Comparison of AS5 vs. MX-4 on Haswell i7-4790K

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graysky
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Comparison of AS5 vs. MX-4 on Haswell i7-4790K

Post by graysky » Wed Nov 19, 2014 4:05 pm

[S]I compared Arctic Silver 5 to MX-4 between my new i7-4790K and my NH-14D. In short, I ran mprime (Linux64,Prime95,V28.5,build 2) using large FFTs with 8 threads and logged the temps throughout the run once per second using a shell script. Ambient temp which is very important to consider did not vary more than 2 F since the system was placed in my basement where it is very consistent. The digital thermometer showed 59F as the low and 61F as the high which is approx 1 C.

Run 1 was Arctic Silver 5 which had cured for approx 52 hours. I ran mprime as noted above for 4 hours.
Run 2 was with MX-4. I ran mprime as noted above for approx 1-1/2 hours.

Histograms in blue show the temperature distributions for AS5 and those in pink show the same for MX-4. The solid black line for each core is the average temp for each core. You can clearly see differences between the two of 2-4 degrees (allow for +/-1 C due to the ambient temp range). AS5 was the superior TIM in the test experiment.

Test system
Processor: i7-4790K @ 4.40 GHz (vcore 1.232 volts under load)
HSF: NH-14D with 120mm and 80mm fan running at max
Motherboard: MSI Z97 MPOWER MAX AC[/S]

EDIT: I have to totally invalidate my findings based on a configuration oversight: it seems that $HOME/prime.txt on linux dictates what size FFT mprime uses. I have found that using "large FFTs" as I did the the experiment allows for values of 128k-1024k which is a range that causes a given CPU various levels of stress. The trend is for smaller values to give more stress and as a result, higher heat. In short, I have no way to go back and see which FFT size prime was using when I compared these two. Here are my findings using the same TIM, but varying the FFT size. Each run is a average of 20 min of running.

Image

I have since locked the FFT size to 400k and will repeat this experiment.

Code: Select all

V24OptionsConverted=1
WGUID_version=2
StressTester=1
UsePrimenet=0
MinTortureFFT=400k
MaxTortureFFT=400k
TortureMem=0
TortureTime=3
OutputIterations=10000
ResultsFileIterations=999999999
DiskWriteTime=30
NetworkRetryTime=2
NetworkRetryTime2=70
DaysOfWork=5
DaysBetweenCheckins=1
NumBackupFiles=3
SilentVictory=0
AskedAboutMemory=1

[PrimeNet]
Debug=0
Last edited by graysky on Sun Nov 23, 2014 5:01 am, edited 1 time in total.

quest_for_silence
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Re: Comparison of AS5 vs. MX-4 on Haswell i7-4790K

Post by quest_for_silence » Thu Nov 20, 2014 2:21 am

Thanks for sharing! :)

Tzupy
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Re: Comparison of AS5 vs. MX-4 on Haswell i7-4790K

Post by Tzupy » Thu Nov 20, 2014 4:22 pm

This is weird, all reviews I read years ago say the opposite. Is there a new AS5 formula?

xan_user
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Re: Comparison of AS5 vs. MX-4 on Haswell i7-4790K

Post by xan_user » Thu Nov 20, 2014 5:33 pm

and mustard is only a few degrees worse than mx-4

application and proper tightening of the screws is more important than what paste is used..

graysky
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Re: Comparison of AS5 vs. MX-4 on Haswell i7-4790K

Post by graysky » Fri Nov 21, 2014 3:18 pm

Don't think there's a new formula. In fact, my tube is probably 3 yrs old.

graysky
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Location: My desk

Re: Comparison of AS5 vs. MX-4 on Haswell i7-4790K

Post by graysky » Sun Nov 23, 2014 5:02 am

Consider the results I presented invalid. I did not control for the FFT size (thought I did but later realized the defaults define a range). I edited the first post of this thread and will repeat.

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