Hey gmat,
The conductivity differential between silver and copper hardly makes for much improvement in spreading of the heat. At 300K, silver's conductivity is 429 W/m-K while copper's is 401. Electroplating also isn't real effective for depositing significant material thickness. Based on this, I wouldn't see a sizeable gain to be had in heat spreading via silver electroplating.
If you want to go the silver route for spreading, you'd have better results from a slug (few mm thickness) similar to the copper insert currently used on some air heat sinks. Even then, with less than a 10% gain in conductivity it would be a pretty minor improvement.
No question that it would be an improvement, just a very, very small one.
I think you'd see far more (temperature) variation simply in installation technique from person to person and in mounting style from block to block.
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