I saw it on artic silver 5 website how to apply on quad cpus but i think best way to apply is put small amout of grain size of artic silver 5 on middle of cpu then used credit card to cover it up.

what would be best?

I have thermalright 120 extreme heatsink and quad 6600 cpu.

I have both the Q6600 and the extreme 120. Its whatever you feel comfortable with. Putting thermal paste on isnt rocket science. I put a thin layer on the cpu and then used the excess from that on the 120 extreme.

as everyone will most likely say, too much is just a bad thing, especially when it comes to AS5. from personal testing, ive tried numerous ways.

the first step was to clean both the cpu and heatsink with rubbing alcohol (% purity doesnt matter so much, as that will mainly only affect the rate at which it evaporates... 0% alcohol wont evaporate at all (as its mainly just water, lol), and 100% alcohol will probably evaporate too quickly to be much good at all, just as long as its dry shortly after applying it to clean the surface from fingerprint grease and whatever else, as residue does affect how well heat is dissipated.

second step was how much to put and where. the first time i ever put it on, i followed some instructions that said to put a small dot on the center of the cpu (where the cores are hottest, as it will spread from there expanding 'slowly' once pressure and heat is applied, primarily periods of heat and cool at various intervals, off and on, for the most improvement for the period of it setting in).

i tried also using some on the heatsink itself, spreading with a credit card even (like was instructed by a site, so all the divits and 'imperfections' could be filled in, resulting in 'the ideal heat transfer'), that proved to infact be a bad idea, to be honest, as the heat wasnt transferred very well; the heatsink was still fairly cold, and the cpu was running hotter than it shouldve, a lot hotter (it was just too much paste).

so, i cleaned it all off again, and set the bare heatsink ontop of the bare cpu, the heatsink got hotter, temperatures were kept relatively stable, but they still increased slowly though, along with how hot the heatsink felt... so:

i removed the heatsink again, cleaned both surfaces, and put only a small dot on the center of the cpu, and then put the bare heatsink ontop again...

heat dissipation was best that way, with the minimum amount of AC5 possible (just above none; about the size of a BB pellet), and dissipation only keeps improving after a period of up to a week, it definetly needs time, initially it will probably appear to be a horrible paste, and even a waste of money... and for anyone who says it is, probably didnt test it near long enough to find out for sure either, or didnt test different ways, or anything like that.

it does pay to experiment though, as i found you can only benefit from finding the most effective way to use it. it may not be universal for each cpu and heatsink, but the ways i listed above were what worked best for my s939 X2 3800+ stock cooler and then TT blue orb II (its not the best cpu cooler, but it works).

This ridiculously simple application is too damn easy and straightforward to overanalyze to death. You're saying you read the instructions and then say "but I think the best way to apply...". How much prior experience are you basing that comment on? Enough to second guess the manufacturers recommended method? Have you done the procedure using different methods; observed and then pulled and cleaned the processor afterwards each time? Do you at least have that much experience? I'm not trying to come down hard on you but I can see you're getting your info from others who are listening to others and then coming full circle and listening to you. Look, just do it as arcticsilver.com describes if you want to do it right.

Here's what it will look like:



Don't analyze this to death. If you apply as described, it would be almost impossible to make a mistake but these jokers that go into this nonsense about spreading with a credit card and making sure that card is cut to the proper dimensions and vaious other BS is just that...BS.

I think the reason everyone has to come up with ridiculous and time consuming ways to do a simple procedure that only requires all of 10 seconds to accomplish correctly is because that's the problem...it only takes 10 seconds to "accomplish correctly".


EDIT: Disregard the mess on the right. That was simply caused when I pulled the heatsink off. I read this again and I sound a bit harsh. My intention wasn't to offend.

i agree. as far as what i put above, its pretty much reflects what youre saying "just follow the manufacturers instructions".

i made the mistake of following other suggested guidelines, for quick/better fixes even, and was just pointing out my experiences with it... but when my final application closely followed what the manufacturer outlined, it honestly did work best.

i wasnt meaning to make it sound like it was long and involved (i do tend to do that in explainations though, usually unintentionally). but, i agree with your assertion, they do have directions for you to follow, as well as an approximate set in period, but as long as you follow it, things will go the way they were intended.

ops double posted my bad.

nightwolf ur right about that i got the information from other website people posted it saying best to apply with credit card even when i search on google how to apply artic silver 5 on cpu what i got was spread with ur credit card most of the time, even when i search on youtube.com for videos how to apply artic silver most of those video were using credit card lol then i check with artic silver website it said apply aritic silver straight line through cpu heat spreader same picture u posted. so i though lemme ask on forum to get more clearifly thx alot guys, i'm going to follow the exact instruction as said it on artic silver website.

I'm going to switch from the Arctic Silver 5 to the IC Diamond 7 Carat. I hear it is hard to apply but it is superior. Some Links:

http://www.overclockers.com/articles1389/
http://xtreview.com/addcomment-id- [...] eview.html
http://www.heatsinkfactory.com/IC- [...] 16605.html

Edit: I got the links to work, It's the old "chain" icon. Thanks Badge

I agree with the other people. Just apply it as directed. Being educated on heat transfer myself, I really can't think of any way that could possibly be 'better' than the way they describe it on the website. I myself print out the directions from arctic silver's website when I apply it so I can see the pictures and do it right the first time. If you do it right, there should only be a 'first time'.

If I wasn't trained in any kind of heat transfer theory, I'd do it their way anyway, cause I'm sure they have 10,000 tubes they can spend testing it a bajillion different ways to see which way is the best. Remember this is an aftermarket product, and geeks are GONNA pick apart their product, so they have to prove their product really is better than the $2 tube you buy at your mom and pop shop.

Well said!

One thing about how much paste you need and how it is best to apply it is going to be dependant on how good of a contact the heatsink and processor make.

If both are very flat and smooth its going to take a lot less paste. If the heatsink base isn't finished well then its going to take a lot more paste.

You can get some idea of how much paste you are going to need with some experimenting with other things. If you get a very flat piece of glass and put a drop of water on it and set it flat on the heatsink the dot of water should spread out across the whole heatsink base. If the base isn't very flat its going to pool up a bit more and take more water to cover the whole base. If however the base is very flat it will take very little water at all before it spreads out completely.

If you test this way with the heatsink on glass and the processor on glass you should be able to see fairly easily about how much paste its going to take to cover it when they are put together.

If you've got paste to spare you could even try it with the glass and the paste and see how it spreads out compared to water and where the best places to put the paste are to get full coverage.

I studied Heat Transfer, got a B+ in the class, but I must have missed the day they went over Thermal Compound Applications.

Haha. It's more of heat transfer coefficients, specific heat capacity, and some other crap.

I just followed this with my e6850 and my TAT scores say 22c idle 41c load using a Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro HS in a Antec Solo case.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drwH08jP0-k