AiT Cool Silver

Now we would like to introduce to you Cool Silver compound from a not very well-known company called AI Technology Inc. This thermal compound comes in a small package with a cardboard insert and a plastic cover that contains a syringe with the solution:

The insert tells you that this thermal compound is designed to help fight high heat dissipation of overclocked processors, has a picture showing how to apply AiT Cool Silver to the CPU heat-spreader. It also has a temperature monitoring chart showing that AiT Cool Silver is 2-3°C more efficient than “other leading thermal interfaces” (they did not specify which ones, though).

According to the manufacturer, AiT Cool Silver contains 90% of silver particles and has no silicone fillers. They didn’t disclose the heat conductivity of their interface but promise 0.0045°C-cm²/W thermal resistance. This thermal interface comes in a small 3.5g syringe:

This silverfish substance is pretty hard to apply and spread over the processor heat-spreader, because it just wouldn’t smear evenly and doesn’t stick to the surface. Although it did in fact spread quite OK when we installed the cooler:

AiT Cool Silver doesn’t conduct electricity, doesn’t leak or separate with the time. Unfortunately, there is no mention of its MTBF. One syringe costs $8.99, which is quite expensive for the efficiency it offers… Anyway, we are going to discuss the test results later and now let’s move on to the next testing participant.

Arctic Alumina

Another thermal interface from Arctic Cooling Company is based not on silver, but on aluminum oxide. It also contains polysynthetic tars, but no silicone. Arctic Alumina doesn’t leak or dry and maintains its quality over a long period of time. The manufacturer of Arctic Alumina claims 4.0 W/(m·K) thermal conductivity (half of what Arctic Silver 5 has), 0.010 °C-cm²/W thermal resistance and -40°C to +180°C operational temperature range.

This thermal compound retails in 1.75g, 3.5g and 14g syringes. We received the largest for our test session:

Arctic Alumina is white. It is not very thick, but pretty viscous, although you can still easily apply and spread it over the processor heat-spreader surface:

The run in time required for this thermal interface depends on the operational temperature and number of heating-cooling cycles and lies between 50 and 200 hours. Arctic Alumina sells for $5 per 3.5g syringe.