Thermal Paste

[Oddney]

hi all

so im ordering a :

Corsair A70 High-Performance Dual Fan CPU Cooler (Socket AM2/AM3/LGA775/LGA1155/LGA1156/LGA1366)

for my new processor, question is do i need to get some Thermal Paste or does the cooler have some already?

thanks

 

[Steves1982]

It will come with thermal paste but it isn't usually as good as other compounds.

Not much temp difference really but you can get decent paste for £6 so may be worth it.

 

[Chanc3]

Personally I always stick with IC24 stuff as I've used many others, with this one being the best.

 

[Plec]

Corsair tend to use 'Shin etsu' which is quality TIM. If the tube supplied hints at this i would save your money as you will see very little difference in applying a different paste.


A lot of differences in temps between 'quality gunks' is usually due to how the paste has been applied and how well the HS has fitted to the CPU that time around. I have 4 branded TIM and i now just pick out what comes to hand first as the difference in temps between the 4 is minor on average...

 

[Plec]

Additional:

The A70 has exposed heatpipes so application is slightly different to a perfectly flat HS base:

If you have exposed heatpipes (ridged surface) you should tint the surface of the heatsink first to fill in the voids made by the exposed pipes on the base (artic silver 5 advises this but i've used this method with other gunk if i felt the heatsink required it.). You're basically filling the gaps, created by the exposed pipes, but scrape off all the excess so the base of the heatsink only has a very slight tint of gunk (credit card is great for this). The theory is that it fills, the sometimes pretty large, gaps that exposed heatpipes can cause on the base of the heatsink.

After tiniting the heatink you then only need to apply a rice sized blob or a single line (less than a mm thick) down the middle of the core (vertically) - but don't go from edge to edge leave a 5mm gap at each end. (you can use the rice blob method here too - depends on results)

This method should ensure that the pipe gaps don't suck up all of the gunk on the cpu and allow it to spread as it would on a shiny flat heatsink base.

I will stress that you only need to use this method on exposed heatpipe heatsinks (and even then not all of the time) - there is no need to use this method with perfectly flat based heatsinks.

 

[Acolyte]

The pre-applied stuff on the corasir water coolers is very good, i replaced mine with AS5 and the temps increased slightly, so i suggest you use whats already on it

 

[Helios1234]

Corsair tend to use 'Shin etsu' which is quality TIM. If the tube supplied hints at this i would save your money as you will see very little difference in applying a different paste.


A lot of differences in temps between 'quality gunks' is usually due to how the paste has been applied and how well the HS has fitted to the CPU that time around. I have 4 branded TIM and i now just pick out what comes to hand first as the difference in temps between the 4 is minor on average...

It depends, they used to use Shin-Etsu on their Asetek based coolers whereas they now use Dow-Corning which is also very good with their CoolIT based ALC units. I'm not sure what they use with their tower coolers though.

 

[Plec]

The pre-applied stuff on the corasir water coolers is very good, i replaced mine with AS5 and the temps increased slightly, so i suggest you use whats already on it

Yes, the pre-applied paste on their water units is the 'Shin etsu' as mentoned previously it's quality gunk. Hopefully, it's the same stuff they supply in tubes with the A70.

 

[Plec]

It depends, they used to use Shin-Etsu on their Asetek based coolers whereas they now use Dow-Corning which is also very good with their CoolIT based ALC units. I'm not sure what they use with their tower coolers though.

I'm not sure either, hopefully the tube will be labeled for him - but from what you've said above it looks as though they supply a quality TIM with all their units by default (makes sense really as you wouldn't want your premium coolers performance failing through poor quailty TIM).

 

[Helios1234]

I'm not sure either, hopefully the tube will be labeled for him - but from what you've said above it looks as though they supply a quality TIM with all their units by default (makes sense really as you wouldn't want your premium coolers performance failing through poor quailty TIM).

That's true but my worry is that the ALC units are sourced from OEMs whereas I'm not sure about the A50/70.

 

[OLDPHART]

Personally I always stick with IC24 stuff as I've used many others, with this one being the best.

Most come with a good make of thermal paste applied, as for IC24 being the best read the members results. After they had used it in the free trial was not impressed, just get MX4 easier to apply and still one of the best.