELY