I was reading a recent TIM review and they used the Formula 7 as a comparison, and it got me thinking...

How is it?

I've seen it around in stores, online and such. Reviews / feedback seems to be good...but that's about it.

Kind of a "n00b" about thermal paste. In my life time, I've used cheap ceramique / silicon stuff, then I jumped onto the MX-2 boat, then finally stuck with Arctic Siler 5 for a few years til present.

I'm just curious - ground up bits of diamond particles in TIM. How does it...why...?! Is it better than the metals / oxides found in many of the TIM available in the market?

Just wondering if any of you from the AMD "community" had tried this stuff or anything similar, and what's your feedback?

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Phenom II X6 1090T @ 4.1GHz // ASUS Crosshair V Formula 990FX // Sapphire Radeon HD Dual-X 7970 // Thermaltake Frio w/ push-pull (using Antec Formula 7 Nano Diamond paste!!) // 8GB (2 X 4GB) G.Skill RipJaws DDR3 1600MHz @ 8-9-8-34-21-1T // Corsair TX850 850W // Corsair Force GT 120GB SSD (OS) // Kingston 200 V+ 120GB SSD // WD Caviar Black 1TB // Windows 7 Ult x64 // Logitech X-540

Diamonds can have a little over twice the thermal conductivity of silver, so it has the potential to perform better.  I'd want to see some tests though, because that's assuming pure diamond vs pure silver.  Grinding the stuff up into tiny chunks and suspending it in some kind of goo is bound to change its thermal properties... not to mention how the stuff is applied to the chip.

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Do not meddle in the affairs of archers, for they are subtle and quick to anger.
Post Count: +8510
Troll Hunter

The opinions expressed above do not represent those of Advanced Micro Devices or any of their affiliates.

Well let me tell you, I used AS5 for years, great stuff, still is, but last year or so I switched to, on my CPU, "IC Diamond". Compared to AS5, my temps did drop about 3°C, and I imagine it would be more if I had a true flat contact surface instead of the direct heatpipe touch cooler I have (I'm sure Steveo could give you better numbers because of his liquid cooler). My feelings on this are that yes diamond-based TIM's are better than silver based TIM's, and my experiences show that it is, but there are a couple of caveats to diamond TIM, such as they cannot be used on GPUs due to the small particle size (which does etch surfaces). But if you think about it, the price difference is pretty small so you might as well get the diamond, I don't think you'll be disappointed.

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Crosshair IV Formula, Phenom II x4 965 w/ Corsair H60, 8 GiB OCZ Platinum DDR3 1600, XFX HD 7970 Ghz, 512GB Vertex 4, 256GB Vector, 240GB Agility 3, Creative X-Fi Titanium w/ Creative Gigaworks S750, SeaSonic X750, HP ZR2440w, Win 7 Ultimate x64

I have K9, few weeks ago I did it. It is harder to remove than AS5, no doubt due to the smaller particle size. What's bad is that you'll clean it all off with alcohol and a rag to where it's nice shiny copper, then you'll rub it yet again and even more will come off. Ended up using about a quarter of a container of 50% alcohol (local stores don't sell 91% anymore for some reason).

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Crosshair IV Formula, Phenom II x4 965 w/ Corsair H60, 8 GiB OCZ Platinum DDR3 1600, XFX HD 7970 Ghz, 512GB Vertex 4, 256GB Vector, 240GB Agility 3, Creative X-Fi Titanium w/ Creative Gigaworks S750, SeaSonic X750, HP ZR2440w, Win 7 Ultimate x64

i have been using a dimond type past for over a year. works good for me.

i have not tried to remove the cooler yet, so i don't know how easily it will come off.

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I've been hearing a lot of good stuff about the TIM linked below.  I haven't tried it myself yet, but the next time I'm up for some more I'm definitely going to give it a shot!

GELID Solutions GC-Extreme Thermal Compound

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The opinions expressed above do not represent those of Advanced Micro Devices or any of their affiliates.
Requiescat In Pace AMD Processor Forums | Member since: 1/19/2009 | Post count: 4142
Please don't PM me with questions, instead create a thread so that everyone can assist and benefit from the knowledge provided. Thanks in advance!

Edited: 09/14/2012 at 10:46 AM by Canis-X

Bad link..for me.

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* A clear conscience is usually a sign of bad memory *

Try This Link

@Canis-X: Be aware that this forum is really asinine about posting links. Sometimes it works, many times it will put in a >p after the link (thereby making it a bad link), and sometimes it will do like yours and not be able to be clickable or copyable at all. Best off using the L /L tags.

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Crosshair IV Formula, Phenom II x4 965 w/ Corsair H60, 8 GiB OCZ Platinum DDR3 1600, XFX HD 7970 Ghz, 512GB Vertex 4, 256GB Vector, 240GB Agility 3, Creative X-Fi Titanium w/ Creative Gigaworks S750, SeaSonic X750, HP ZR2440w, Win 7 Ultimate x64

Hmm...it seems that diamond-type pastes do a pretty good job.

I've heard of the GELID GC Extreme - looks pretty good as well.

BTW, this was the review that got me into this...mess:

http://www.legitreviews.com/article/2024/4/

As you can see, they used the GC-Extreme and the Formula 7 as comparisons, heh.

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Phenom II X6 1090T @ 4.1GHz // ASUS Crosshair V Formula 990FX // Sapphire Radeon HD Dual-X 7970 // Thermaltake Frio w/ push-pull (using Antec Formula 7 Nano Diamond paste!!) // 8GB (2 X 4GB) G.Skill RipJaws DDR3 1600MHz @ 8-9-8-34-21-1T // Corsair TX850 850W // Corsair Force GT 120GB SSD (OS) // Kingston 200 V+ 120GB SSD // WD Caviar Black 1TB // Windows 7 Ult x64 // Logitech X-540

Just get you a Corsair H100 and Antec 7

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Crosshair IV Formula, Phenom II x4 965 w/ Corsair H60, 8 GiB OCZ Platinum DDR3 1600, XFX HD 7970 Ghz, 512GB Vertex 4, 256GB Vector, 240GB Agility 3, Creative X-Fi Titanium w/ Creative Gigaworks S750, SeaSonic X750, HP ZR2440w, Win 7 Ultimate x64

I've been eyeing the H100 for a few months now...still hesitating to get one (don't know why).

I think imma do a bit of messing around with my overclock and see if I can push more out. Then grab a tube of Formula 7 and see what happens.

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Phenom II X6 1090T @ 4.1GHz // ASUS Crosshair V Formula 990FX // Sapphire Radeon HD Dual-X 7970 // Thermaltake Frio w/ push-pull (using Antec Formula 7 Nano Diamond paste!!) // 8GB (2 X 4GB) G.Skill RipJaws DDR3 1600MHz @ 8-9-8-34-21-1T // Corsair TX850 850W // Corsair Force GT 120GB SSD (OS) // Kingston 200 V+ 120GB SSD // WD Caviar Black 1TB // Windows 7 Ult x64 // Logitech X-540

You might want to check out Prolimatech PK3.It dropped my 939 4400 by 2c over AS5.Have't put it on my Phenom yet.It's supposed to be good on GPU's as well so i've read.Just a thought.

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Have posted 53 messages to Processor forum since 4/20/2011

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Is that site safe?

I ask because of this that I received when trying to view it!

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Lad

I play with sand.

McAfee Site Advisor gives it a green light.

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Crosshair IV Formula, Phenom II x4 965 w/ Corsair H60, 8 GiB OCZ Platinum DDR3 1600, XFX HD 7970 Ghz, 512GB Vertex 4, 256GB Vector, 240GB Agility 3, Creative X-Fi Titanium w/ Creative Gigaworks S750, SeaSonic X750, HP ZR2440w, Win 7 Ultimate x64