Thermal Tape or Thermal Paste?

[wheelie_steve]

Hello all! Question with Thermal Tape and Thermal paste. I'm SLI ing two 8800 GTX's, bought them a from a buddy so there a bit used. No big deal. Building a custom show case. The blocks are Danger Den so of course their copper. I want to uninstall them like I did for my CPU to clean. And I found that Ketchup cleaned my DD CPU block very well! So again my question is between paste or tape? When reinstalling my GPU blocks which is better to use? I saw bad reviews about this tape off Frozen CPU. They said its a thin pad and its messy to clean off? I'm ok with either. I will eventually do some over clocking with this build and heard its better to use paste for that? If so on either product which also brand name would you all suggest?

The the web address below is for those Thermal tape pads with bad reviews from Frozen CPU.

http://www.frozencpu.com/products/ [...] _0012.html

This web address is what someone else used for his install. And it looks like thermal tape? Actually now that i look at it it looks like thermal paste? If so what types of paste could he be using? looks like two different types? One over the 12 heat sinks and another one the core. As I look at it more, it looks like two pastes and 5 pieces tape? Anyways let me know what u think? Wonder if nvidia will let me know what to use?

http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1127137

Please any feed back would be greatly appreciated Thank you,

 

[stevensl2]

I would stick with the Thermal Paste, they are more common.

 

[mactronix]

I have seen reviews regarding this and Paste is better, there are various types though so be sure to get one that is suitable for what you are doing.
Here dug this out
http://www.techpowerup.com/articles/overclocking/134


Mactronix

 

[Zenthar]

Go with paste, I think tape is more appropriate when used on surfaces that were not designed to hold heat-sinks (like RAM, or HDDs).

 

[gondo]

Definitely paste. It can go on thinner, avoiding too much which acts like an insulator not a thermal conductor. You want jsut a thin layer to fill voids on the imperfect surfaces to get maximum heat conduction.

As for tape, there is better solutions. If sticking heatsinks on RAM, etc... you can get thermal epoxy. Arctic Silver has some.