I have a large tube of AS5 that I've been using at least 6 years. I haven't built any computer in the last 1 year, and as far as I recalled, it still performed fine a year ago.
I built a i7 2600k + Thermalright Venomous X setup today, and again I was using my trusty AS5 (I know it's outdated, but it's not a bad performer by any mean). My PC ended up idle at 47C! I thought I might had applied too much AS5, so I cleaned it up and reapplied it. Still 4xC IDEL at 1.6Ghz! Removed the heatsink, I could see that the AS5 was evenly and thinly spread, so I don't think I had applied it incorrectly. Afterall I had built a number of PC with the AS5 without any problem before.
Puzzled, I tried instead the Chill Factor 3 that comes with the Venomous X. Wow, big difference. 2xC idel. I know that the AS5 is an old product, but it can't be this bad. I mean, people said that the CF3 is a better paste, but that's at most 2-3C better in the best case scenario. So I guess the tube of AS5 that I have has expired eh?
Btw, how are the cores on the i7 aligned? And how do you apply thermal paste to it? Following the instruction on artic silver website, I applied a thin vertical line (I did the same for both AS5 and CF3) to the middle of the CPU, with the arrow at the lower left corner. This worked fine with my Q6600 before (horizontal line with Core 2 Quad), but on the i7 2600k, the temp on core 1 and core 3 are consistely 5-10C higher than core 0 and core 3. Obviously something isn't right...
I built a i7 2600k + Thermalright Venomous X setup today, and again I was using my trusty AS5 (I know it's outdated, but it's not a bad performer by any mean). My PC ended up idle at 47C! I thought I might had applied too much AS5, so I cleaned it up and reapplied it. Still 4xC IDEL at 1.6Ghz! Removed the heatsink, I could see that the AS5 was evenly and thinly spread, so I don't think I had applied it incorrectly. Afterall I had built a number of PC with the AS5 without any problem before.
Puzzled, I tried instead the Chill Factor 3 that comes with the Venomous X. Wow, big difference. 2xC idel. I know that the AS5 is an old product, but it can't be this bad. I mean, people said that the CF3 is a better paste, but that's at most 2-3C better in the best case scenario. So I guess the tube of AS5 that I have has expired eh?
Btw, how are the cores on the i7 aligned? And how do you apply thermal paste to it? Following the instruction on artic silver website, I applied a thin vertical line (I did the same for both AS5 and CF3) to the middle of the CPU, with the arrow at the lower left corner. This worked fine with my Q6600 before (horizontal line with Core 2 Quad), but on the i7 2600k, the temp on core 1 and core 3 are consistely 5-10C higher than core 0 and core 3. Obviously something isn't right...