Yay, Upgrade time! - Inspire me with hardware I can buy =-D

[JavaJones]

AS5 will do you fine. The only people who should care about the differences are overclockers.

- Oshyan

[wraith808]

That's what I thought... but this time I went on newegg and looked up arctic silver and got more than a page of hits, so I felt a bit overwhelmed

[f0dder]

Forget about arctic silver, just use whatever thermal pad comes with the stock heatsink - really, you're not going to be able to measure a difference. The biggest benefit AS had was that it's electrically conductive and thus could fry the AMD CPUs that came without heatspreaders.

[Carol Haynes]

Not sure but I think the warranty that comes with most CPUs is dependent on using the stock pad if you buy a retail package.

[wraith808]

Yeah, but I've had a bad experience with stock fans/pads... so I'm waffling on which to use.

[wraith808]

One more question-

The combo with this motherboard, http://www.newegg.co...Item=N82E16813131622, includes DDR2 800 memory.  The motherboard says DDR3 in the specs- but I'm assuming it will take DDR2 800 memory?

UPDATE: Nevermind... I see now. 

[4wd]

Yeah, but I've had a bad experience with stock fans/pads... so I'm waffling on which to use.

-wraith808 (March 18, 2010, 08:22 PM)

I've always just used the stock gunk that comes on the heatsink.  The only times I've used something different is when I've removed the heatsink to put a different one on or move the CPU to another board.

In those cases I've used some silicon based heatsink compound I got from Tandy approximately 25-30 years ago for electronics.....and it finally ran out a couple of months ago......Damn it!  Anyway, never noticed any difference between it and the stock gunk.

Still, 25-30 years - not bad for a 15g tube

And now it's on to the silicon based compound I got with an electronic kit only 15 years ago

[Innuendo]

Yeah, but I've had a bad experience with stock fans/pads... so I'm waffling on which to use.

-wraith808 (March 18, 2010, 08:22 PM)

I think what I usually use is Ceramique. It's got none of the electrically conducive properties that AS has that f0dder described & yet it does have superior cooling properties. My friend was amazed when I took some over for his last computer build. He looked at me like I had two heads when I explained the instructions specifically stated that after applying the compound to wipe it off with a paper towel. (Yeah, that's right...there's only supposed to be enough of this stuff applied to fill the pits & grooves on the top of the processor). He was amazed when the PC was powered up & it stayed just as cool or cooler than anything else he had used.

Yeah...you can use the stock stuff & it's good enough for regular use, but if you are going to overclock I say spending the $5-9 on a tube of premium compound is cheap insurance to protect a $200+ CPU.

[ipman]

I am dreaming of PC without coolers and probably with CULV processors.

The most annoying thing when you write your code during night is the noise of CPU/GPU coolers.

[JavaJones]

If you want a quiet system, without fans, you can go crazy and get water cooling or something. But I think another thread in discussion here might have just the ticket, which is lower power systems that don't even need active cooling: https://www.donation...ex.php?topic=22270.0 The fit-PC2 should be particularly interesting.

- Oshyan

[Innuendo]

If you want a quiet system, without fans, you can go crazy and get water cooling or something.

-JavaJones (March 31, 2010, 11:57 AM)

And if you want to go beyond crazy and get into insane cooling you could always build one of those PC systems submerged in liquid. 

In other news, my odyssey of discovery is coming to an end. Finally all the components I have meticulously researched have arrived & I will be building my new system today.

[wraith808]

In other news, my odyssey of discovery is coming to an end. Finally all the components I have meticulously researched have arrived & I will be building my new system today.

-Innuendo (April 01, 2010, 09:14 AM)

Have fun!  I already built my daughter's (I don't know what I was thinking when I bought that pink case for her... they mounted the DVD vertically which has caused all sorts of problems), and will be upgrading mine and building my wife's tomorrow or saturday...

[Innuendo]

Have fun!  I already built my daughter's (I don't know what I was thinking when I bought that pink case for her... they mounted the DVD vertically which has caused all sorts of problems), and will be upgrading mine and building my wife's tomorrow or saturday...

-wraith808 (April 01, 2010, 09:34 AM)

Built my PC this morning and have been taking my time putting back on all my software all day. Lots of downloading, though, as my old system was 5 years old and now that I have a 64-bit OS I'm having to download the x64 version of software.