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Is Your Silver-based Thermal Paste Really Silver?

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the critical-looks dept.

strider69666 writes "Over at Overclockers.com they have a review of several thermal compounds that claim to have 99% pure silver content. 'I decided to test Arctic Silver 5, Arctic Silver 3, OCZ Ultra II Premium Silver Compound, and CompUSA Silver Thermal Grease. This test was not conducted to test performance, but rather to determine if these compounds have Silver as an ingredient.' Using a professionally mixed testing solution, they found that several brands do not, in fact, contain any silver at all! So, are you getting what you are paying for?"

21 of 788 comments (clear)

  1. bah by nuclear305 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Who cares who's selling what? The TRUE geek makes his own from a brick of silver.

    In my day we had to make thermal paste by grinding it down with stones.

    1. Re:bah by bunseki+suru · · Score: 5, Funny

      You had stones? Bah! In my day, we didn't even have friction! We had to will the silver particles apart - and we liked it. Young whippersnappers...

      --
      Integrated application integration with synergistic synergized synergy
    2. Re:bah by DrMrLordX · · Score: 5, Funny

      That sounds less like an activity to be pursued by a geek and more like a crafting recipe from FFXI.

      Requires alchemy(2) and goldsmithing(10), fire crystal + silver ingot + beeswax = thermal paste

    3. Re:bah by Brandybuck · · Score: 5, Funny

      Silver bricks? You was lucky! In my day we had mine our own ore and smelt it down. Then our dad would assay it, and if it wasn't 99% pure, all we got for breakfast was CompUSA Silver Thermal Grease!

      --
      Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
    4. Re:bah by John_Booty · · Score: 5, Funny

      Silver bricks? You was lucky! In my day we had mine our own ore and smelt it down. Then our dad would assay it, and if it wasn't 99% pure, all we got for breakfast was CompUSA Silver Thermal Grease!

      You had HEAVY ELEMENTS? In my day, the loose clouds of interstellar gas hadn't coalesced into star systems yet. All we had were hydrogen atoms and maybe a trace of helium around Christmas!

      --

      OtakuBooty.com: Smart, funny, sexy nerds.
    5. Re:bah by madpierre · · Score: 5, Funny

      You had loose clouds of interstellar gas. *LUXURY*

      In my day we had nothing but the vacuum and had to wait for a universe to pop into existence before we could even begin to think about the existence of energy and matter.

      Kids today ....

      --
      siggy played guitar
    6. Re:bah by DarthApoc · · Score: 5, Funny

      And if you tell the young people today, they won't believe you!

    7. Re:bah by Hexydes · · Score: 5, Funny

      You had a vacuum? All I got was a broom and a dust pan. *weeping*

  2. No by forkazoo · · Score: 5, Funny

    No, mine isn't. And by the way, despite the claims of the manufacturer, Soylent green is not 100% people. Quit believing advertising, and you will be just fine. Better yet, take up spectroscopy as a hobby. Chicks dig spectroscopes!

    1. Re:No by Frymaster · · Score: 5, Funny
      Soylent green is not 100% people. Quit believing advertising

      i call this the "grape nuts theory".

      no grapes. no nuts. grape nuts.

      --

      2 1337 4 u!

  3. no - he got it wrong... by MrBallistic · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...compusa meant that it was 99% silver - the /color/.

    thank you, thank you. i'll be here all night. tip your wait staff.

  4. o boy by lib112x · · Score: 5, Funny

    Is silver toxic? I thought the tube that came with my athlon fan was complementary tootpaste!

  5. I want to speak to the manager! by teamhasnoi · · Score: 5, Funny
    This 'hamburger' contains no ham, these 'French' fries are from Idaho, and this Dr. Pepper was not prescribed and tastes nothing like pepper!

    I want a free goddam coffee and an apple pie right now or I'll sue!

    1. Re:I want to speak to the manager! by The_dev0 · · Score: 5, Funny

      You're about to break my heart about baby oil too, aren't you?

      --
      Never fight naked, unless you're in prison...
  6. Overclocked... by Justin205 · · Score: 5, Funny

    403.9 Access Forbidden: Too many users are connected

    You're telling me a site on overclocking has to cut off the user limit? Their servers aren't overclocked enough to handle it?

    --
    "Your effort to remain what you are is what limits you."
  7. Re:RTFA by jburst · · Score: 5, Funny
    several thermal compounds that claim to have 99% pure silver content

    They are advertised as CONTAINING silver, it's not just silver color.

    That means they have content which is colored silver. You don't speak marketing, do you?
  8. Re:Ok by addaon · · Score: 5, Funny

    That's okay, you couldn't come up with a good heatsink haiku either.

    --

    I've had this sig for three days.
  9. Reading in-between the lines of a OCZ recall. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    OCZ would like to take this time to spin doctor a recent article published at Overclockers.com, which shows that OCZ Ultra 2 thermal compound has no silver content.

    It is not really OCZ's fault, we don't actually make the stuff. OCZ is a victum just like you! Someone in China did it and we couldn't have possibly known because we outsourced our quality control as well. This required us to trust a single independent lab test to be representive of the quality of all batches of OCZ Ultra 2 thermal compound.

    Now that we have been caught with our pants down, we have submitted a second batch to our outsourced quality control and confirmed that it is all China's fault. But we would like to point out that the compound did contain 30% silver by weight. We have reached the conclusion that this recent batch (actually, it might be multiple batchs but we can't afford to test each one to be sure) did not meet with the OCZ unenforced specifications.

    Instead of giving your money back, we will define the steps below as "accepting full responsiblity" and would like to point out that we are taking legal action since it really is China's fault.

    Beginning today we are issuing an incomplette recall of all full or partially used OCZ Ultra 2 (if you still have an empty OCZ Ultra 2 then your S.O.L. and get nothing).

    1) The tube which now sells for $9 on NewEgg (and we would like to point out that the Tech Zone rated as cooling 2 degrees C below Arctic Silver) can be exchanged for Arctic Silver which you could have just bought for $7 -OR- you can get a OCZ heat sink that we need to get rid of anyways since it is discontinued!

    But wait... there is more...

    2) A one-size-fits-all T-shirt featuring the OCZ logo so you can be a walking advertizement for OCZ until it falls apart the third time you wash it. The fact that there is not the cotten/polyester blend we specified can not be OCZ's fault because after all... OCZ does not have it's own quality assurence and in the end everything is China's fault.

    Oh... but wait... there is even more...

    3) $10 off another of our products which also comes complette with no quality assurence!

    Thank you for getting scre... doing business with OCZ. Remember, if it is not OCZ technology then you might actually be getting what you payed for.

  10. I can see the imprint: by Lionfish · · Score: 5, Funny

    I fried my cpu and all I got was this lousy t-shirt.

  11. Re:Maybe"silver" is just the color ... by Scorchio · · Score: 5, Funny

    Hmm.. I guess that means I'm not going to make my fortune by melting down boxes of Golden Grahams.

  12. Re:Nice... by lobsterGun · · Score: 5, Funny

    it warms my heart to see that you used the proper "You're a moron" rather than the ever more common "Your a moron" or the coloquial "U R a m0r0n".

    Nice work.