Artic silver 5

Just follow the instructions and you'll be ok

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But you're not putting liquid silver on your CPU, are you?

You'll be fine - even if you smeared the pins on your CPU in AS5 it wouldn't short out.

From the way it's advertised you'd think that AS5 was liquid silver. But I'll say again, I use AS5 on all of my CPUs, never had an issue. It works great, especially if you give it a week or two to cure.

Just be sure to not do anything dumb like apply it to the socket or the bottom of the CPU and you'll be fine

How long is the "burn-in" time for AS5?

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IC7 Diamond is muuuuch better than the noctua.

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Supposedly 200 hours.

OP: Don't be worried. Many people use AS5 for a long time with no issues, myself included.

Don't use it on GPUs, or memory chips though. As DuckieHo said, it's thermally conductive, and slightly capacitive, so it can hold a small electrical charge and can potentially bridge electrical connections, shorting out the component.

The best Thermal Paste is only like 3-4C better than AS5 anyway, but they're generally much more expensive, and harder to spread. If you don't mind all this, then they're worth it, but generally I'd say something like OCZ Freeze or MX-2 is better than IC7 Diamond even if just because of ease of application and price.

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uhh, i'm pretty sure there've been a few threads about people who've spilt AS5 in their socket by accident and not noticed, and the socket/cpu has fried.

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around 200 hours with heat up/cool down phases i believe. +1 for the IC7D, i got sent a sample from IC and it owns. 1-3 degrees better than TX2 which is 3-5 degrees better than AS5.

Thanks for the +rep! In my sig I have a tutorial where I actually did use AS5 on my GPU has been good for over a year now no problems Check it out

One more question:
I have both a tube of AS5 and the 'Arctic Silver-Ceramique'
What would be the best situation to use ceramique rather than the silver?

Edit:
Have you seen this? http://indigo-xtreme.com/about.html
Claims to be better than any thermal interface material available, 2-4C cooler.

Note to OP:
When applying the AS5, I have noticed that putting a small pea-sized glob in the center with a little extending outward (like the line method) performs much better than just the line method.