Zalman ZM-STG1 Thermal Paste Review...

[One4yu2c]

"Whether you know it as thermal paste, thermal grease, thermal compound, or just plain ol' "goop", you've got to have some of it under your heatsinks. Today we're looking at one of Zalman's most popular pastes, the ZM-STG1." - Josh Williams

http://hardwarelogic.com/news/62/ART...006-08-28.html

[stinger608]

Wow, 4 degrees C is pretty good drop from the stock stuff!

[yurimxpxman]

Originally Posted by stinger608

Wow, 4 degrees C is pretty good drop from the stock stuff!

Yeah, it's nice. Personally, I wouldn't spend $15 for 4º, but it's worth the cash to a lot of people, like Prescott overclockers :P

[Tyreal]

Looks like a pretty good thermal paste.

I thought I would put this out... I'll be totally honest, it's very difficult if not impossible to test thermal pastes in one's home or office. There are so many factors to consider I don't know where to begin. But there are issues like, cross contamination if the same heatsink is used, since the thermal paste that was on previously, is most likely still in the pits and microscopic grooves of the heatsink. You have factors like time of day, temperature, humidity, allowing the proper thermal cycles to be conducted and time to allow for maximum thermal conductivity. Thats just a few issues...

Just my .02 cents. I have heard that the Zalman is a great thermal paste...

[stinger608]

You do make a very good point tyreal!!
One thing that a person can do to keep from cross contamination is to use, (if you can find it), 100% pure isopropl alcohol with a Q-tip to clean the contact surface. If you use about 3 0r 4 Q-tips to clean the surface, this will really help keep from that problem.

[Tyreal]

That will help to reduce cross contamination. I suppose an even better method would be to use a high grit sand paper and sand down the heatsink surface a little bit. Then clean it once again with isopropyl alcohol.

[Capper]

lapping the surface of the IHS always helps...but voids your warranty.
I personally recommend ArcticClean, which is some damn good stuff.....we reviewed that too awhile back

[One4yu2c]

Originally Posted by Tyreal

Looks like a pretty good thermal paste.

I thought I would put this out... I'll be totally honest, it's very difficult if not impossible to test thermal pastes in one's home or office. There are so many factors to consider I don't know where to begin. But there are issues like, cross contamination if the same heatsink is used, since the thermal paste that was on previously, is most likely still in the pits and microscopic grooves of the heatsink. You have factors like time of day, temperature, humidity, allowing the proper thermal cycles to be conducted and time to allow for maximum thermal conductivity. Thats just a few issues...

Just my .02 cents. I have heard that the Zalman is a great thermal paste...

In theory, you're correct. In real world practice however, everything above amounts to a negligeable hill of beans. I've seen little to absolutely no variation from cleaning off one thermal paste to test another and then returning back to the original paste (cleaned with isopropyl alcohol in between). And so long as you have a thermostat and measure temps at the same room temperature, you'll be fine on that front as well.

Sure I wouldn't apply the same methodology to a NASA level science experiement, but for the sake of examining and reviewing thermal pastes, for all intents and purposes, conducting a valid test is very much attainable, just as it is to test two different heatsinks on the same testbed, contiminated CPU and all.