Testing and results
Results
Each thermal compound was applied in turn and left for three days curing time. To see what effect the curing had, I took readings every day. As each compound was left for 3 days, you can see this review took over three weeks of work to produce! To conserve time, however, two rigs were run simultaneously, the P4 and the Athlon setups. The test rigs are shown below:
| |
AMD
System |
Intel
System |
| Processor |
1800XP |
2.4GHz Northwood |
| Cooler |
Noise Control Silverado |
Thermaltake Spark (full speed) |
| Motherboard |
Epox 8K9AI |
Abit BH7-R |
| Graphics Card |
Hercules 9700Pro |
Hercules 9800 Pro |
| Hard Drive |
Maxtor 80GB 7200rpm |
Maxtor 120GB 7200rpm 8MB |
| Power Supply |
Enermax EG651 550W |
Enermax EG651 550W |
| Actual V-Core |
1.61 - 1.62V |
1.49 - 1.51V |
On the first day for each compound, temperatures were recorded after one hour of setting time. The results are shown below:
| Day One AMD Results |
Idle |
Load |
| Arctic Silver 2 |
43.5 |
51.5 |
| Arctic Silver 3 |
43 |
51 |
| Arctic Silver Céramique
|
43.5 |
51.5 |
| OCZ Ultra |
44 |
52 |
| Shin-Etsu |
43 |
51.5 |
| Vapochill Compound |
43.5 |
51 |
| Generic Soyo Paste |
46.5 |
55.5 |
| Day One Intel Results |
Idle |
Load |
| Arctic Silver 2 |
38.5 |
43.5 |
| Arctic Silver 3 |
37.5 |
42.5 |
| Arctic Silver Céramique
|
38 |
42.5 |
| OCZ Ultra |
38.5 |
43.5 |
| Shin-Etsu |
38 |
43 |
| Vapochill Compound |
37.5 |
42.5 |
| Generic Soyo Paste |
39.5 |
46 |
As you can see, after the first day of testing, the clear leader of the pack is Arctic Silver 3 and surprisingly enough the Vapochill compound from Asetek. It seems that, even though the primary purpose of this paste is to make a water-tight seal, it also doubles as a mean thermal compound. Special mention must also go to the new Céramique - Arctic Silver's new inexpensive paste. It is only half a degree off its illustrious cousin. When applied properly, it just goes to show what a difference using decent paste makes - the generic rubbish is some 4 degrees behind on the AMD platform and a similar amount behind on the Northwood. At this point there is little to separate the compounds when comparing cross-platform - the same 2 pastes work best on both platforms.
| Day Two AMD Results |
Idle |
Load |
| Arctic Silver 2 |
43.5 |
51 |
| Arctic Silver 3 |
42.5 |
50.5 |
| Arctic Silver Céramique
|
43 |
51 |
| OCZ Ultra |
43.5 |
51.5 |
| Shin-Etsu |
41.5 |
49.5 |
| Vapochill Compound |
43 |
51 |
| Generic Soyo Paste |
47 |
56.5 |
| Day Two Intel Results |
Idle |
Load |
| Arctic Silver 2 |
38 |
43 |
| Arctic Silver 3 |
37 |
41.5 |
| Arctic Silver Céramique
|
38 |
42 |
| OCZ Ultra |
38 |
42.5 |
| Shin-Etsu |
36.5 |
40.5 |
| Vapochill Compound |
37.5 |
42 |
| Generic Soyo Paste |
41.5 |
48 |
After a day and a night of Sandra thrashing, the pastes have had plenty of time to start settling down. The big mover of the pack is the Shin Etsu, surging forwards from mid-table obscurity into a clear first place. This was not something that I expected at all, but the results are entirely reproducible on both platforms. The performance of most of the pastes improved after a day of heat, except for the generic paste which actually became even worse. This is because it was a particularly runny example- not good. Again the Céramique performs exceptionally well, keeping up nicely with the ASIII.
| Day Three AMD Results |
Idle |
Load |
| Arctic Silver 2 |
43.5 |
51.5 |
| Arctic Silver 3 |
42 |
50 |
| Arctic Silver Céramique
|
42.5 |
50 |
| OCZ Ultra |
43 |
51 |
| Shin-Etsu |
39.5 |
47 |
| Vapochill Compound |
43 |
51 |
| Generic Soyo Paste |
47 |
56.5 |
| Day Three Intel Results |
Idle |
Load |
| Arctic Silver 2 |
38 |
43 |
| Arctic Silver 3 |
37 |
41.5 |
| Arctic Silver Céramique
|
38 |
41.5 |
| OCZ Ultra |
38 |
42.5 |
| Shin-Etsu |
34.5 |
38.5 |
| Vapochill Compound |
37.5 |
42 |
| Generic Soyo Paste |
41.5 |
48 |
After a second full day and night of thrashing, most of the pastes have only marginally improved, apart from the Shin Etsu which once again has dropped by a full two degrees. That makes it a staggering 9.5 degrees better than the generic rubbish (which has stabilised) and three full degrees better than Arctic Silver III and Céramique.
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