Are there real benefits to getting IC Diamond for your thermal compound?

It really is not more difficult. The only thing is the video card and really all of the components are so much smaller.
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I just received my 8170 yesterday and immediately tore it apart lol. Anyways, I repasted the GPU and CPU with IC7 using the pea method. I never ran it with the stock paste, so I don't have a comparison but one odd thing I noticed when looking at HW monitor is one of the cores seemed to run about 7-8 degrees cooler than the others. On average cores 1-3 were in the 30-34 range just at idle while core 0 was measuring about 26.

In the back of my mind I'm wondering if I got better coverage over core 0 while the others are maybe missing some paste. I may give it a couple more days and maybe repaste if the this keeps showing up like that.

 

There's just a little bit of curing time for IC Diamond, so the temps should stabilize soon.

 

That's not unusual. Cores tend to run at different temps and core 0 will almost always run a little warmer because it handles a lot of the single threaded apps. Those are quite good temps anyway, so I wouldn't worry.

 

I think too that your temps are fine. This variation happens all of the time.
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Just curious, how do u confirm whether IC7 is really applied onto ur CPU and GPU when u check the IC7 option in configuration list? Is there any reference about the CPU and GPU temp before and after applying IC7 on them?

 

There really isn't any way to tell that it's been applied, unless you were to remove he heatsink (which means you'd have to repaste anyway). The only way to tell is if you've got the 485m/580m/6990m and your temps stay in the low 80C range or less under full load. But even that isn't always accurate because ambient temps and environment make a big impact.

 

Generally it will be considered a 'premium' feature, and I'd expect a reseller will tell you if they are using it - if it's not mentioned, it's probably stock paste.

 

@post#42; Actually Coollaboratory Liquid Ultra isn't all that good after a year of hard use. In fact, it completely hardens / dries. On my X9100 after 9 months I started seeing high temps and after 1 year auto shut downs while crunching. Turns out it was shutting off because it hit the 105 C thermal protection.
Opened it up; thermal compound was as hard as a rock. has to pocket knife blade and sand it down.
So for longevity it sucks.
I wonder if IC Diamond lasts a lot longer. A few degrees difference doesn't matter at all, it's long term longevity because the temperature difference will reverse and widen if it starts to wear out.

 

I see you case resurrection on this thread lol.

Yes IC diamond does not harden. I took my wife's CPU cooler off after a couple of years and it was still goop

 

it does sort of dry out, but it never gets hard like that.

 

Well that's it setting but it does not shrink further.