Customer Reviews

Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound

5 star:		(52)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Arctic Silver 5 is the best thermal compound on the market. There are other types that might be better for specific purposes (Arctic Céramique for example), but for cooling a CPU, this is the best. I've used it extensively for quite a few computer builds as well as a few 'special projects' like replacing the thermal compound on an Asus Formula X48 motherboard's Northbridge and Southbridge heatsinks.

The results are always a 4-10c drop in CPU temperatures under load. You will not notice a huge difference at idle. The real gains in heat dissipation come when the CPU is being pushed. Also, don't trust the board maker's proprietary software to tell you what your temperatures are; download a good program like RealTemp 2.41 or Everest for free (use google to find them). Either will give you more accurate numbers than Asus PC Probe, or whatever software your board manufacturer supplies.

There are some saying Arctic Silver 5 didn't lower their temperatures. That is almost certainly because they're using it incorrectly, which I can understand since the instructions provided are minimally useful. So for those of you who are not familiar with applying thermal paste, here is the process:

1. Remove the old thermal compound. This is accomplished by using Isopropyl alcohol to dissolve and loosen the old thermal paste. I recommend purchasing an ArctiClean kit. For minimal cost it will give you the compound remover, as well as an excellent surface preparer. Apply a several drops of the cleaner to the top of the chip and let it soak for 20-30 seconds. You might have to reapply more drops of cleaner again depending on how much thermal compound was present on the chip to begin with. Wipe all the waste off with a lintless cloth or cotton swabs.

2. Apply a surface cleaner. You can use more alcohol, or the surface preparer that comes in the arctic silver kit. Make sure there are no traces of the old compound: you can tell that the surface is perfectly clean when you can wipe it with a new q-tip and it comes away pure white.

3. Apply Arctic Silver 5. DO NOT USE TOO MUCH! If you do, it will squish outside the edge of the chip, get on your motherboard, the CPU locking mechanism, your hands, etc... It makes a real mess. Start with a small amount and add more if necessary. The idea here is to get a THIN, EVEN LAYER across the entire chip surface. A toothpick actually work's really well at spreading the paste around. You should not be able to see any part of the metal of the chip when you're done. Less is more in this instance; many people think they need to slather this stuff onto the chip, but trust me that does nothing but make a mess.

4. Install your heat sink and fan assembly. I recommend getting an aftermarket heat sink as those provided by Intel are notoriously poor. Zalman makes some great ones. Do NOT buy one that uses push pins to lock in place. You want one with screws and mounting bracket so that it is very securely attached to the motherboard and in turn, your CPU. This is probably equally important to applying the thermal compound correctly, because all the compound in the world won't help you if the heatsink isn't making solid contact with the chip's surface.

If you follow those steps, you will see a massive improvement in your core temps. Just remember that heat dissipation is achieved by the fans in your case and heatsinks, not the compound itelf. The compound simply allows for a much better transfer of heat from chip-->heatsink. I swear by Arctic Silver, and I promise you it works if you use it correctly.

When i built my system i used the stock gel attached to my amd 64 heatsink.running at idle my computer recorded temps from 46-49 C and rising. At first i got a couple of case fans but still i had the same problem.According to amd these temps are normal but i heard of people with systems with much lower temps . i was afriad my system might shut down under heavy gaming.So i went out and bought AS 5 , i can tell you it is the best investment i made on my system. After removing my heatsink i removed the previous thermal gel compound and adding this , then i put my system back together and started up and .. Wow my idle temps dropped to 41 C and stayed there ,after playing half life for 15 minutes i found the temps only increased to 45 C.there is a break in period for the gel which is 200 hours, after that the gel is optimized and artic silver claims the temps will drop even more (4-12 C).It has solved my heat issue, for the cost under 10 dollars.I guess i don't need watercooling after all.Even if you arn't into gaming
this will protect your computer processor and help it run more effciently.

Arctic Silver is the best thermal paste available, hands down. It moves heat like you wouldn't believe. I don't use anything else in my machines.

My cpu isn't frying, so I guess it's working.... I haven't noticed a significant drop in cpu temps like so many other people claim to have with this product. I have used this on at least 5 processors too. I've tried different methods of applying this stuff and re-seating the HSF, but I never can get results that many other people claim to get.

I am an average pc user. Computer (amd athlon xp 2100) was overheating with temp of 140 F + ...computer techs said "go with water go with heat pipes" do this do that, etc etc" I went with arctic silver instead, easy to apply, and average temp is between 105-110 F now..HUGE difference

Cools of the CPU better than when I used the stock thermal paste, just make sure to not put to much!

I love this thermal paste. It comes highly recommended from most everyone in the computer building world and after over a decade of use I have found it to be reliable and affordable. You only need a very small amount (about the size of a grain of rice) so there's always more than enough in case you need more or need to re-apply it. It takes a little while to completely set it, but I noticed improved temperatures (and thus a quieter computer due to slower rotating fans) right away. Highly recommended!

I'm pretty much a "noob" and hobbyist when it comes to tinkering with computer hardware ... I stumbled into it after replacing a few laptops ... I had these old laptops sitting around, and started futzing around with them, just to see if I could figure out how to take them apart and get them running nice again ... to have a few working spares that I could then use as notebooks, multi-media players, etc. ... basically backups to use in situations where I don't want to have to upgrade old software/peripherals, or risk damage to my newer, "main" laptop.

Anyway, my second laptop ever was a Compaq Presario 700 series, with an AMD Mobile Duron processor (I know ... Stone Age, right?). My kids used it for awhile after me, and they basically thrashed it. It needed a new hard drive, keypad, AC jack ... fortunately, I was able to find all the parts I needed online, cheap enough to justify the repair effort. The heat transfer plate on the AMD processor is pretty small, not even half a postage stamp, and it's mated with a fairly large, plate-type heat sink assembly that spreads the heat across the plate, and discharges it from a fan attached to the assembly at the left side of the laptop.

Back when I was using the Compaq more frequently, I recall that it ran pretty warm most of the time, and I remember that the fan was on a lot when programs were running, at 2 or 3 speeds, e.g., low, medium, high. Well, the repairs required that I strip the whole thing down to the motherboard, and ... gasp ... remove the heatsink. Knowing that I would have to put new thermal compound between the CPU and heatsink when I re-assembled it, I poked around the 'net and saw all the good reviews on Arctic Silver 5, and ordered a tube. I carefully cleaned all the old compound off the CPU and heatsink (it took awhile to soften up and remove all the old compound, using isopropyl alcohol and cotton swabs ... be patient ... it's worth it), "tinned" the clean heatsink surface with the faintest smudge of Arctic Silver (this helps to fill in microscopic pits and valleys on the mating surface), and then applied a thin, even layer of Arctic Silver over the whole heat transfer plate on the CPU, re-secured the heat sink to the CPU, and then finished the rest of the re-assembly.

When I first started running some music and DVD's (they put a continuous load of about 50-60% on this particular CPU), I was waiting for the fan to start blowing, as it always did before. To my surprise, it didn't. It took so long, in fact, for the fan to come on at all, that I started to think I might have broken it, or forgot to re-connect it when I put the thing back together. This is certainly no scientific or exact "before and after" measurement, but I'll be darned if the heat sink on this laptop isn't working better now than it EVER did before, even when the computer was new. It's not even getting hot enough to make the fan go on "high" when I'm playing a DVD on the laptop. The only way I can explain it is that the new thermal compound is doing that much better a job of getting the heat off the CPU and into the heatsink than whatever compound the OEM used. This stuff is brilliant. I totally agree with all the rave reviews ... if you properly clean all the old compound off your CPU and heatsink, and carefully follow the instructions for applying this stuff, you WILL get substantially better results from your computer's "stock" cooling system, unless of course your OEM also used Artic Silver!

I live in a hot country this termal compound do the best for keeping my PC cold as possible but you need a good CPU cooler for that

Need to bundle Arctic Silver ACN-60ML (2-PC-SET) Thermal material Remover & Surface Purifier with this product.