Artic Silver Ceramique

[Force Flow]

At Tin Canary's Suggestion, I picked up a tube of Ceramique thermal compound rather than AS3 or AS5. The test rig was an Asus A7N8X with an Athlon XP 1900+ with a stock HSF stolen from a seperate retail package.

The Ceramique has a slightly different application procedure from AS3 or AS5, so you will need to read up on it from http://www.articsilver.com

My main gripe was that it was a little thick and was hard to pull off a small rice-sized blob of Ceramique. AS3/5 is easier to place on an HSF or CPU in that respect. If you've used a hot glue gun, it strings out similar to that when you lift it off a surface you are gluing. That is definately not something you want to leave around the CPU.

Other than that, application went smoothly. As for the benifits of Ceramique, here they are: It is not electrically conductive, unlike AS3/5. It costs about $5 less then a same sized tube of AS3/5. It appears to be a better head conductor.

My CPU temp was 45'C with the AS3 while idle. With the Ceramique, they dropped to 40'C.

Before purchasing, I looked at a number of reviews, and they said to expect a 2-3'C drop in temps. Looks like I got a good deal here.

I rate it 9/10.

[Hpro]

Having several computers, each of them running either close to 3Ghz or over 3Ghz but not one gets over 50 degrees under full load.
OK that's all P4 CPU ..
Have a P4 Dual XEON 2.8 GHz
Have 2 P4 HT 2.8Ghz & 3.06 Ghz
Have a P4 Prescott 2.8 Ghz 1mb Cache (get's 49 under Full Load)

I use regular Transistor Heatsink Compound.. and never had any heat problems.

I think the quality of heat dissipation is rather on how someone puts the parts - in this case - heatsink - CPU - Motherboard into the Box and how evenly the CPU and the Heatsink connects on their surfaces.. it brings alot more to pay some attention there than spend much money on overpriced heatsink compound.

But that's only my way of thinking and there is no need for anyone to adapt to it.
Happy new year..
Chris

[diacad]

My opinion for what it is worth: "Force Flow" is using Athlon cpu, which runs very hot and has a quite small surface area; just the unprotected silicon die. "Hpro" is using P4, which has a metal cap over the works, a surface many times the size of the Athlon die. Therefore, the heat-transfer concentration is less, and it is possible to get away with silicone transistor grease - no need for fancy stuff. I would not try the grease with an AMD die, since it may bleed out - you should use something more exotic here. I use either a 10% silver preparation (comes in a little plunger applicator) or an elastomer pad, like found on many heatsinks. Both are sold at CompUSA or other similar stores. There is a lot of folklore and opinions about heatsink interface materials; many can be found on another thread in this forum. Generally it's not too important what you choose, unless you are overclocking or have other thermal problems due to case design or lack of fan support.

Careful when seating the heatsink on the AMD die. It is fragile, and you may chip it.