synergy
06-14-2005, 06:59 PM
I'm thinking that there may be some different considerations in heat compounds
and sinks for the X2 vs. the Winchester / Venice / et. al. Athlon 64s.
Since the X2 has a significantly larger die size under the heat spreader cap
I'd think that getting better thermal contact over the whole die area and
consequently a larger area of the heat spreader would be more important that
with other Athlon 64's.
I'm thinking of using Arctic Silver 5 and a Zalman Cu7000 but I see that
Arctic Silver's application instructions are to but a small "grain and a half of rice"
sized dab in the middle of the CPU without tooling to spread it but rather to
just clamp the heat sink down over the dab on the CPU and let the pressure
eventually force the AS5 compound to spread out into a thin circular patch
spreading out from the middle of the CPU heat spreader.
The photos I've seen of the results of this "pressure alone spreading"
seem to show that one does tend to get a contact area spread over the
heat spreader cap which is probably bigger than or similar to the die area of
a Winchester Athlon 64.
I am concerned, though, that the automatic suqeezed spreading might
NOT quickly result in coverage of all of an X2 4400's die size since that's
a significantly larger die than other Athlon 64 CPUs.
Has anyone experimented with this?
Has anyone come up with better thermal compound products or application
ideas to satisfy optimal X2 cooling?
It kind of seems like this would be a good subject for a review / test
article covering X2 thermal solutions and effectiveness real world tests.
What thermal interface solutions do the rest of you plan to try for X2?
and sinks for the X2 vs. the Winchester / Venice / et. al. Athlon 64s.
Since the X2 has a significantly larger die size under the heat spreader cap
I'd think that getting better thermal contact over the whole die area and
consequently a larger area of the heat spreader would be more important that
with other Athlon 64's.
I'm thinking of using Arctic Silver 5 and a Zalman Cu7000 but I see that
Arctic Silver's application instructions are to but a small "grain and a half of rice"
sized dab in the middle of the CPU without tooling to spread it but rather to
just clamp the heat sink down over the dab on the CPU and let the pressure
eventually force the AS5 compound to spread out into a thin circular patch
spreading out from the middle of the CPU heat spreader.
The photos I've seen of the results of this "pressure alone spreading"
seem to show that one does tend to get a contact area spread over the
heat spreader cap which is probably bigger than or similar to the die area of
a Winchester Athlon 64.
I am concerned, though, that the automatic suqeezed spreading might
NOT quickly result in coverage of all of an X2 4400's die size since that's
a significantly larger die than other Athlon 64 CPUs.
Has anyone experimented with this?
Has anyone come up with better thermal compound products or application
ideas to satisfy optimal X2 cooling?
It kind of seems like this would be a good subject for a review / test
article covering X2 thermal solutions and effectiveness real world tests.
What thermal interface solutions do the rest of you plan to try for X2?