question for Arctic Silver 5

[haimengt]

can i use Arctic Silver 5 for my evga 7800gt? is it safe or with a little danger ?

 

[uber_g]

yes u can. but be shure to sprea it only on the chip


-also clean the chip of very well to get all the old thermal paste off


apply a very very thin amount

 

[mabaty]

iS IT WORTH IT? will it really help that much as far as temps??

 

[uber_g]

for 5.99 i say its worth it

 

[mabaty]

Well not the price I already have some but will it really help the temps on the gpu? i mean by more than 2 degrees?

 

[Gar]

iS IT WORTH IT? will it really help that much as far as temps??

The difference it will make if worth it for sure.... do a test if you dont think so. Monitor your stock temps and etc for a day or so, under load and idle..... the go and change to the AS5 and then monitor the temps again. I am 100% positive that you will see a increase... if you put on the paste correctly. If you put it on incorrectly you can even make your thermal performance worse than before

 

[wolfman140]

I say this: If you don't have another aftermarket cooler to add on, it's not worth it because your heatsink if sub-par anyway. Won't be worth the trouble and 2deg. C drop isn't going to let you squeeze out hardly any more Mhz.

If you DO or PLAN to add a better aftermarket heatsink like a Zalmann, then definately add AS5 if you're gonna take the old heatsink off anyway.

But if you're just sticking with the stock cooler I say don't bother.

 

[Gar]

good point! 8)

 

[jimw428]

iS IT WORTH IT? will it really help that much as far as temps??

The difference it will make if worth it for sure.... do a test if you dont think so. Monitor your stock temps and etc for a day or so, under load and idle..... the go and change to the AS5 and then monitor the temps again. I am 100% positive that you will see a increase... if you put on the paste correctly. If you put it on incorrectly you can even make your thermal performance worse than before

You won't see the full benefit of AS5 until after approx 200 hours of "settling in" time.

Here's the bible:
http://www.arcticsilver.com/arctic_silver_instructions.htm

 

[haimengt]

ok, thanks guys. other question. what is the best way to clean out the old paste? just use paper towels or something else?

 

[jimw428]

Use Isopropyl Alcohol and a coffee filter.

 

[4Ryan6]

Artic Silver 5 is a less is best type of thermal compound the problem you'll probably encounter with the 7800GT is probably the same as I did with my GTXs.

First of all the answer to your question is yes you will achieve greater cooling, IF the heatsink is properly making contact everywhere its supposed to be!

Which in my case took about 4 hrs of tweaking both my 7800GTXs heatsinks to get the proper contact with the GPU die and RAM chips, but after my tweaking I got a 10c reduction in temps, well worth the trouble since I have my voltage, core, and mem OC'd.

Tweaking the factory heatsink is not hard but is a tedious chore, using good light, and cheap thermal compound for trial fitting tests, will allow you to get the best fit possible, something the factory doesn't take the time to do.

 

[4Ryan6]

One more thing.

I had bought 2 after market coolers the Artic Cooling AcceleroX1s but they were so huge they almost blocked each other out in an SLI setup, I decided to remove them and tweak the original heatsinks that came on the cards.

The original heatsinks made pitiful contact with the GPU die and they tried to make up the difference with an extreme amount of thermal compound to make up the difference, but with Artic Silver 5 [AS5] less is best period.

I had discovered the length of the heatsink on my card was affecting its ability to lay flat on the GPU, so by my saying tweaking, I sanded and cut whatever on the heatsink was keeping it from making solid contact with the GPU and Mem chips.

Solid contact with the factory heatsink was contacting not only the GPU but all 4 of the faceside memory chips, and on my card an additional heatsink covering the 4 mem chips on the back of the cards, I tweaked until I had excellent contact, then used a small amount of AS5 for excellent results 10c cooler than the AcceleroX1s.

 

[Multiplectic]

Wow, 10ºC is pretty much.

I was thinking of doing that also with my video card... I'm glad I found this thread.

 

[4Ryan6]

The way my heatsink was manufactured when I guaged it out with a flat steel guage it wasn't flat approaching the voltage regulators, it utilized the heatpipe technology and the end of the heatpipe was on the Voltage Regulators [V/R] side of the heatsink.

The heatpipe formed an upside down U and the vanes of the heatpipe towards the V/Rs were independent of the GPU contact plate, the bottom leg of the heatpipe was independent of the GPU plate except for about 3/16 of metal that was forged in the manufacturing process.

I carefully cut through that point allowing the bottom of the U configuration to move independently of the GPU contact plate, then scraped out enough of the heatsink over the V/Rs to allow the plate to seat on the RAM chips.

The V/Rs were holding the heatsink off the RAM chips between the V/Rs and the GPU contact plate, the cutting I did also allowed the contact plate to sit flat on the GPU, because without the cut tightening the screws cocked the GPU contact plate not allowing a flat contact with the GPU.

Some additional tweaking of the backplate required slight bending here and there to get it to sit perfectly flat on the RAM chips, using light, magnifying glass, and trial fits, using cheap thermal paste allowed me to get near perfect heatsink fits, which made all the difference in the stock heatsinks cooling capability.

Your heatsink may not be the same as mine, my cards are MSI NX7800GTX but the heatsink covered 80% of the entire card including the RAM chips on both sides of the cards, you may not have to cut the heatsink where I cut mine depending on how your heatsink is designed.

Carefully studying and examining your heatsink using light, will allow you to see everywhere it doesn't make good contact, it takes a lot of patience to achieve really good contact with all the contact points, but the end results are well worth the trouble.

Last Tip: After all my trial fittings with cheap thermal compound I wanted to extreme clean my cards and heatsinks before mounting everything for its final time.

I used a product you can pick up from the local Auto Parts Store, CRC QD Electronic Cleaner, its canned cleaner with a focusing nozzle, its flammable, and not too user friendly, use it outside the house and don't smoke while using it.

It will clean to factory cleaness in seconds removing every trace of old thermal compound, makes Rubbing Alcohol seem like cleaning with water, the cleaner chills the card and the outside air will form water droplets [The same thing happens with a glass of ICE water, water forms on the outside from the air condensation on the glass itself]looking like residue left behind, blow dry the cards and heatsinks with a hair dryer to ensure the water is gone.

The end result is perfectly clean cards and heatsinks with all residue gone.
Theres more than 1 brand of CRC cleaner, make sure you get the Electronic Cleaner, its designed not to hurt substrates and plastics!

If you undertake this project take your time and enjoy the process, I'm sure you'll be amazed as I was at how little contact the heatsink is actually making and what can be attained with the tweaking you can do to a stock cooler.

 

[Gar]

I used a product you can pick up from the local Auto Parts Store, CRC QD Electronic Cleaner, its canned cleaner with a focusing nozzle, its flammable, and not too user friendly, use it outside the house and don't smoke while using it.

Good info, I will have to see if I can find some of this stuff....just got to remeber about the smoking part, dont want this experiment to go wrong!! 8)

 

[Multiplectic]

Thanks!

I'll try that. I guess 10ºC is worth all the trouble.