The kit contains nine grades of sandpaper ranging from 400 grit down to 10 micron in the form of quarter sheets. Along with the grinding paper is a piece of glass to be used as a flat surface, full instructions, and a tube of Arctic Silver Ceramique. The Ceramique was not used in this review. Instead we opted for the AS5 silver thermal compound.

Procedure

The procedure for lapping the heatsink is quite simple. Just start with the courser of the grits and work your way to the finest. The paper is color coded and stacked in the package according to grit. The instruction sheet should be read thoroughly before beginning as it contains some crucial pointers that will ensure a smooth surface. The first is to make sure the glass is rinsed between each change of paper. If you don't, debris from the previous sanding will make its way in between the glass and the paper and will quite easily scratch the copper base of the heatsink. Also, make sure to mix up the pattern in which you sand. Circular motions will give a flatter surface while straight vertical and horizontal motions will give a shinier finish. The instructions also recommend applying a little bit of water to the back of the paper to help it adhere to the glass. I found this quite useful. The easiest way to sand was to keep the glass and paper in one hand, and sand the sink with the other. The pictures below show the original heatsink, the sink after the first course sanding, and the finished product.


You can see that the original finish was quite rough. In the middle, the high spots of the heatsink are evident. In the final picture, there is noting but a smooth shiny finish. By the way... The bright light that is shown in the center of the last picture is not from the flash of the camera. If you look closely, you will see that it is a reflection of the florescent lights above.

Performance

The charts below show idle and load temperatures. Idle temperatures were taken on first boot after the computer was allowed to cool completely. To test load temperatures, I ran a CPU load simulator at 100% for twenty minutes. All measurements were taken from the board sensors.