Arctic Silv 5 is the best?
Now that it's been out for a while and some have used it. Is Arctic Silver 5 the best for CPU's? Or is ceramique (not sure if spelling is correct) better? Getting ready to put my SLK-900A's on. I read the threads on this, but wanted a definitive answer on it from someone who has used it and has seen the proof. I want my CPU's to be 
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If you're the kinda guy who missed the bowl every time he tried to pee, you should definately consider the ceramique. It's too gooey, and it looks a lot like poo.
That's about as technical a response as you can get. :Pwned:
Anyway, I stopped 'upgrading' my thermal paste when Ceramique came out. I think it's plenty easy to apply, the thickness prevents it from getting all over stuff that's not the processor core, it doesn't stain the chip like the silver does, and it's not capacitive like AS3/5 are, so you can't short stuff out by using it.
The new tech, and Peltier, pull hotter ions up against the plate. Silver has more than the liquid it is in, so you get an ionic attractive flow plus a surface lead on the Peltier to gen the flow resulting in a "surfacing" of silver against the ionic plate, then a semi-electrolytic plating result when you use a metallic HS compound. Silver is hotter than surrounding fluid, ions result from heat caused excitation, silver molecules rise against gravity in part due to hotter and in part due to ionic charge transformation by ionic field generator, and then the things bond to the ionic field generator plate where ionic field leads are on surface on plate. Both fact that hot stuff rises and the ionic charging play into this problem.
Silicone and ceramics are more ionicly stable when heated, grease by nature allows denser things to flow through it, and the ionic field flow pulls the metallic molecules against it. The ionic field is like a very modified magnet, pulls metal stuff against itself. Probably more mag field thing than a heat per se thing, until you take into account that Peltier, when case is upright, is vertical, so less gravity effect as it is a horizontal pull.
You are seeing what happens over time with a normal HS compund, the greasy stuff eventually vaporizes in large part. That is why Ceramique "cakes" and why the AS folks started using silver in ceramic suspension. The ion flow just makes this "plating" effect happen lots faster.
I am trying to explain this in basic terms, but it is also why solder works, you get a molecular bond-- in essence, you got a thin plating that is similar to what you ideally want with silver based solder as far as bonding goes; silver molecule content flows through the rosin flux. Ion field is attractive to metal in this case, and acts like a mag field does. If you reverse the field to get a metal expulsive field, you get a poor cooling, in fact you get a HEATing effect (field actually transfers heat to the attractive side by ionic flow, and that means you need the attractive side to the CPU to pull heat away from it), so that is not possible.
As far as removing Ceramique, you can use pure Isoprophyl Alcohol(like 91% or 99%) or a no-residue contact cleaner/degreaser meant for electronic use and that will take most of it off fairly easily. The best of the latter kinds of things(degreasers\flux removers\contact cleaners) are toxic as heck, you want a good air flow to even considering using those. I would not use them at home, but Iso works reasonably well if you really soak your rag in a small area and then wipe some off, then rewet a different part of the rag, then wipe, and repeat until the Ceramique is all off.
John.
If you WARM the tube first, it flows a bit better. It is denser, yes, ceramic is denser and you have to use more than you do metal to get good heat conductivity. BUT ceramic is electrically much lower conductivity than metallic stuff. Ceramic also disperses heat better and more evenly, so the combo is is best for a non-Peltier cooling system (AS5 versus Ceramique) if you are real neat with it. AS5 is less dangerous than AS3, but not as electrically safe as Ceramique. I will have some compares over the next month as to how they work as far as "cooling" effectiveness, but for now will have to say that as far as cooling goes AS5 should be at least as good as Ceramique at effectively moving heat if you are very careful not to get an electrically conductive molecular chain going where you do not want it.
John.
Reminds me also of the plating shops--I used to hang around and watch them chrome my bike parts. The vats had electrical charges in them to activate the chemicals and make pretty parts. Well. Enough hijacking my own thread. lol Thnx again all.
That scares the hell out of me to hear. Haven't checked yet but i will do in a fw days i hope. On the other hand, i have been thinking of changing the cooling head if i can get my hands on a Baker block. That would invovle hard-soldering though.
Who told you that? Santa?
Are you the guy who sells that junk?
Normally I don’t post on subjects like this but there is so much misinformation and gross twisting of the facts, that I believe it’s necessary to set the record straight.
Here's a link to the results page of the review quoted by the Spectra Cool eBay add. Things to note about the review:
1) Dated March 18, 1991, it’s almost three years old.
2) The only silver compounds included are the original Arctic Silver and ASII.
3) The review has been discredited because WD40 was used to clean up between compounds. Due to the contamination from the WD40, all compounds tested the same, even the generic white grease that is included with many heatsinks.
4) Spectra Cool was not even tested in this review!
What was tested in the review is GC Type 44. Why is this significant? Because Spectra Cool is Type 44, purchased in bulk and repackaged in a small syringe with a high markup. It’s amazing what people will do to make a buck.
Colin Thompson
Arctic Silver, Inc.
First, most of the reviews that I've seen of various thermal compounds are totally worthless. They use CPUs as heat sources, which immediately invalidates their results. It is impossible to get a consistent heat output of known value from a CPU, at least with the tools available to virtually all enthusiasts. Intel or AMD can do it in their labs, but they have tools that we do not.
So, the only valid reviews of heatsinks, thermal compounds, etc., are those that use a fixed heat load of a known value. The most common way of doing this is to use a wirewound resistor that is attached to a heatspreader that simulates a CPU die.
Dan's Data (www.dansdata.com) and Frostytech (www.frostytech.com) are the only two places I know of off the top of my head that use this method. The only one of the two that has done testing on thermal compounds, to the best of my knowledge, is Dan's Data.
Dan of Dan's Data published <a href="http://www.dansdata.com/goop.htm">an article</a> on March 13, 2002, on this very topic.
His results are consistent with what I would expect, and what I've seen in my own personal experiences.
Arctic Silver in particular, and various other high performance compounds, may in fact outperform generic silicone-based thermal grease, but the difference is negligible at best.
I've used Arctic Silver's products for years, and I still do, but I do not think that their thermal compounds are the be-all, end-all solution to heat problems, which people (not here, mind you) sometimes seem to think.
The net effect of switching from generic white silicon-based grease to Arctic Silver might be 1-3*C, if you have a decently powerful HSF. (I would expect a larger decrease from a less powerful HSF, though)
The reason why I use Arctic Silver's Ceramique in preference to "normal" thermal compound is that it's not much more expensive ($6 for 22g), and the performance may in fact be a bit better. But the price premium for AS5 is just too high to justify the negligible (if any) decrease in temperature, IMO.
Geeky, what I look for is consistency and those reviews that use long term runs and average the increase or decrease in reporting. Run a box, use different thermal compounds on same box under same processing load (try 100% load as good) and then change compounds and run same setup under same load for same time. Make time 200 hours or more per compund. See diff in heat dispersion and pattern of change, then average it and show averages, by compound. Average heat dispersed, if same CPU on same motherboard under same load plus or minus a few percent gives you averages that do not shift a lot to induce error that is significant unless the compounds are actually equally effective. temp stayign close to same tells you you have reached limit of compound if you use same exact hardware.
Heat is gened alike by same basic wattage flowing through CPU traces of same CPU under same load. So, you see how the compounds spread or conduct heat faster into same HS with same fan. What you are basicly saying is that too many wavriables have changed, so I have a question-- how many of us have MBM 5 and use same compund and use similar enough heatsinks in dissipation ability and fold and use our computers for at least 200 hours of run time straight through??? How many of those also use same motherboard??? How many of those are willing to log mbm temps and voltages and use same compound themselves for 200 or so hours and contribute that data???
If enough people have enough similar boxes that the fine errors can be dampened by using averages, we can field test the compounds, because heat dissipation capacity of CPU itself is basicly available. My boxes run 24\7 at 97-100% load. I will be using same heatsinks and have used about 3 compounds so far, and the next will be AS5 here. So, in about 1000 hours of runtime I will have some averages for 5 compounds and some ranges over time. Averages dampen out small and fine errors and give you an idea that you can use to make comparative judgements if you take range of change overall into account. If you then figure dissipation over wattages used at 100% load, you have figures for heat sink compound per watt into CPU if you keep things close to same per test globally for large samples. And a large sample test with stats published here would draw those who want to know how to really calc HS effectiveness and see what running boxes 24\7 does to folding prod by team would bring\draw folks to this site.
Already, we have, over the last few days, had on average 3.5 X more guests than members online in forums every time I have checked site. This kind of study would be valuable for this site. Lets do our own study, cooperatively and as a group.
John D.
~Cyrix
Tell you in a month's time. I am going to try AS5 versus Ceramique as I upgrade. In theory dissipation plus conduction of AS5 should be better than just(or mostly) dissipation or just (or mostly) conduction. Ceramique mostly dissipates, AS4 mostly conducts heat. AS5 looks like a combo and it would be interesting to test it.
John D.
The drawbacks to Dan's test are that his synthetic die had a large contact area of approximately 1 square inch (625 sq. mm), the heat was spread evenly across the entire contact area and relatively low power (50 watts) was used for the test.
An actual core on a modern CPU is between about 90 sq. mm and 190 sq. mm. But unlike a synthetic test unit, the heat is not spread evenly across the core. It has been documented that modern CPUs dissipate about 90% of their thermal energy through less than 40% of their top surface area. The cache area for example, dissipates very little thermal energy yet takes up a significant amount of space. The P4's heat spreader and Athlon64's CPU cap actually do very little heat spreading; they just protect the core, keep the heatsink flush and allow higher contact pressure.
The temperature gradients that exist across an AMD or Intel CPU core are well documented and understood by the people developing state of the art cooling solutions. http://www.eetimes.com/semi/news/OEG20031006S0028
If other factors remain constant, every time you double the contact area, you cut the thermal resistance of the thermal joint in half. Conversely, if you cut the contact area in half, you double the resistance of the thermal joint.
So if two different compounds are tested on a large contact area like Dan used and the joint has thermal resistances of 0.05C/W and 0.07C/W (0.02C/W difference) depending on which compound is used, then reducing the contact area in half will increase the thermal resistances to 0.10C/W and 0.14C/W (0.04C/W difference). Cutting the contact area in half again will result in 0.20C/W and 0.28C/W (0.08C/W difference).
Ultimately, the difference that seems so insignificant at the large contact area becomes very significant at real-world contact areas. Dan uses a contact area almost 5X larger than the entire area of the average CPU core and about 12X larger than the contact area of a CPU that actually transfers the majority of the heat. There is no dispute about the accuracy of his measurements, it is just important that people to understand how his data needs to be properly scaled to be relevant to thermal compound performance on an actual CPU.
This is basic science and math and we can use math to scale Dan's test results to where they are relevant to actual CPUs.
THE FOLLOWING ARE BASED ON DAN'S ACTUAL MEASUREMENTS.
Dan measures...
50 watts through 625 sq. mm 0.02C/W Difference
Temperature difference = 1C (0.02 x 50 = 1)
Lets cut the contact area in half .
50 watts through 312 sq. mm 0.04C/W Difference
Temperature difference = 2C (0.04 x 50 = 2)
Lets cut the contact area in half again.
50 watts through 156 sq. mm 0.08C/W Difference
Temperature difference = 4C (0.08 x 50 = 4)
(This is getting close to the actual CPU contact area, but still does not account for some parts of the CPU core being hotter than other parts which would increase the difference between the compounds.)
Now you also have to adjust the differences for the actual power output of modern CPUs which is in the 70 to 105 watt range, not 50 watts.
Adjust for power and you end up at 5.6C and 8C differences at a realistic thermal transfer area of 156 sq. mm and CPU power dissipations of 70 watts and 100 watts respectively.
So ultimately Dan's measurements are accurate, it is just the incorrect interpretation of them that has made his review a favorite of people who want to believe that there is no difference in thermal interface materials.
Nevin House
Arctic Silver, Inc.
1) Welcome to short-media. We value highly technical experts such as yourself around here. Please don't be a stranger
2) That was an incredibly informative post. Thank you!
I wonder what Nevin's thoughts are on AS5 & Ceramique?
~Cyrix