# Silicone based heatsink compound?



## Gilletter (Nov 11, 2008)

Does anyone know if a silicone based heat sink compound will work on a cpu? or is that a no-no??? I know that the arctic silver is supposed to be the "best" stuff out there, but will the silicone one work???


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## sneekypeet (Nov 11, 2008)

This day and age I wouldnt say that AS is the best in performance any longer. As far as Silicone based, you mean like GE thermal grease in a big tube?

I have seen sites that use it for reviews as you can get a huge tube of it, but I would say to be carfull due to its possible conductivity, depending on what else is mixed in with it!


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## Gilletter (Nov 11, 2008)

http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2102858&y=5&x=10&retainProdsInSession=1

something like that...?


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## sneekypeet (Nov 11, 2008)

If you need a quick fix, maybe... but I think you would get better performance from other compounds on the market.


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## Gilletter (Nov 11, 2008)

I was just wondering if it would be at all worthwhile, cause I wanted to get an old system running but don't want to spend like $12-15 on a small tube of arctic silver


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## sneekypeet (Nov 11, 2008)

Gilletter said:


> I was just wondering if it would be at all worthwhile, cause I wanted to get an old system running but don't want to spend like $12-15 on a small tube of arctic silver



For an older box it may not matter as much, especially if you are doing anything special with it. For $3 I would try it, it is designed for the application.


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## Gilletter (Nov 11, 2008)

That's what I was thinking. I just didn't know if it would work or not. I'm no heat transfer expert by any means. But I just didn't know if it meant just heat sink on something else (not specifically a cpu) but there are reviews on the webpage saying people use it on their everyday builds.... so I figured I'd get some responses from people on the board, thanks sneeky


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## cdawall (Nov 11, 2008)

i use cheap dynex stuff and have no temp issues


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## Bigjohn (Nov 11, 2008)

Go to frys, or someplace similar, and grab a tube of Artic Ceramique.  non conductive, and a damn good 'thermal interface', nearly as good as AS, I must say.


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## sneekypeet (Nov 11, 2008)

Bigjohn said:


> Go to frys, or someplace similar, and grab a tube of Artic Ceramique.  non conductive, and a damn good 'thermal interface', nearly as good as AS, I must say.



A: he is in Ohio...No fry's Altho Best Buy does have the Dynex...Check with CD on pricing

B: im sure no AS product sells for under $3 a tube!


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## eidairaman1 (Nov 11, 2008)

Gilletter said:


> Does anyone know if a silicone based heat sink compound will work on a cpu? or is that a no-no??? I know that the arctic silver is supposed to be the "best" stuff out there, but will the silicone one work???



next best stuff to AS5 is the Silver Compound from Antec.


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## Gilletter (Nov 11, 2008)

sneekypeet said:


> A: he is in Ohio...No fry's Altho Best Buy does have the Dynex...Check with CD on pricing
> 
> B: im sure no AS product sells for under $3 a tube!



yeah stupid ohio... I miss Sunny SoCal... Last time I looked at BB, cheapest stuff they had was like $10.99 from dynex


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## cdawall (Nov 11, 2008)

lol employee on its like $1


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## phanbuey (Nov 11, 2008)

order tunic tx-2 from the egg... big syringe, well worth it.  Much better than AS 5.


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## MKmods (Nov 11, 2008)

Hard to beat with free shipping
http://www.svc.com/chidethcobya.html


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## Arctucas (Nov 12, 2008)

@Gilletter,

Excellent TIM:
http://www.tim-consultants.com/


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## a_ump (Nov 12, 2008)

just as a side note i've read that Arctic Cooling MX-2 is better than AS5 and it's 6.99 so if you would spare 3 more bucks that'd be good coolin paste
MX-2
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835186020

reviews
http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/1148/3/page_3_testing/index.html
http://www.mvktech.net/content/view/3568/39/1/3/
this one is on a gpu
http://aphnetworks.com/reviews/arctic_cooling_mx_2

but if you you wanna try what you have in mind go for it, i'd just make it doesn't get on anything but the CPU's metal top(can't remember what it's called)


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## mlee49 (Nov 12, 2008)

MKmods said:


> Hard to beat with free shipping
> http://www.svc.com/chidethcobya.html



Excellent product!  I've used this on my last cpu and had considerable temp drops going from stock tim.


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## MKmods (Nov 12, 2008)

a_ump said:


> just as a side note i've read that Arctic Cooling MX-2 is better than AS5 and it's 6.99 so if you would spare 3 more bucks that'd be good coolin paste
> MX-2
> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835186020
> 
> ...



the prob with Newegg is dont forget to add about $7 to the cost for 3 day shipping

I use MX2 and its very good, the Ceramique is very good too and they both are non conductive.


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## mlee49 (Nov 12, 2008)

Newegg has the ceramique for 4.99 with 3.99 3-day shipping.  It's pretty much crap to charge more than a buck for shipping a 4 GRAM tube!!!


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## OzzmanFloyd120 (Nov 12, 2008)

Get MX-2, it's better than AS5 and non-conductive.
Edit: Although you can get AS5 at any Radio Shack... it's like $10 though.


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## mrw1986 (Nov 12, 2008)

Bigjohn said:


> Go to frys, or someplace similar, and grab a tube of Artic Ceramique.  non conductive, and a damn good 'thermal interface', nearly as good as AS, I must say.



Ceramique is actually better than AS5...I use that or MX-2 in ALL my builds. Shin-etsu is also really good, but sort of hard to apply.


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## ShadowFold (Nov 12, 2008)

OCZ freeze is the best but you don't get much for your money..


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## mlee49 (Nov 12, 2008)

This tim roundup states the MX-2 is a few degrees better:

http://www.madshrimps.be/?action=getarticle&number=5&artpage=3071&articID=635

Ofcourse they only test 5 products, this round up challenges 33:

http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.p...ask=view&id=138&Itemid=1&limit=1&limitstart=6

Lets not split hairs on this, were talking about which thermal compound will drop the temp by 2C.  The heatsink itself has more impact on dropping your temps than just the compound.  Now about your air cooler...


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## eidairaman1 (Nov 12, 2008)

mrw1986 said:


> Ceramique is actually better than AS5...I use that or MX-2 in ALL my builds. Shin-etsu is also really good, but sort of hard to apply.



Shinetsu is a sheet type of TIM, and i can say it worked well with my Dell XPS Gen 1 laptop as the chipset and GPU heatsink plates were higher than most, i just put multiple sheets of Shinetsu together and they worked like a Charm, My GPU in that laptop gets over 100 MHz Core and 116MHz GPU increase over stock. Chipset ran cooler than with the stock TIM.


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## DonInKansas (Nov 12, 2008)

OzzmanFloyd120 said:


> Get MX-2, it's better than AS5 and non-conductive.
> Edit: Although you can get AS5 at any Radio Shack... it's like $10 though.



I scored Ceramique at Radio Shack for 6.99 before tax.


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## Arctucas (Nov 12, 2008)

Gilletter said:


> yeah stupid ohio... I miss Sunny SoCal... Last time I looked at BB, cheapest stuff they had was like $10.99 from dynex



Microcenter 
Eastgate Shopping Center
1349 S.O.M. Center Road
Mayfield Heights, OH
44124

Mapquest says 44 miles from Elyria to Mayfield Heights.

But seriously, the TIM Consultants 0098 is really good.


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## p_o_s_pc (Nov 12, 2008)

Gilletter said:


> yeah stupid ohio... I miss Sunny SoCal... Last time I looked at BB, cheapest stuff they had was like $10.99 from dynex


what part of ohio? 
EDIT: Nevermind I didn't even read ur info to the side of your post


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## sneekypeet (Nov 12, 2008)

p_o_s_pc said:


> what part of ohio?



Gilletter's specs say Elyria.


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## p_o_s_pc (Nov 12, 2008)

sneekypeet said:


> Gilletter's specs say Elyria.



you didn't see my edit did you . thanks but i already checked that out


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## sneekypeet (Nov 12, 2008)

p_o_s_pc said:


> you didn't see my edit did you . thanks but i already checked that out



nope must have cought you mid edit...need to speed up those ninja edit skills.


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## p_o_s_pc (Nov 12, 2008)

sneekypeet said:


> nope must have cought you mid edit...need to speed up those ninja edit skills.



 I know and i have been working on it


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## jeaze85 (Apr 18, 2012)

*heat sink compound*

I just bought a tube of heat sink compound(radioshack) same stuff you are talking about and on the back of the package it says "Between modern high-power CPUs and high-performance heat-sinks or water-cooling systems " so ima try it on my ps3 i will tell you how it works!


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