Copper Shims

Company: TweakMonster, OCZ, CPUFX
Product: TweakMonster Copper Shims
Street Price: Around $10 USD
Date Reviewed: March 13, 2001
Reviewed By: Jason Rabel

More Shims?:

If you haven't read my previous review of the CPUFX copper shims, I'll tell you now I was quite disappointed with them. The CPUFX brand are made from stamping the shape from a sheet of copper, not the best method for tight tolerances. Another webmaster told me about the TweakMonster line of copper shims, and how theirs were much better quality. So I contacted Ross, aka the TweakMonster, and he agreed to send me a couple samples. Around the same time I was talking to OCZ and they offered to send me one of their copper shims too. Well, to make a long story short, after receiving both the shims, I discovered the OCZ shims are made by TweakMonster (And now the TweakMonster website lists them as one of the places to buy TweakMonster shims).

How Do You Measure These?:

Having two shims from the same manufacturer but from different suppliers is good in this case because this way I can check for consistency from two random samples. But how do you measure such a thin piece of copper with a high degree of accuracy? Well, I happen to have a dial caliper which is accurate to .001" (one thousandth of an inch), which I can use to measure the thickness of the shims. Then I can compare those numbers to the specifications of the height of the core for Intel & AMD (which is also given in thousandths of an inch). Obviously you want the shims to be slightly lower than the height of the core, to insure good heat sink contact, but not too thin to render them useless. Below is a picture of my dial caliper, with a close-up of the dial.

CNC What?:

TweakMonster uses a CNC machine to mill these wonderful copper shims. If you don't know what CNC means, then check out the TweakMonster's explanation on the subject. Basically a CNC machine is a milling machine controlled by a computer, this gives highly accurate cutting and perfect consistency. They actually arrived in perfect condition, but the oil from my fingers tarnished them, so I had to use a scuff pad to clean off the fingerprints so they would look decent when I photographed them.

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