Cooling

Thermal interface

Our choice of thermal grease also remains unchanged since 2003: Arctic Silver 5. Arctic Silver 5 is one of the easiest thermal greases to apply with unparalleled performance. Although there used to be concern about the silver content of the grease, today’s CPUs with large heatspreaders make the concern about the possible conductivity and capacitance a non-issue. One important thing to remember is that Arctic Silver 5 takes some time to fully cure. The heat produced by the CPU causes the compound to melt and fill in the microscopic valleys. Eventually it thickens to reach a long-term equilibrium state. We've tried all sorts of other thermal greases ranging from the conventional generic stuff to Shin-Etsu Premium thermal paste, and Arctic Silver 5 still remains our recommended solution.

*update* After this article was completed, Coolermaster announced NanoFusion Thermal Grease. We have not tested its performance or ease of use.

Arctic Silver 5 – 3.5 g (enough for ~15 large CPU cores)
$10 http://www.arcticsilver.com/

Heatsink

Traditionally, we have used the Zalman CNPS-7000B-AlCu in our system builds. This 90mm aluminum-copper hybrid is a true workhorse, providing exceptional cooling in one of the easiest installation methods I've ever encountered. It continues to be a highly recommended component. That said, these System Building Articles are also a good way for FiringSquad to perform long-term tests of components. If we always used the CNPS-7000B-AlCu, we'd never have an opportunity to find out if something else was any good!

For this system build, we are trying the SilverStone Nitrogon NT02. The Nitrogon NT02 is a classic heatsink design with a few tricks up its sleeve including sintered heat pipes as opposed to soldered heatpipes that should improve efficiency. While the heatsink is almost twice as heavy as the Zalman (880g versus 445g), the cooler fits better in tight spaces. The basic design is simple: a copper base bonded to an aluminum heatsink. Copper heatpipes then pull heat away from the aluminum heatsink to a larger copper radiator that is fan cooled.

While it lacks the aesthetics of the Zalman coolers, the integrated fan controller allows you to adjust the fan speed from quieter-than-Zalman speeds all the way up to rackmount blower fan volumes. In our use, we found the NT02 to be very competitive in performance to the Zalman CNPS7000B-AlCu. The biggest problem is that the NT02 is substantially pricier, and while it's good enough to make the cut into our system, we still think the Zalman CNPS7000B-AlCu offers better value for the money. The real test will be long-term performance and seeing how well the NT02 deals with dust. For now, we'll probably stick with the Zalman as our heatsink of choice.

Silverstone Nitrogon NT02
$50 – http://www.silverstonetek.com