Applying Thermal Paste for the First Time

[MoeSabally]

Today I'm thinking of upgrading my cpu, but I don't know if the dot method is good enough.

 

The cpu and cooler that I bought recently are the Ryzen 7 5800X3D and the Noctua NH-D15s.

 

 

[Dedayog]

Youtube it.  It's what we do.

[JKRsega]

Just put a dot in the middle and use a spreader to smear it across the processor.  Or even a bank card will do the trick!  Then fit cooler following instructions and happy gaming!  Well happy benchmarking at first, lol. 

[DoctorNick]

2 minutes ago, MoeSabally said:

Today I'm thinking of upgrading my cpu, but I don't know if the dot method is good enough.

 

The cpu and cooler that I bought recently are the Ryzen 7 5800X3D and the Noctua NH-D15s.

 

 

Dont forget to update bios to F60 or newer.

Dot is fine. Use a dot with the size of a aprox  ~chickpea

[Dedayog]

18 minutes ago, DoctorNick said:

Dont forget to update bios to F60 or newer.

Dot is fine. Use a dot with the size of a aprox  ~chickpea

Jesus, you know how big chickpeas get?!  Chickpea vs rice (and the rice is even cooked so it's even larger than a rice grain!!!)

That's too much paste.

Thermal Paste orgy at your house

 

[Tegneren]

The dot method recommended by others here may a bit to little for Ryzen. It was good enough for intel 11th gen and older, but the IHS of Ryzen and Intel 12th gen is bigger and need a bit more for full coverage.

 

In general there is no such thing as too much as long as you use regular paste and not something conductive like liquid metal.

 

I would recommend a small stripe of a cm (1/2") or so. Or you can just spread it out manually with something like a plastic card to make sure you get full coverage.

Testing has shown time and again that the spreading method dont really matter as long as you use enough.

[manikyath]

my usual recommendation is this:

 

- if you're afraid of putting on too much, use the "X" method: a thin line of paste from corner to corner on the IHS. because you're afraid of putting too much, you'll end up making the lines very thin, and end up with roughly the right amount of paste.

 

- if you're afraid of putting too little, use the "dot/pea" method: a pea sized dot in the middle of the IHS. because you're afraid of putting too little, you'll make the pea quite big, and end up with roughly the right amount of paste

 

- if you're afraid of bunging up all together, use the spread / credit card method: put on a small amount and spread it out with a card of sorts until you have a thin layer covering the entire die. i prefer to put a small dot in the center as well to spread out smoothly. it's what i use on bare die stuff, and so far it's proven just about perfectly reliable.

 

the thing with the different paste spread methods is that even in a skilled hand the difference in temperature is VERY close to margin of error, and both your and my margin of error are far bigger than someone sticking heatsinks on a cpu all day for a review.

[Somerandomtechyboi]

X pattern thermal paste is ideal on ryzen to cover the ihs since its not a monolithic die

[ET_Explorer]

How to apply Thermal Paste

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYwHB2P6GmM

[MoeSabally]

I managed to replace my old cpu with the new one and with the noctua cooler. Temperatures are really low, and the fps counter is insane! Glad I did not mess up.

[DoctorNick]

On 9/2/2022 at 3:19 PM, Dedayog said:

Jesus, you know how big chickpeas get?!  Chickpea vs rice (and the rice is even cooked so it's even larger than a rice grain!!!)

That's too much paste.

Thermal Paste orgy at your house

 

 

Haha I forgot to say diameter of a small chickpea. The viscosity of thermal paste usually do the trick. In reality it's less volume than a chickpea, maybe 1/3-1/2 size