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.
