Review Date:5th March 2002 Reviewed By: Jarrod "sKuLLsHoT" Mast Product: Arctic Silver 3 Rating: 95% Manufacturer: Arctic Silver

Introduction

Today we set off on a quick look at several Thermal Interface Materials (TIMs) to see how much difference they make to the idle and load temperatures on our test systems. We will be looking at the MorB dedicated server rig - AKA OCM's P4 1.6GHz Benchbox, and my (blue core) Duron 600 system at a nice 933.

Test bed

Seated in an ECS P4VXDA motherboard we have, for the time being, an Intel Pentium 4 1.6GHz, 256Mb Samsung DDR RAM, a Hercules 3D prophet III Ti200 (review on the way), along with a DEC 21143 Tulip NIC and Maxtor 40Gb HDD. For the duration of the tests, the ambient room temperature remained constant within one or two degrees. The p4 was only being cooled with a stock Intel Pentium 4 Retail heat-sink as we have yet to receive a performance cooler suitable for a p4.

My Duron System is comprised of an EPoX 8kta3+pro, 512Mb RAM, a GF2MX, and other non-relevant stuff. The Duron 600 is cooled with a Mini Copper Orb, which does a mighty good job.

The Contenders

The TIMs we are looking at today are: - Stock Frag tape - Dick Smith Electronics (DSE) "Unick" Thermal Heat Transfer Compound - Arctic Silver II - Arctic Silver 3

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