Arctic Silver ArctiClean 1 & 2

Advantages: Great thermal conductor
Disadvantages: Expensive, hard to spread

...Arctic Silver 5 (AS5) is one of the most recommended TIM (thermal interface materials) by enthusiasts. Its made using actual silver, which is pretty cool, and it does look pretty cool when it comes out of the tube. Applying the TIM The ideal way to put TIM on the CPU is to put on a small amount, say the size of a small grain of rice, and rub it in. The excess is cleaned off and then an even smaller amount put on and left - when the Heatsink is put on, it is meant to be 'wiggled', meaning the TIM gets spread evenly. However, AS5 is very thick which means it is hard to spread, and most of the TIM ends up in a very thick layer in the middle while there is little on the edges, which is not good, as the IHS on the CPU (the metal thing) means that the heat is meant to be transferred evenly, not just in the centre! Results When the TIM... Read review

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Advantages: Very cool, easy to install
Disadvantages: copper on the cpu side far from mirror ( needs a polish )

...Test system: processor - AMD Athlon FX62 (2 x 2800 MHz / 125W TDP) motherboard - ASUS M2N32 DeLuxe Wireles Edition (passive cooling system with HeatPipe) Cooler is very easy to install just one lever. More experienced users will probably remove thermal compound and polish the surface of the cooler ( it is far from being a mirror ) and then apply high quality thermal compound. This will give You another 1-2 C less and faster cooling down after stress. all tests were done using Zalman STG 1 ( high quality thermal compound ) Temperature readings after 60 minutes in idle: Akasa AK-876 37 Arctic Cooling 64PRO 38 Scythe Katana II 39 Temperature readings after 60 minutes in 100% load: Akasa AK-876 56 Arctic Cooling 64PRO 58 Scythe Katana II 61 Temperature readings... Read review

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Advantages: Neat, Cool LED Mini USB Cable supplied
Disadvantages: Horrible Manual, Price

...(provided). I like way is designed. There is a button on the top that releases a tray where the HDD is fixed. Even though the button is fiddly to press (ie not embossed) but I supposed this is done to prevent pressing it by mistake. It also comes with two cables. A PC modder friendly silver miniUSB cable with flashing blue LEDs and also a small USB to 5V power supply in case the USB doesn't deliver enough power. On my HDD it does but apparently there are others that need that cable. Now apart from the fact that the cable is about 5 inches long and impossible to plug it on your PC and have the HDD on the desk according to the manual (for what I understood anyway) this might not even work and you would need an indoor AC/DC adapter. The interface is USB 2.0 and the transfer rates are good but there is a small problem. Plugging it onto a USB 1.1... Read review

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