Artic SIlver has been the leading company in thermal compounds now for awhile and we have "all" used the Artic Silver 3 frequently to lower out Cpu temperatures. Now I got my hands on Artic Silver Ceramique which is their new thermal compound which is supposed to be even better than the AC3... but will it be?! Let's have a quick look at this new product....
About Artic Silver:
Arctic Silver Incorporated
2230 W. Sunnyside Ave.Suite 6
Visalia, CA 93277USA
(559) 740-0912voice
(559) 740-0913fax
Specs on the Ceramique
Made with micronized aluminum oxide, boron nitride and zinc oxide.
Ceramique uses a high-density layered composite of five unique shapes of thermally conductive aluminum oxide, boron nitride and zinc oxide sub-micron particles to maximize particle-to-particle contact area and thermal transfer.
This exclusive combination provides performance exceeding most metal based compounds.
Average particle size: 0.38 microns 180�C
Long-Term: � 40�C to 140�C
Please click on thumbnails to get bigger pictures
The tube is a little smaller than the Artic Silver 3 tube.
Please click on thumbnails to get bigger pictures
We can clearly see the size difference on the tubes. The top one is Artic Silver 3 and the bottom one the new Ceramique. On the right picture you can see both thermal compounds beside each other.
Testing:
Testing was done on this rig: DFI Lanparty Kt400a
AMD 2200+ XP
Crucial 512 mb DDR
Geforce 2 TI
No case fans
Noname case
Temperatures were taken with DFI Windoctor that you can find on their driver CD. Temperatures inside was 22 celsius. Testing was done under normal and full use at 2200+ and also under 2800+ with full core voltage (2V) and 165 FSB
2200+ Idle,Full stats
2800+ Idle,Full stats
As we can see the Ceramqiue shows it's real power when overclocked or under full use of the cpu.
Conclusion:
This themral compound is really nice, it's not messy, non conductive, and still got the same cooling capabilities as Artic Silver 3. This is really nice even though the tube is smaller than the AS3. As we see it's a great performer during normal use and heavy overclocking. With prices around ~5$ a tube this is a great buy! All in all 5 out of 5 and a recomendation ofr a great product.
Pros:
+ Great performance
+ Cleans up really easy
+ No Silver so Non-Conductive
+ Not messy
