[lostshoe420]

Someone told me to get the Artic 5 Thermal Paste and I accidentally added the new thermal compound ceramique to my wishlist...which do I want for my barton 2500+ rig

Arctic Silver's NEW Premium High-Density Thermal Compound: Ceramique . 2.7-gram( ~0.8 cc. ) tube.

or

Arctic Silver's NEW Premium Silver Polysynthetic Thermal Compound: Arctic Silver 5. 3.5-gram( 1 cc. ) tube.

I'm sure this has been answered, but I'd have no idea how to search for it, and you guys could probably answer it in a second.

[Korndog]

both are great, silver is slightly better, slightly more expensive.
i personally like/use the ceramique myself because i'm anal about conductivity, ceramic is after all non conductive.
the silver 5 is made to be non conductive, but, again, i'm anal about these things..

[CCW]

Ive never tried Ceramique but from reviews ive read, AS5 is apparently better, AS5 is designed to conduct heat and not electricity Korndog so even though yourr "anal" about these things you should be Ok if it someone manages to get somewhere its not meant to go, it shouldnt short anything. Theres a link to my AS5 review in my signiture.

Craig

[Korndog]

i've fried more stuff with AS3 then with my water cooling.
although thats not AS5, i still have the right to be anal about silver compounds. When the synthtic oils in AS are gone, AS does become conductive. when i went to replace AS3 every 3 months, i would find try, electrical conductive, lacking in thermal conductivity, paste. I had never exceeded the operating temp of the compound, but i did have a lot of heat going though the compound (2.2v vcore, 700+mhz, hours of game play). i continued to use it because it alumina wasn't that great. Although they say the new AS5 does not do that, i remember reading that the AS3 didn't either. But i could be wrong of course.. when i do get it, i'll give it the stress test from hell and if it passes, then i won't be so anal.

[Big_Baller]

I'm pretty sure that AS5 (or atleast AS3) does conduct enough well enough to mess with things if you like spead it all over cpu of somthing.

I'd get ceramique if you have serious problems following directions or are unable to apply it to the cpu without squeezing the entire tube on your processor. But of course the differences temp wise are small. I have AS5. On the extra plus side AS5 is cutting edge (a few more months newer than Cermaique) You arn't going to notice anything like 50mhz more or anything i bet between the two.

Get AS5.

[Silversinksam]

Originally posted by Korndog
i've fried more stuff with AS3 then with my water cooling.
although thats not AS5, i still have the right to be anal about silver compounds. When the synthtic oils in AS are gone, AS does become conductive. when i went to replace AS3 every 3 months, i would find try, electrical conductive, lacking in thermal conductivity, paste. I had never exceeded the operating temp of the compound, but i did have a lot of heat going though the compound (2.2v vcore, 700+mhz, hours of game play). i continued to use it because it alumina wasn't that great. Although they say the new AS5 does not do that, i remember reading that the AS3 didn't either. But i could be wrong of course.. when i do get it, i'll give it the stress test from hell and if it passes, then i won't be so anal.

I'd like to know how you concluded it was the paste that fried your 'stuff'. BTW, It's capacitive not 'conductive' regarding any and all metal based pastes. Sounds to me like you fried your gear squeezing possibly to high an overclock or other possible factors.

Stress testing from hell is your problem most likely and the paste probably has nothing to do with your fried gear.

[Hookem]

Well I dont know about all the business going on around here...But I will tell you one thing for sure...Artic Silver 5 kicks Ceraminque in the teeth...Yeah...Yeah...Yeah...AMD will not warranty a processor with AS III on it...And probably wont with Artic Silver 5...Dont know...And to tell you the truth dont care...Artic Silver 5 kicks Ceraminque dead in its ass...No if and's or butt's about it...No pun itended of course... ...Funny thing is we are talking about peanuts...Artic Silver anyting, is 9 times out of 10 head and shoulders above the competition even at its very worst...

[Korndog]

well, the one i'm positive about is when.. i had AS3 on my gpu heatsink for about a year and a half, i decided to reapply. it wasn't easy getting the the heatsink off (damn good contact) but i was able to side it off. i didn't even notice that some of the AS had wiped off on top of some resistors. after reapplying, blah blah blah, card didn't turn on, after inspection, i wiped off the AS that i found, put it back, got a bunch of artifacts, not even bios readout was clear enough to read.
Luckly i had changed heatsinks on the gpu and not simply wipped off on boths sides so i had a took the old heatsink and tested a some with the conductivity senser i had made in physics. (it was primitive, but i upgradity to digital before testing) it read out a slight conductivity, put some fresh AS3 next to it and it read 0..
i've also had an old CPU twich from some AS3 and a 2100+ pally die from it, but with little proof.

btw, i was never able to overclock my old graphic, nor was i able to overclock my old processors, i started water cooling for noise. i've never killed anything by overclocking because i'm 'anal' about temperatures and voltage.

[CCW]

Korndog, if you slid the heatsink off then the AS3 on the card is your fault anyway. Its not the AS3's fault that you accidently or not got it somewhere that it shouldn't be. I've noticed that once AS3 has had some burn-in on a graphics card it can be very difficult to remove the heatsink on there however I have never killed the graphics card in question. Why? You need to take time, if you work slowly twisting the heatsink gently why applying pressure to the graphics card (holding it down) the heatsink will come off after a little bit of twisting. Sliding the heatsink off sideways is guaranteed to cause problems, where the heatsink wouldve been making contact there will be bit of AS3 "dangling" from the Heatsink that may be stuck on the card. The death of this card was caused by your carelessness it seems.

Craig

[Hookem]

After all this...I aint got nothing to say...

[Korndog]

um.. did i blame Artic silver for my carelessness? no.
am i claiming that the paste becomes conductive after long term use. yes.
if AS had said "this will become conductive after long term use" or "this will become conductive when overheated" then i would have not brought it.
but when i didn't see that and saw something close to the oppisite
"Arctic Silver 3 was formulated to conduct heat, not electricity. It is only electrically conductive in a thin layer under extreme compression."
gee, don't remember putting pressure on my resistors..
i don't blame AS for kill my stuff, i know it was my fault, also it would have died anyways because i was using copper paste before i got AS3 which was just scary..
I wouldn't be complaining now if they would have said that it maybe me slightly conductive instead of "only electrically conductive in a thin layer under extreme compression" .. as if it would never happen.

Now the ceramique on the other hand says 'electrical insulator' which it in fact is, thus i use it, and thus i trust it.
you guys can attack me all u want on this topic (AS3) and Hopfully i'll get better results with AS5, and atleast they mention a possiblity of conductivity, but i'll be stress testing for long term use under high temps.

[Hookem]

Well I am not attacking anybody...But Artic Silver 5 is the best thermal, paste, grease, voodo juice, magic two ball compound, what ever you want to call it, I have seen...Tried them all and it wins hands down...Second place is about 2 to 3 degrees C behind...And in the greasy world I speak of...That is hands down, the easiest decision anyone would have to make...Just call me a "Artic Silver 5" fanboy...Hey...Try it!!! Who knows you just might like it!!!! Hey everybody is doing it !!!

[CCW]

Hookem, I agree totally, and after being sent some for review i used up my AS3 by sticking it on my Northbridge, Southbridge and Graphics Card GPU.

Craig

[Korndog]

actually, second best is 1 degree behind, but in the long run it doesn't matter.
Toothpaste does better then AS, but no one uses that, now do they? Thats simply because toothpaste only lasts a day or two before the waterbase dries up. That makes AS better obviously, a lot better. With that in mind, rating a thermal paste should include both thermal conductivity aswell as lifetime of use.
I've personaly grown tiried of replacing AS3 every 2 months, thats why i got ceramique even though i have 2 tubes of AS3 left.
so like i said before, i hope AS5 lasts longer then AS3 when i try it, personally i believe i'll get same results (lifetime wise, not temp wise!!)

[Susquehannock]

I haven't tried AS5 yet, but I have tried Ceramique
and I still prefer the Shin Etsu compounds. (G-751 - X23)
After using those diamond based TIM's I'll never go back
to that nasty staining Silver stuff.

From what I have read AS5 stains everything similar to
how AS3 does. So I've been reluctant to try it.
Is this true?

[mattmolson]

i just wanna add that if you choose artic5,use it, and then remove hs for whatever reason,changin,whatever it is difficult to clean the old sh*t off.take your time, be thorough with your cleaning and be aware that that slight stain around your chip is just an abrasion mark on the pcb as anything with particles of any size is abrasive to some extent.

[Big_Baller]

Seeing how your always looking at the bottem of your heatsinks I can see why staining could be a problem....

[Silversinksam]

Originally posted by Korndog
um.. did i blame Artic silver for my carelessness? no.

Actually yes you did, well you implied it when the fact is, it was user carelessness.

Originally posted by Korndog
i've fried more stuff with AS3 then with my water cooling.

In your situation you should stick with Ceramique, its a good paste and almost as good as AS-5

[Susquehannock]

Originally posted by Big_Baller
Seeing how your always looking at the bottem of your heatsinks I can see why staining could be a problem....

Everyone's a cynic.

If you are testing different pastes against eachother you must
remove all the previous compound so as not to taint your results.
But I suspect you already knew where I was coming from.

Originally posted by mattmolson
i just wanna add that if you choose artic5,use it, and then remove hs for whatever reason,changin,whatever it is difficult to clean the old sh*t off.take your time, be thorough with your cleaning and be aware that that slight stain around your chip is just an abrasion mark on the pcb as anything with particles of any size is abrasive to some extent.

I would disagree. Is the stain on my finger an abrasion?

If anything the particles would just be pressed into the surface.
Unless of course you rub the stuff back & forth several times.
But why do that?
If there is no lateral movement there will be no abrasions.

Nah, AS3 just stains everything it touches.

[Leviathan41]

http://www.overclockers.com/articles885/

Here's an article, seems to favor Ceramique slightly over AS5. Both are good though.