THERMAL PASTE

[DAnewguy]

What does a thermal paste good and wich one would you recommend??????¿¿¿¿¿

[SauronsV]

Use the one that comes with the CPU cooler

[DAnewguy]

1 minute ago, SauronsV said:

Use the one that comes with the CPU cooler

H100i v2 doesn't  come with one

[Guest]

Diamond compound is best:

http://www.coolermaster.com/cooling/thermal-compound/mastergel-maker/

 

You won't be seeing a lot higher performance than stock thermal paste, but this kind of stuff might decrease the temperature by up to 4 degrees celsius.

[joycejh11]

Thermal paste creates a bond between the heatsink and the CPU or GPU. Without thermal paste your CPU/GPU would heat up very fast and it may crash the computer or even destroy the CPU/GPU. I would recommend Artic Silver 5 as that it what I use and it shows better temperatures over time than any other thermal paste that I have used. 

[Carlos1010]

Just now, joycejh11 said:

Thermal paste creates a bond between the heatsink and the CPU or GPU. Without thermal paste your CPU/GPU would heat up very fast and it may crash the computer or even destroy the CPU/GPU. I would recommend Artic Silver 5 as that it what I use and it shows better temperatures over time than any other thermal paste that I have used. 

You need thermal paste for your GPU?

[Sir Reginald]

Personally I tend to stick with Arctic Silver. Got a 5 degree drop going from a generic brand to A.S.5

[DAnewguy]

Just now, Carlos1010 said:

You need thermal paste for your GPU?

It's all ready In it chill

[Guest]

Just now, Carlos1010 said:

You need thermal paste for your GPU?

You see, the gpu has thermal paste on it.

[joycejh11]

Just now, Carlos1010 said:

You need thermal paste for your GPU?

You do if you take it apart, but GPU's come pre-applied with thermal paste.

[Carlos1010]

@spidegal Do you really need to apply thermal paste for your GPU? Does it help at all? Also thanks for your response!

[joycejh11]

1 minute ago, Carlos1010 said:

@spidegal Do you really need to apply thermal paste for your GPU? Does it help at all? Also thanks for your response!

No as we said in previous comments it comes pre-applied and you don't need to mess with it as long as you don't plan on taking the card apart.

[Carlos1010]

4 minutes ago, DAnewguy said:

It's all ready In it chill

Do you ever have to put thermal paste again after 2 years of working with your GPU?

[DAnewguy]

1 minute ago, Carlos1010 said:

@spidegal Do you really need to apply thermal paste for your GPU? Does it help at all? Also thanks for your response!

Yeah gpu is almost like a Cpu but more cores and it comes applied so you should only care about it if you want water cooled gpu

[Guest]

Just now, Carlos1010 said:

@spidegal Do you really need to apply thermal paste for your GPU? Does it help at all? Also thanks for your response!

I would keep the gpu how it is now, it comes with good thermal paste pre-applied. I replaced mine with high end thermal compound and saved 2 or 3 degrees C. Its a bit of an enthusiast thing to replace the thermal paste if you are keeping the stock cooler. I wouldn't recommend unless if you know that taking a gpu apart might reduce its remaining lifetime.

[joycejh11]

1 minute ago, Carlos1010 said:

Do you ever have to put thermal paste again after 2 years of working with your GPU?

If you think that the thermal paste could be affecting your temperatures to the point of bottlenecking that could be an option but that will most likely not happen. 

[DAnewguy]

Just now, Carlos1010 said:

Do you ever have to put thermal paste again after 2 years of working with your GPU?

No it will hold a long time

[Carlos1010]

Oops I posted the same comment 2 times. Sorry lol. I understand now even if i'm not the OP

[DAnewguy]

2 minutes ago, Carlos1010 said:

Oops I posted the same comment 2 times. Sorry lol. I understand now even if i'm not the OP

It's OK we all are here to help each other

[mariushm]

26 minutes ago, joycejh11 said:

Thermal paste creates a bond between the heatsink and the CPU or GPU. Without thermal paste your CPU/GPU would heat up very fast and it may crash the computer or even destroy the CPU/GPU. I would recommend Artic Silver 5 as that it what I use and it shows better temperatures over time than any other thermal paste that I have used. 

No, that's incorrect.  There's no "bond", well at least not in the traditional sense where by bond someone would think "soldering two metals together".

There's also no overheat, no crashing, you won't destroy anything with no thermal paste applied. Any modern cpu and gpu chip has over temperature protections - if overheated the chips will simply reduce their frequency and eventually turn themselves off (computer shuts down or goes in stand by if cpu overheats)

 

Best heat transfer would be directly from metal to metal. However, we're not in a theoretical world where metals are perfectly flat. Both the cpu metal surface (the lid) and the cooler surface have microscopic holes or very tiny bumps which means when you put the cooler on top of the cpu, there are very small air pockets between the cpu and the cooler.

 

The heat transfer through air is slow, much slower than through a liquid or some other material. You could even say air is a good insulator. The role of the thermal paste is to fill those holes in the metal surfaces and remove the air between the metals. The transfer of heat is much faster through the thermal paste, compared to regular air trapped between metal surfaces.

For this reason, you only have to apply a thin layer of thermal paste (basically a pea or corn sized ball in the center of a cpu or a thin line in the middle for rectangular processors, the cooler vertical pressure will spread the pea in all directions when you install the cooler)

 

Now keep in mind there are still plenty of points where the two metals are in direct contact, so there's still plenty of heat transfer.. if you use a cooler without any thermal paste your processor will still be cooled, but much harder (let's say the average temperature will be 5-10 C higher). A thermal paste helps quite a bit, it just makes the heat transfer more efficient.

 

There's usually very small differences between thermal pastes, no matter what you choose the difference will be of only 2-3 C. You don't want the cheapest thermal pastes (or sometimes called thermal grease, basic silicone based kind of liquid ones) because they "dry out" faster than other pastes, and they have to be replaced more often than other kinds of pastes. Those cheap thermal greases should be replaced every 4-6 months or so (clean surfaces with isopropyl alcohol and apply a new thin layer), the other higher end thermal pastes (arctic silver ceramique, mx-2 , alumina etc) usually last better, you generally don't have to "refresh" the pastes for 8-12 months, even more.

You should also pay attention to the type of paste, if it's conductive or not - conductive pastes are more expensive and can have better performance but have to be carefully applied because they can short if the paste spreads outside the area of the two metals. Non conductive are very good and can be easily found. Just look at the description of the thermal paste, it usually says what kind it is.

 

Newegg has a relatively good list of thermal pastes, if you sort by best rating you can get a good idea of what thermal pastes are good.. here, have a look : http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100007788 8000&IsNodeId=1&bop=And&ActiveSearchResult=True&page=1

 

Video cards have thermal pastes preapplied on the chips, and the ram chips usually have some kind of thermal pads (thicker material) which helps transfer heat from ram chips to the heatsink. The thermal pastes are usually good for up to a couple of years, after which they slowly lose efficiency, so you'll basically just notice the fans of the video card spin more often and faster, to pump more air through the heatsink and remove more heat this way.

If the video card is out of warranty you can certainly unscrew the cooler, clean the old thermal paste and apply a new layer of thermal paste and the video card will be happy ...

You don't have to worry about it, that the video card will be "destroyed" or something like that, just because someone doesn't change the thermal paste.

 

[joycejh11]

6 minutes ago, mariushm said:

No, that's incorrect.

Best heat transfer would be directly from metal to metal. However, we're not in a theoretical world where metals are perfectly flat. Both the cpu metal surface (the lid) and the cooler surface have microscopic holes or very tiny bumps which means when you put the cooler on top of the cpu, there are very small air pockets between the cpu and the cooler.

The heat transfer through air is slow, much slower than through a liquid or some other material. The role of the thermal paste is to fill those holes in the metal surfaces and remove the air between the metals. The transfer of heat is much faster through the thermal paste, compared to regular air trapped between metal surfaces.

For this reason, you only have to apply a thin layer of thermal paste (basically a pea or corn sized ball in the center of a cpu or a thin line in the middle for rectangular processors, the cooler vertical pressure will spread the pea in all directions when you install the cooler)

 

Now keep in mind there are still plenty of points where the two metals are in direct contact, so there's still plenty of heat transfer.. if you use a cooler without any thermal paste your processor will still be cooled, but much harder (let's say the average temperature will be 5-10 C higher). A thermal paste helps quite a bit, it just makes the heat transfer more efficient.

 

There's usually very small differences between thermal pastes, no matter what you choose the difference will be of only 2-3 C. You don't want the cheapest thermal pastes (or sometimes called thermal grease, basic silicone based kind of liquid ones) because they "dry out" faster than other pastes, and they have to be replaced more often than other kinds of pastes. Those cheap thermal greases should be replaced every 4-6 months or so (clean surfaces with isopropyl alcohol and apply a new thin layer), the other higher end thermal pastes (arctic silver ceramique, mx-2 , alumina etc) usually last better, you generally don't have to "refresh" the pastes for 8-12 months, even more.

You should also pay attention to the type of paste, if it's conductive or not - conductive pastes are more expensive and can have better performance but have to be carefully applied because they can short if the paste spreads outside the area of the two metals. Non conductive are very good and can be easily found. Just look at the description of the thermal paste, it usually says what kind it is.

 

Newegg has a relatively good list of thermal pastes, if you sort by best rating you can get a good idea of what thermal pastes are good.. here, have a look : http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100007788 8000&IsNodeId=1&bop=And&ActiveSearchResult=True&page=1

 

Thank you for the clarification I wouldn't consider what I said incorrect but it definitely wasn't detailed.

 

[typographie]

34 minutes ago, DAnewguy said:

H100i v2 doesn't  come with one

It should have a square area of pre-applied grey thermal material already on the contact surface.

 

You could get a better one if you want (and you'll need some if you ever remove/reinstall the cooler), but my experiences with Corsair's pre-applied thermal compound is that it seems to perform well.

[DAnewguy]

Just now, typographie said:

It should have a square area of pre-applied grey thermal material already on the contact surface.

 

You could get a better one if you want, but my experiences with Corsair's pre-applied thermal compound is that it seems to work quite well.

Rly does it??  Didn't see when looked at reviews 

[typographie]

Just now, DAnewguy said:

Rly does it??  Didn't see when looked at reviews 

I have an H80i myself, and it did. I'd be shocked if the H100i didn't as well. It should come like this:

 

 

You can certainly get something better and apply it, but you'll have to clean off the plate first.

[DAnewguy]

7 minutes ago, typographie said:

It should have a square area of pre-applied grey thermal material already on the contact surface.

 

You could get a better one if you want, but my experiences with Corsair's pre-applied thermal compound is that it seems to work quite well.

Well thx for the help and btw cool profile (picture)