ICD 7 vs. MX-4

Hey everyone,

I am wondering if there is anybody that can shed light on these two pastes. It seems like some reviews show the ICD 7 being the best out of every paste and others show it being about as good as the MX-4. I know the ICD 7 will conduct electricity but that does not matter. I currently have MX-4 but do you all think ICD 7 will offer any improvement?

Thanks

 

Never heard that a paste is conductive. This would be very dangerous.
I believe Arctic Silver is capacitive.
The difference between ICD 7 and MX-4 is 1 degree Celsius at maximum.
Stay with MX4.

 

IC diamond does not conduct electricity. They both are equally good in heat transfer

 

Get the MX-4, cheaper, virtually the same performance and I have had issues with the ICD 7 marking my copper contact plates.

 

silver based thermal compounds are conductive. i think AS5 is conductive.

 

Ah I see. So this paste is non capacitive and non conductive?

Looks like I will be staying with the MX-4 so far.

Thanks for the responses. I was just wondering because of the giveaway going on in the forums.

 

slightly off topic, but i visited the arctic cooling website and couldnt find any information regarding the 'improvements' in MX 4 over MX 3. I dont expect there to be any huge differences with temps. but are there supposed to be any differences in longevity etc?

 

That's wrong, AS5 is definitely NOT conductive. It is however, slightly capacitive, but only under certain circumstances.

 

MX-4 should be cheaper and easier to spread.

 

I read about a nifty trick a while ago. I haven't tried it personally yet but mean to at some point.

Basically you just thin out the paste a little with some IPA that you would use to clean the heatsink with. Then mount as usual. Because the paste is much thinner, it spreads a lot better and so you get a much thinner and therefore better contact. Since the chip is getting hot, the alcohol with slowly seep out to the edges where it will eventually all evaporate, leaving you with a nice thin layer of compund between your chip and heatsink.

I have real probalems with overheatinh and so I'm thinking about going with IC instead of the MX-3 I'm using at the moment. I've heard it's a complete pain in the *** to work woth though so I can see it being a prime candidate for this method.

 

Thanks for correcting me.

 

Putting the thermal past tube in a container with hot water for a few minutes should thinner the past. I've used this trick with AS5 and it works like a charm.