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Arctic Silver interview!
VHJ: What typical improvements do customers see when switching to Arctic Silver II?
Nevin: The average temperature drop from switching to AS II from a standard heatsink compound is between 2-7 degrees Celsius. Obviously this is going to vary depending on the heatsink used and the type of CPU, but temperature drops of these amounts are considered average.
VHJ: How do you explain the fact that many websites do not show nearly this much of a temperature drop when different types of thermal paste are tested? Oftentimes thermal paste roundups show differences of only 1-2 degrees between all the pastes themselves and this variation well within a margin of error.
Nevin: You raise an excellent, excellent point and one I wanted to address. Let’s look at a bit of history:
When Arctic Silver first arrived, it was tested by a variety of websites and yielded results showing temperature drops of 2-7 degrees C -- exactly what we predict. The testbeds used by these websites, however, were primarily Pentium III’s with internal temperature monitoring thermal diodes.
Today, most websites have switched to Athlon-based systems which use a thermistor in the socket for temperature measurement. Unfortunately, this is inherently flawed. According to basic laws of physics, it is impossible to obtain an accurate temperature measurement downstream from the heat source in a secondary heat path in a non-isothermal environment.
Allow me to illustrate further. Imagine a room with one outside window. It’s winter outside—so the temperature outside is 30 degrees, while the room’s temperature is a uniform 70 degrees. A thermistor placed inside the room will, of course, register a temperature of 70’.
Now, imagine what would happen if you took that same thermistor and taped it to the outside of the window. The thermistor will register a MUCH lower temperature than 70’. There is only one section of it even in contact to receive heat flowing from the room, and that heat must pass through the glass. Furthermore, the other 75% of the thermistor is in constant contact with the outside air—which, as we have noted is much colder than the air in the room.
In short, the in-socket thermistor cannot effectively measure the temperature of the processor, all it truly does is measure the temperature of itself.
Nevin: The average temperature drop from switching to AS II from a standard heatsink compound is between 2-7 degrees Celsius. Obviously this is going to vary depending on the heatsink used and the type of CPU, but temperature drops of these amounts are considered average.
VHJ: How do you explain the fact that many websites do not show nearly this much of a temperature drop when different types of thermal paste are tested? Oftentimes thermal paste roundups show differences of only 1-2 degrees between all the pastes themselves and this variation well within a margin of error.
Nevin: You raise an excellent, excellent point and one I wanted to address. Let’s look at a bit of history:
When Arctic Silver first arrived, it was tested by a variety of websites and yielded results showing temperature drops of 2-7 degrees C -- exactly what we predict. The testbeds used by these websites, however, were primarily Pentium III’s with internal temperature monitoring thermal diodes.
Today, most websites have switched to Athlon-based systems which use a thermistor in the socket for temperature measurement. Unfortunately, this is inherently flawed. According to basic laws of physics, it is impossible to obtain an accurate temperature measurement downstream from the heat source in a secondary heat path in a non-isothermal environment.
Allow me to illustrate further. Imagine a room with one outside window. It’s winter outside—so the temperature outside is 30 degrees, while the room’s temperature is a uniform 70 degrees. A thermistor placed inside the room will, of course, register a temperature of 70’.
Now, imagine what would happen if you took that same thermistor and taped it to the outside of the window. The thermistor will register a MUCH lower temperature than 70’. There is only one section of it even in contact to receive heat flowing from the room, and that heat must pass through the glass. Furthermore, the other 75% of the thermistor is in constant contact with the outside air—which, as we have noted is much colder than the air in the room.
In short, the in-socket thermistor cannot effectively measure the temperature of the processor, all it truly does is measure the temperature of itself.
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