Spacers......worth it?

[Justin]

Yeah i saw some spacers for an athalon and i was just wondering if anyone here likes them.....i mean can they drop temps signifigantly? should i pick one up?.....i know they increase surface contact but nothing ever works perfectly all the time.

thanks all

[jeff_harrison_344]

1st of all it is now proven to increase the temps (but only by 1C). And I have a spacer, because it will decrease the chances of cracking your core by a LOT! The way I look at it is I could either get a spacer for like 8 bucks, or save a whopping 8 bucks, but somewhere down the line I may end up losing a LOT more then 8 bucks buying another proc :)

[UnseenMenace]

Jeff_harrison_344 basically gave you the full information but forgot one thing, if you do decide to try a spacer obtain a non-conductive one as consuctive shims can also short out your CPU if it moves.

I also have a shim (copper), but it sits on my shelf gathering dust with a Orb

[Phil]

They are most definately worth it until amd toughens up it's core. I would sooner loose a degree or so to heat than a chip or two to the thing trying to help with that heat.

[William]

i think a non conductive shim is totally worth the price. Its a pretty solid $10 insurance policy.

[taz1004]

Justin (Jun 17, 2001 08:24 a.m.):
Yeah i saw some spacers for an athalon and i was just wondering if anyone here likes them.....i mean can they drop temps signifigantly? should i pick one up?.....i know they increase surface contact but nothing ever works perfectly all the time.

thanks all

I think you have wrong idea about spacers. They don't increase surface contacts. Sounds like you were trying to apply thermal paste on top of the spacers. No no no.

Spacers (or shims) are basically for protecting your CPU core. It has no effect on temperatures. Some say it increases temp but it wasn't on my case. Even if it does, it's so small that it's trivial. First time I put on these heatsinks on T-Birds, I was surprised by the amount of force needed to get these things on yet I kept hearing how fragile these cores are. We hear so many people who cracked the core while putting heatsinks on and off especially with badly designed heatsink clips that it is good idea to get one for $10. Especially if you never put heatsinks on AMD processors before. www.coolerguys.com carries a good non-conductive shim.

--BrianC