Does Arctic Silver 5 expire?

TV2 said:

Gotta love the SPREAD method. Notice that none of the others cover the entire die.

The i7 3820 with it lid (IHS) removed. The actual CPU is small compared to the IHS (Integral Heat Spreader).
So the thermal compound doesn't have to get all the way to the edges.

The heat spreader does exactly what the name implies: it spreads the heat over a larger surface area for maximum dissipation.
The engineers spend time calculating the size of the spreader.

You are right that the compound doesn't need to go to the edges of the heat spreader. But.... it does need to cover the entire surface of the heat sink base on the cooler in order to maximize the conductivity.

I'm kinda disappointed that many of the current coolers that say they are for the Socket 1700 processors have heat sink bases that are smaller than that 13700K IHS. Although I was not looking at any of the monster coolers. Maybe they do.

TV2 said:

The heat spreader does exactly what the name implies: it spreads the heat over a larger surface area for maximum dissipation.
The engineers spend time calculating the size of the spreader.

Naw... the engineers spend all day reading Dilbert cartoons and saying things like: "You know that's true".

Yeah, that's true.

TV2 said:

Yeah, that's true.