Thermal pad or thermal paste?
 

hi,

im not sure what to use. someone in pc world said i should use artic silver 5 but amd reccomend thermal pads. what do u guys reccon?

haha
thermal paste!
hahahah

ah i think i might arctic silver 5 is only like 3 pounds pritty cheap

hehe
noone responded to seeeeeeaney

i know :(

what was that mp3 thing u was telling me about thats ment 2 be better than ipod?

probably the archos
i liek it better than that gaypod
gaypod just has a better scrolling dealy
but archos plays movies
both 20 gigs.. same price
i say look around for it
..
and archos has usb as opposed to firewire

Okay, here's an answer by someone who isn't drunk (yet) :D

Arctic Silver 5 is just about the best thermal paste, BUT the difference in temp will be only a few degrees at maximum. Thermal pads are not very good, but since the whole business only makes a small difference at most you can use them too.

I recently brought back my temps from 73 Celsius (yes that's very hot) to 48 degrees, both under 100% load. The only thing I changed was

1) blowing out all the dust that had accumulated between the individual pins of my Alpha 8045 heatsink, this gave me about 20 degrees
2) lowering the voltage of my CPU until the level just before it began failing Prime95 (excellent utility to make sure your cpu is running errorfree). This gave me another 5-7 degrees, my Athlon 1700+ cpu is now running at 1.575 V instead of the standard 1.750 V.

I also used Arctic Silver III but that never made more than a few degrees difference. If your cpu gets hotter and hotter after a few years use, make sure it isn't dust clogging up your heatsink.

Okay, done talking, time to get loaded :D

hehe
thaaats my boy
:D
PARTY ON

well i got myself some thermal pad amd reccomend it i got loads of fans in my new one.

my specs
asus a7v600x
amd xp 3200+
speeze thermal pad :)
arctic cooling 2 copper fan
120 gb 7200rpm - seagate
106 dvd writer
512 ddr 400 kingston

i think this machine is a beast what u think? should get more stuff soon in middle of buidin it. i take some pics asap

You should be fine with the thermo pad Seany. I have personally used them before without any issues at all. AMD is known for running hotter than Intel but as long as you have a good cpu fan and atleast one case fan, you should be fine. I like AMD better than intel myself as they make better gaming systems. I normally only recommend intel products for those who prefer them. AMD is cheaper and just as sufficient if not better in the end.

yup thats what i bought the pc for hardcore gaming and for coursework (college)

i got 3 fans so far
Side window
psu
cpu
and im gonna get a chassi fan and an exaust blower. Keep it cool :cool:

Ah, just throw the lil bugger in the ole frig. that'll keeper cool m8. :p Just kidding.