AS5 on memory chips? 9800xt?

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aNoMaLy2k8

Gawd
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Feb 28, 2005
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I'm installing an ATi Silencer Rev. 3 on my 9800 pro=>xt and i was wondering if AS5 would work? Is it electrically conductive, or is there any risk in using it?

Also, what other pastes would you guys suggest using? thanks. :D
 
AS5 is only a little conductive but it's also capacitive and that's trouble if you get it on the high-speed pins of any of the chips. It's okay to use it if you're very careful not to get it anywhere but on the top of the GPU but if you've got some other paste I'd use it instead. Only the silver content pastes are conductive/capacitive. With "standard" paste it doesn't matter where you get it.
 
thanks for the quick reply. I have some white paste from a vantec cpu cooler, would that work? or should i get some alumina?
 
The truth is that there's not a very large difference in thermal conductivity between various pastes in carefully run tests. There's an entertaining article on the subject here. You just want to avoid crappy goop which dries out. I seem to recall that the top of my GPU was pretty large when I changed the heatsink on my 9700 so if a 9800 Pro is similar then any decent goop should do. If the stuff which came with your Vantec doesn't say "silver" on the tube then it should be non conductive/non capactive which should be fine.
 
This is the paste I'm talking about, next to the cooler, it looks white, but i don't know if it's conductive or not, does anybody know what this is made of?

af2a-2-sm.gif
 
If that grease contained silver then they'd be trumpeting it as a big feature on the tube's label. It's probably just standard silicone grease or something like that. That stuff should be just fine. If it's good enough for a CPU then it's good enough for your GPU. Go ahead and use it.
 
Look... It's 99.9% sure that the Vantec stuff is non-conductive/non-capacitive in which case you can smear it wherever you'd like. I'd still try to keep it only on the GPU because goo can collect dust and that looks ugly. But if you must be absolutely 100% sure then just get yourself a lifetime supply of Ceramique. It's non-conductive/non-capacitive and high-quality goop which won't dry out. Plus it's viscous enough that it doesn't get everywhere. I used Ceramique when I put an Arctic Cooling VGA silencer on my Radeon 9700 and it's been nice and cool ever since.
 
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