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OCZ Quicksilver Thermal Compound
Goopy
I just love rolling in a good pile of goop. I mean what self respecting dog
doesn't? It could be poop goop, fish goop or strange goop, to me any goop is
good goop. When I received a tube of OCZ Quicksilver goop I couldn't resist popping
the seal, squeezing out a little pile on the floor and getting all covered in
the gooey goodness. I'm not sure how it happened, I suspect in my excitement I
came too close to my PC, but some how the Quicksilver ended up between my CPU
and HSF combo. Convenient as that was, I took it upon myself to see how well
it worked. Of course a test would be nothing without some competition and Arctic
Silver was just what I needed. After Spot was finished rolling around in
his Arctic Silver he let me pick the hairs out and have what was left. And let
me tell you there wasn't much but fortunately I had just enough to cover my
CPU. The race was set, the contestants were at the starting line so there was
nothing left but Gentlemen, Start your CPUs!
The System
The specs of my test PC are as follows and anyone who laughs will be spanked
with a wet rolled up newspaper!
- Abit BP6
- 433MHz Intel Celeron processor x 2
- CoFan KC-400 HSF w/ 11CFM fan
- Maxtor 30GB HD
- Asus V7100 GeForce2 MX video card
Yeah, I know what you’re thinking! Get a real HSF combo Rover those things a
pile of doggy poop. You might be right but it's hard for us dogs to make
money. With paws and all there are few jobs out there for us and I hate being
a seeing eye dog. All that walking on pavement is murder on the feet. The CoFan KC-400 is of decent quality and more importantly they
were cheap. They have served me well for the year that I've had them and have
kept things pretty cool even while overclocking. When my stuff does get too
hot I can always turn on my 563CFM fan that sits on the side of my PC. Take
off the side of my case, crank up that monster fan and before you know it
things get pretty nippley inside.
The Software
I used Motherboard Monitor 5 to capture the temperatures and the PC is running
MS Windows 2000 Pro (like you didn't guess that one). In order to stress the
system I had SETI Driver processing two work units simultaneously with
processor affinity checked. As you can see from the screen cap below SETI pegs
the CPU utilization to 100% on both processors.
The CPUs
CPU 1 is using the OCZ Quicksilver compound while CPU 2 has the Artic Silver.
I thoroughly cleaned both CPUs and both HSFs prior to installing the goop. I
scrubbed each HSF and CPU with a degreaser and toothbrush to remove any traces
of the old nasty grease that was on them. I couldn't tell you what the old
stuff was but judging from the color I'd say it was a Hershey's Kiss. I
then drenched the CPUs in alcohol to help facilitate drying since I didn’t
want to fry my chips by having a water droplet stuck between the pins. After
all the parts were completely dried I installed the CPUs, applied the goop,
mounted the HSFs and cranked up the system. Actually I went outside and
squatted first but that's not important.
Results
Let it be noted that the side of my case was off since the room testing was in
has no heat keeping the room temperature down to like freezing. OK, I'm not
sure if it really was freezing but I couldn't feel my tail so it was darn
close. All I have to say is thank God dogs have fur!
Remember that Sensor 1 is CPU1 with the OCZ Quicksilver and Sensor 2 is CPU2
with the Arctic Silver, Sensor 3 is my case temperature. My case temperature
sensor sits kind of close to my CPUs and is right up against a couple of big
capacitors. I think that's why it reads warmer than my actual room temperature.
 Temp readings
while idle and not overclocked. I let the PC sit for 20 minutes before
snapping these readings. As you can see there is a 3 degree difference with
the OCZ Quicksilver taking the lead. At these temps 3 degrees is nothing to
worry about and I'd consider them even.
 I cranked up my
system to as high as it will go without crashing: 500MHz. Next, I put the SETI
load on the system and let SETI run for 10 minutes before taking the screen
cap. I then let SETI go for another 10 minutes, but both CPUs only went up 1
degree. Then after all night of processing SETI work units I checked again and
it hadn't changed, a steady 36 degrees Celsius.
Conclusion
It's plain to see that OCZ’s Quicksilver holds its own against the best on the
market. I'm not surprised by the results since both items use micronized
silver and at this point that's the best choice for heat transfer grease.
Which one would I recommend? Doesn't really matter they are both superb and
therefore I'm calling this contest a draw. I'm leaving my system with both
types of goop installed since I don't feel like going through the hassle of
removing one or the other. Maybe there's a longevity competition brewing on
inside my case, I'll check back in a few months and see how they are working.
It could be that one breaks down and loses its conductivity properties after
awhile? I'll be curious as a stinkin' rotten cat to find out, but only time
will tell.
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Copyright © by LWD All Rights Reserved. Published on: 2004-02-22 (5103 reads) [ Go Back ] |
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