TIM ...

[Psi*]

... Thermal Interface Material.

Indigo Xtreme for Intel Core i7 Processors seems to be THE stuff. Although this guy's review is almost more impressive for a substance that I considered Artic Silver 5 to be as good as any. (Talk not about not having a life!)

$20 seems quite expensive, but all of these little tubes of goop do seem too expensive as far as I am concerned. On the other hand, it is one of the least expensive ways to get an extra 2 to 3 degrees cooler ... easily had design or safety margin is usually not a bad idea.

Curing times for each bit of goop is interesting also. You have to wonder how many reviews have been affected by that likely oversight.

 

[2Tired2Tango]

... Thermal Interface Material.

Oh my, here I go again...

Y'know what... way too much is made of this. The best stuff (and no I'm not kidding) is that white stuff you put on your nose to prevent sunburn... Zinc Oxide paste. It's exactly the same stuff you get in those $10.00 a pop 2cc syringes. (Not to be mistaken for Sunscreen... I mean the really thick stuff in the toothpaste tube.)

No it doesn't give you the absolute lowest cpu temperature.
No it doesn't bond the heatsink like those little rubber mats do.
No it doesn't melt and reform with heat like the camphor sticks do.

What it does is LAST. I've taken power transistors off of heat sinks after 10 years and that stuff is still pasty enough to redistribute and re-use... and yep, it works just as good as first time around.

2 or 3 degrees isn't worth sweating over. Most CPUs (etc.) will never reach their thermal limits in normal use unless there is something horribly wrong... It's just not an issue.

Your point about curing times is right on... Most compounds give excellent performance while the carrier (usually corn oil) is still liquid, then as it dries the temperatures creap up, then after it dries and conforms to the surfaces, temperatures will go back down... The only reliable test is to apply the stuff, heat it up for 6 weeks or so then take your measurements.

 

[Psi*]

you mean similar to baby butt creme! HA! zinc oxide, I believe.

I have looked at that back when I had real jobs & worked in a research dept. The stuff we looked at is not the same formulation. BUTT we also never actually gave it the ... smoke test.

I also re-use the stuff.

 

[2Tired2Tango]

you mean similar to baby butt creme! HA! zinc oxide, I believe.

Yep ... so long as it's in a waterproof suspension, it should be fine

 

[Psi*]

mmm uh mmm uh .... respectively 2Tired ... ... and I do not like to wantonly pi$$ money away, but I have to take issue with "being just as good".

I have to see some tests before I caress my $300 or $1000 CPU with baby butt creme.

I have to add that too many of the reviewers have a lot of false science in the review. If they would adhere strictly to the review as a technical report of test results rather than come off as a PhD in material science it would be better and a concise review.

For instance one reviewer of something like 80 different TIMs, commented about the thermal conductivity of copper, aluminum, zinc, & silver. He displayed an accurate table of the thermal conductivities of the metals. What is used in the TIMs are the ceramic or oxide compounds of these metals. That is not the same! This is false science and possible false and biased conclusions at the very least not helping his credibility.

 

[Kougar]

PSI, if you are going to use the TIM for watercooling, you should only look at reviews that test the TIM under watercooling... it will change the results significantly in some cases.

It's why I only use Arctic Ceramique on my WC builds, I saw some huge drops on my GPU core temps between it and Thermalright's very watery TIM. There was an improvement with Ceramique versus AS5 too, but that is to be expected. Arctic Silver designed Ceramique for exactly this reason.

 

[Psi*]

Re-eally!? I can't disagree with you, but doesn't that seem a bit inconsistent?

And, you read me right, I will be water cooling a-a-and OC-ing ... they have served me sufficiently well when I needed the most oomph. It is only later that it becomes a PITA.

 

[Rob Williams]

I have to see some tests before I caress my $300 or $1000 CPU with baby butt creme.

This is, without question, my favorite quote from this forum thus far.

 

[2Tired2Tango]

Originally Posted by Psi*
I have to see some tests before I caress my $300 or $1000 CPU with baby butt creme.

This is, without question, my favorite quote from this forum thus far.

Bet you never thought you'd see those words in that order, eh

Butt seriously (oh gees I'm really gone now) the stuff does work.

But not the stuff for babies... the really thick stuff Lifeguards use is chemically the same as the little tubes Radio Shack used to sell... 8oz for half the price of 1/2oz.

 

[Psi*]

I laugh as I draw you into my ... distorted ... sense of humor ... hoo hoo ha ha haaaa (in a very Halloween way). Although no one ever said I had a good (or is that ba-ad) Halloween laugh.

Not wanting to get rash, or anything. A coworker, back when I had real jobs, did raise the question about the percentage of thermally conductive material as well as the other chemicals that may not be compatible the metals of the device or the heatsink.

In a cooperative spirit I found this link for alternative ... compounds. I look forward to the performance reviews. I think the review could certainly be up lifted and augmented with inclusion of other similar products.

 

[Rob Williams]

How hilarious would it be if breast-enhancement creme happened to make stellar TIM?

 

[Kougar]

How hilarious would it be if breast-enhancement creme happened to make stellar TIM?

I think almost every computer enthusiast would lose their spouse or girlfriends pretty quick if that was true! They'd never be able to explain what they are doing with a tube of breast-enhancement creme when the spouse/girlfriend found it...

 

[2Tired2Tango]

In a cooperative spirit I found this link for alternative ... compounds. I look forward to the performance reviews. I think the review could certainly be up lifted and augmented with inclusion of other similar products.

Yeah well check this out...
http://www.dansdata.com/goop.htm

Arctic Silver got beat out by Toothpaste and Vegemite!

 

[Psi*]

Yeah well check this out...
http://www.dansdata.com/goop.htm

Arctic Silver got beat out by Toothpaste and Vegemite!

Thing 1, Thing 2, Thing 3 ... I thought I was reading a new Dr. Seuss book!

I wonder how they would perform in 3 months or so.

 

[Kougar]

Yeah well check this out...
http://www.dansdata.com/goop.htm

Arctic Silver got beat out by Toothpaste and Vegemite!

Haha, I was looking for that link!

As you touched on yourself though, most items wouldn't retain their thermal conductivity over time... otherwise the best results would be obtained by using pure water as a TIM!

One could point out he used AS3 rather than AS5, or that he didn't allow for any cure time either... if curing wasn't an issue, there wouldn't be any reason to make Ceramique in place of AS5.

 

[2Tired2Tango]

Haha, I was looking for that link!

As you touched on yourself though, most items wouldn't retain their thermal conductivity over time... otherwise the best results would be obtained by using pure water as a TIM!

Well as soon as the water is gone it's just powder so the lifetime is that of the moisture.

That's why most heat sink greases are based on vegitable oils... Corn oil, for example, will actually cure into a rubber like consistency over time...

Actually you'd be amazed how many "exotic" industrial compounds have homebrew equivalents. I used to use this really expensive lubricant on disk drive rails, I think Seagate was charging about $60.00 per ounce in the 70s... One day I'm doing some head re-aligns and I sees one of the other guys rubbing bits of banana peel (yep) on the friction points and of course I freaked out... So he grabs my little tube of grease and shows me the ingrediants... "100% banana oil"... Hmmmmm.... You can also use banana peels to soften and polish leather... but that's another story.

One could point out he used AS3 rather than AS5, or that he didn't allow for any cure time either... if curing wasn't an issue, there wouldn't be any reason to make Ceramique in place of AS5.

I think that's a matter of dates, Kougar... Dan's article is a few years old.

 

[Kougar]

I think that's a matter of dates, Kougar... Dan's article is a few years old.

Yes, but some readers will only see the "Arctic Silver" part and not the rest, so it's worth mentioning.

 

[Doomsday]

lol!! *got nothing smart to say*

 

[Rob Williams]

Actually you'd be amazed how many "exotic" industrial compounds have homebrew equivalents. I used to use this really expensive lubricant on disk drive rails, I think Seagate was charging about $60.00 per ounce in the 70s... One day I'm doing some head re-aligns and I sees one of the other guys rubbing bits of banana peel (yep) on the friction points and of course I freaked out... So he grabs my little tube of grease and shows me the ingrediants... "100% banana oil"... Hmmmmm.... You can also use banana peels to soften and polish leather... but that's another story.

Hah, that's a good one. Kill two birds with one stone.. have a healthy lunch, and save $60 for your job.

 

[Psi*]

Indigo Extreme reflow

So with an apparent issue of $$ burning a hole in my pocket, I spent the $20 for the Indigo Extreme. I am a sucker for this kind of stuff anyway inspite of possible common sense in this thread. But, as I indicated else where in the forums, I am all about getting peoples' opinions. But an opinion is just an opinion! Right? If I don't take it, it is not such a big deal. On the other hand, if someone chooses to argue with you about your opinion that is something else entirely. At least that is me. If you have irrefutable undeniable proof that I might need re-evaluate my opinion ... then I might.

On with the show. I did the reflow per the instructions. On my new system that means unplugging the water pump to minimize heat transfer. Easy enough. Run 8 instances of a burn program on the I7 920 ... I chose "toast". And run SpeedFan to monitor CPU & the core temps. The Idea is to get the CPU temp to ~ 90 deg C. Scary.

Perfect. No problem & text book as seen in the 1st pic below. The 2nd pic shows the temperature rising to 100 deg C!!! Quickly snapping my head 60 degrees to the right I see foaming in the supply tubes on the Swiftech Apogee XT. It is starting to boil!

Of course rather than kill instances of "toast", I plug in the water pump & you see the very rapid drop in temps. I like that as that that was the 1st real test of the WC system.

For reference the width of the temperature window in SpeedFan is 13 minutes. I don't see a way of changing that.