I was wondering if it is better to use more tim with a direct contact cooler like the Titan Fenrir to attempt to fill the voids between the heatpipes and base of the coolor, or use the normal, very small amount of tim. Thanks. -Joe-
Arctic Silver recommend "tinting" the surface of the the cooler by working TIM into the edges of the heatpipes with a credit card, then scraping excess off before mounting with the normal small grain of rice size amount.
I got a fenrir and i literally slapped on it. Good squidge down either side of the heat pipes, then a slightly larger than normal blob on the cpu. Dont know my exact stress testing temps but theyre pretty darn good for a q6700 with 1.4275 volts through it running Linpack for 4 hours and it absolutely DESTROYS my old zalman 9500. Hardocp's review of the titan was really bad due to contact issues, so i pre-empted those by liberally applying thermal paste. Sweet cooler and an excellent choice you made buying it.
I did roughly the same. Sounds like I applied a bit less TIM, but with the same result. I applied a (thin) strip to the ridges/grooves on the heat pipe base, then the size of a small pea to the CPU. All 4 CPU cores are in the 30s at normal/low use (with CPU fan RPM in the 900s), and in the 40s under load (with 1,200-odd RPM). So am pretty happy with its performance.
I found it very hard to get an even spread on the CPU usign the titan fenrir's TIM. I tried using the pea-sized blob and credit card technique but it seemed too putty-like. In the end I just put on a fairly large amount & just applied it by putting the Fenrir on top & moving it around a bit. Got fairly good temps though: around 30°C at idle & 50°C at load (Intel Core i3 530 @ 4.2GHz 1.3V).
