Arctic Silver VS Arctic Aluminia Epoxy!!

I have always wondered what the difference was and so i went to www.arcticsilver.com and found out!

If you are worried about current conducting to the case of your mod you might want to try the Arctic alumina epoxy. Totally non conductive and non capactive. The arctic silver is a BIT conductive and there are reports of video cards shorting out etc. Probably don't have to worry about a luxeon that much (obivously) but just in case...

AND the arctic alumina performs within one degree temp wise of what the arctic silver does.

It's supposed to be a whole lot cheaper too.. (about half the cost, I believe)

I paid $7.95 for the two 2.5 gram syringes (the A+B).

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Bushman:
I have always wondered what the difference was and so i went to www.arcticsilver.com and found out!

If you are worried about current conducting to the case of your mod you might want to try the Arctic alumina epoxy. Totally non conductive and non capactive. The arctic silver is a BIT conductive and there are reports of video cards shorting out etc. Probably don't have to worry about a luxeon that much (obivously) but just in case...

AND the arctic alumina performs within one degree temp wise of what the arctic silver does.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Funny you should be posting this. I just received some Artic Aluminia with the intent of testing it against the silver this weekend. I'll post the results when Iget done with the tests.

Thanks for posting the thread Bushman!

I'm going to try the Alumina adhesive myself. Found it here real cheap ($6.45, free shipping!)
http://www.svcompucycle.com/thermalgrease.html

Let's see if I actually get it, though; sounds slightly too good to be true; everyone else charges $8 + $6 shipping. These guys also list all the other Arctic compounds and adhesives, cheap, and with free shipping.

Kill-O-Zap,
Thanks for posting that link, I ordered some Arctic Alumina Adhesive, Arctic Alumina and Arctic Silver II, and I received them today. They sent the wrong size Arctic Alumina (1.75g instead of 3.0g) but they said they would send another 1.75g out today, even with the mistake I would order from them again, as my total order was $14.42 which would pay for about one item plus shipping from someone else!

Hmmmm,I recently upgraded (Ok, upgraded my dad, I'm still on a 266 Mhz laptop) to a AMD Athlon 1800 and used Artic Silver 3...Great stuff in my opinion, when I put it on and then mounted a Thermaltake Volcano 7cu+ (I think it's 7, its Volcano something plus) which is a 7000 RPM fan I saw my CPU temp drop quite a bit...

The artic silver people say it CAN be just bearly conductive, it's the computer hackers (Hacker as an acronym for nerd, not hacker as in money mysteriously appears in their bank account) compound of choice and I would think good enough for LEDs if not overkill...I mean how hot do they get? Wouldn't some 38 cent silicon heat paste be alright??

I know more then enough about computers so now I am being a newbie at LEDS...

Ryan

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Saaby:


The artic silver people say it CAN be just bearly conductive, it's the computer hackers (Hacker as an acronym for nerd, not hacker as in money mysteriously appears in their bank account) compound of choice and I would think good enough for LEDs if not overkill...I mean how hot do they get? Wouldn't some 38 cent silicon heat paste be alright??

Ryan<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Ryan,

A Luxeon LED can easily exceed 200F without proper cooling, and get to that temp quick if overdriven without proper cooling.

Wow! Ok, didn't realize they got that hot...well anyway, I don't know about the allumina but the artic silver (If you applied it right, like you would apply it to a CPU) would probably work great, and I realize that most of you here already realize this but I am going to say it anyway...

It doesn't matter what your thermal compound is, less is more, you will get far superior performance from a thin layer of compound vs. a thick layer

WAIT! Is the Allumina an actual epoxy or is that a typo? The Artic Silver is a thermal compound, so it's a similar, but completely different product isn't it?

Saby there is an arctic alumina epoxy (adhesive) and grease... Same goes with the ARctic silver too.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Bushman:
Saby there is an arctic alumina epoxy (adhesive) and grease... Same goes with the ARctic silver too.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Oh, ok, maybe if I open my eyes next time...