How good is it?


We know it's cheaper than Arctic Silver II and not nearly as messy and because it's cheaper it surely must not be as good right? Whattaya mean don't call you Shirley?

Test System(parts that matter):

I went through pains trying to get and see any noticable difference so I ended up running tests 3 times each using these instructions each of those times. That meant I first compared how my system is using Arctic Silver II, then took off the heatsink and applied Arctic Alumina and ran tests. I did that 2 more times because we know if we have too much or too little compound that can effect actual performance. So after basically running tests 3 times each using Arctic Silver II and Arctic Alumina I came up with the below averages. For getting the max load temps I ran graphic intensive apps, NFS5 at 1600x1200x32 and then Sandra. I liked the NFS5 test part the best.

Take your pick which is which since it really didn't matter. But if you must, Arctic Alumina is in green. I tried keeping the room temp the same and left the side panel off throughout. One test AS II barely seemed better and the next Arctic Alumina was slightly better. I feel I could do 10 more similar tests and have the same results.

Now comes the part that you may not understand. Why Arctic Silver made Arctic Alumina. If it performs on par with their best-selling Arctic Silver II and they sell it for a cheaper price, then why do that? Then add in the fact it's far easier to clean up(yes it actually simply wipes off with little trace). So why would they release a new forumla that performs as well as the higher priced Arctic Silver II and sell it for a cheaper price? Obviously the answer(and the only one I can think of) is that it has no silver. And silver as we know ain't cheap.
Final Thoughts
So here we have a new formula from Arctic Silver that will sell for a lower price when it's released(around Mid-November) and with it we no longer will have the messy cleanups as we did with AS II. Wow! Thank you Arctic Silver.
Minuses- Plus's-
  • sells for a lower price than AS II
  • It's at least as good as the immortal Arctic Silver II
  • Not nearly as messy
  • far easier to cleanup
  • Buy one get one free (just kidding,hehe )
    With our PCA rating scale I give it a:

    < 10 out of 10 >

    Mucho thanks to those cool guys at Arctic Silver for supplying us with the samples.

    When you use Arctic Alumina please do follow these instructions for best results.

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