Zalman LQ1000 & Thermal Grease?

Hi,
I have been reading through the threads relating to thermal grease and CPUs and everyone and their mothers state that you should always use some form of thermal grease, whether that be using the stock stuff or replacing with something decent like the Artic silver compound.
I was all set to apply some of this to my new build, however when I looked in to the manual I saw the following from the case manufacturer (Zalman):
***
Note 1) Please do not apply Thermal Grease or Pads when installing waterblocks.
****

Now I know that Zalman are quite a reputable company and the LQ1000 case that I have bought is highly rated, but now I am confused, should I apply grease or should I not???

If you can offer real world advice I'd be grateful. I understand this is quite a specific request, so if any one out there has this case then please get in touch
cheers

I have the following component to add to my new build and really don't want to screw it up:
Zalman LQ1000 Z-Machine Hybrid Liquid Cooled Case
Asus Rampage II Extreme Intel X58
G.Skill Titan 128GB 2.5" SATA-II Solid State Hard Drive
Intel Core i7 920 2.66Ghz (Nehalem)
Be Quiet! Dark Power Pro 1200W ATX2.2
Corsair 6GB DDR3 Dominator PC3-12800C8 1600MHz
Samsung SpinPoint F1 1TB SATA-II 32MB Cache
EVGA GeForce GTX 295 1792MB GDDR3

cheers
Will

Hi and welcome to the forums.

I have never heard of this before. The function of thermal grease be it AS5, MX2 or even cheapo stuff is to fill in the imperfections in the base of the block or heatsink and on the surface of the cpu/gpu/chipset. If you do not use thermal grease of some sort it will end up with a overheating pc. If the blocks/heatsink does'nt have it pre-applied then some will need to be applied by yourself. I think someone at Zalman was smoking some strange stuff when they typed up the manual.

As above, always use thermal grease, it fills and smooths microscopic pits and bumps. Without it you have a vastly reduced contact area between your chip and your cooler, so heat won't dissipate as well.

As for which paste, I'd choose between MX-2 and OCZ freeze, probably the OCZ freeze, but read some reviews for yourself and make up your own mind.

Most heatsinks come with paste pre-applied, clean this off with either isopropyl alcohol (available from chemists) or some TIM cleaner.

Thanks for the posts guys, I will certainly look in to the alternative greases mentioned.
I now also have to look for some distilled water, any thoughts?

Will.

rodbarw said:

Thanks for the posts guys, I will certainly look in to the alternative greases mentioned.
I now also have to look for some distilled water, any thoughts?

Will.

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You can either go for the water + anti-corrosive + anti-microbes approach. or you can just buy a coolant like feser 1.