APPLYING THERMAL PASTE FULL
APPLYING THERMAL PASTE PC

Remember that you don't always get what you pay for as some budget pastes come awfully close to or overtake their more expensive competitors.

Here are the best thermal pastes, along with our complete test results. These pads can be used as TIM and come as a single sheet you simply apply to your heatsink, with Thermaltake's Heilos Pad being the first new thermal pad entrant to see our test bed in the coming weeks. We're also putting a new take on an old approach to the test - thermal pads. We'll keep the MX-5 listed, but be aware that stock could disappear in the future, and then this favorite will no longer be available. Arctic will retire its ever-popular MX-5 paste, one of the staples in our recommendations below, as it makes way for the new MX-6 that just launched with claims of up to 20% better performance. Cooling mainstay Corsair also has a new XTM70 blend that will be heading to our test bench soon, and Gelid has recently released its GC-4 Thermal Paste, showing that the TIM market is still thriving.Īs new pastes arrive, older pastes also get retired. Cooler Master introduced a new purple CryoFuze, and Alphacool unveiled its Apex thermal paste.

APPLYING THERMAL PASTE PC

Long-time PC cooler maker NZXT recently entered the market with its first paste, the not-very-excitingly named NZXT High-Performance Thermal Paste. Most, but not all, traditional pastes are electrically non-conductive.Įven though a dizzying array of different thermal pastes is available - some blends have been around for over a decade - new formulations still come to market at a surprising pace. In contrast, traditional thermal paste compounds are relatively simple for every experience level.

They are very hard to remove if you get some in the wrong place, which would fry your system. Some users have more elaborate methods of covering the CPU, but it really isn't necessary.Liquid metal compounds are almost always electrically conductive, so while these compounds perform better than their paste counterparts, they require more focus and attention during application. The cooler mounts directly onto the CPU itself, so the paste will spread out laterally as it's compressed, making an ideal surface for heat transfer more or less on its own. You're not making a peanut butter sandwich here. (You may need a little more if you have a rather large CPU, like some of Intel's six- or eight-core processors.)ĭon't worry if it's not perfectly even, and don't try to spread it out across the entire surface of the metal plate.

To be perfectly clear, we're talking about a single drop of material, no more than a centimeter (half an inch) wide at any point. The correct amount of applied paste is, bluntly, 'not much.' Both Intel and AMD recommend squeezing a 'pea-sized' glob of paste out of the tube (which is either included with the purchase of a CPU-and-cooler combo or sold separately) and onto the direct center of the CPU before placing the cooler on top and affixing it with the mounting hardware. Related: Don't Be Intimidated: Building Your Own Computer is Easier Than You'd Think If your cooler came with a tube of thermal paste, it's probably good enough. Worried about what kind of thermal paste to use? Don't- it doesn't make that big a difference in your temperatures. This point might seem obvious to the experienced system builder, but it's a mistake often made by first-timers.that can unfortunately ruin an expensive CPU (and motherboard).

Thermal paste does not go on the motherboard's CPU socket directly. It should applied to the smooth metal plate (where the manufacturer and model information is printed), not to to the hundreds of squares or pins on the underside.

APPLYING THERMAL PASTE FULL

And if you've never used it before, it can be tough to know exactly how much you need-and the internet is full of bad advice on the subject.īefore we get started: thermal paste is applied to the top of the CPU, not the bottom. Don't spread it around, either-the heatsink will spread it out evenly as you screw it in.Thermal paste (also known as thermal grease, thermal interface material, or thermal gel) is the semi-fluid compound you apply to the metal housing of the CPU to allow efficient heat transfer to the cooler mounted directly above it. When it comes to applying thermal paste, less is more: a small, pea-sized drop is all you need.

Applying thermal paste