Thermal Pad vs Thermal Paste

[Conman_ftw]

Which is better? can you run them together? will running them together help at all? 

 

the two i'm looking at are from Arctic

 

https://smile.amazon.com/ARCTIC-Compound-Performance-Heatsink-Interface/dp/B0045JCFLY?sa-no-redirect=1

https://smile.amazon.com/ARCTIC-Thermal-Pad-0-5-Conductivity/dp/B00UYTT3I2/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1499729011&sr=8-1&keywords=arctic+thermal+pad

[themctipers]

paste is better for very hot components (cpus, gpus, VRMs), pad is ok for lighter components (ics, voltage regulators)

[W-L]

2 minutes ago, Conman_ftw said:

Which is better? can you run them together? will running them together help at all? 

 

the two i'm looking at are from Arctic

 

https://smile.amazon.com/ARCTIC-Compound-Performance-Heatsink-Interface/dp/B0045JCFLY?sa-no-redirect=1

https://smile.amazon.com/ARCTIC-Thermal-Pad-0-5-Conductivity/dp/B00UYTT3I2/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1499729011&sr=8-1&keywords=arctic+thermal+pad

They are for two very different applications, paste is mainly for things like your CPU and GPU since they have little to no gap and just require the smallest of gaps to be filled, where pads take up much thicker spaces such as VRM components or DRAM chips.

[HappySlappyFace]

 

[Jurrunio]

Paste are better than pads (unless you compare shit paste with insanely good pad). Paste can keep hot components like CPU, GPU cool while on full load but pads can't. Pads are reusable, but should only be used for boot test, not stress test.

 

I'm not saying that you can't use them together, but they are used differently, in which only 1 is usable. For example, CPUs and GPUs under full load will generate so much heat thermal pads can't handle, causing them to run hot and thermal throttling to kick in. However, pads are easier to use and less of a mess since it is a solid, so VRAM chips often use pads instead.

[aisle9]

11 minutes ago, Conman_ftw said:

Which is better? can you run them together? will running them together help at all? 

They're for different applications. If you're pairing your CPU or GPU with a heatsink, thermal paste is the right answer. If you're putting heatsinks on your motherboard VRMs or graphics card VRMs, pads are the way to go. Running the two together wouldn't really help things. It would probably make things considerably worse, actually.

[Enderman]

You don't put thermal pads on a CPU.

[markr54632]

They do make thermal paste pads that are easy to apply if doing repairs in large quantities. Other than that they perform horribly.

 

As for pads, they are used to transfer heat across larger voids. They are not terribly efficient.

 

Pastes can depend upon application as well. If you are putting a cooler on a modern cpu with a heat spreader just pick a paste off of the top 20 or so and they will all perform the same. If you have a bare die application choose a thick or liquid metal paste.

 

There is also a paste designed to replace pads, but that is a whole different topic. Again this is typically used because it is cost effective and fast when doing repairs.