How important is thermal paste?

[sleepypost]

I am running an AMD 2700 Thoroughbred and it is mounted by a nice heatsink without thermal paste. The core temp never gets above 145 degrees which from what I hear is pretty good for that processor. My heatsink had a kind of sticky surface to the connector to the chip. The manual was in Korean so I couldn't really read it. Any way I heard that thermal paste is old fashioned. Do I need some? Is my temp Okay? Also, what does "banned" mean when people post?

[scott_d]

What you are using is a "thermal pad". Thermal paste is much better if you get a good brand, such as Arctic Silver 3, and is by no means "old fashiond". If you are getting good temps as it is though, there is no need to change unless you really want to.

Being "banned" from the forums means you, as a person, are no longer welcome to post because of something, or things, that you did.
HTH

[PMich]

As long as I did the conversion right 145 F is 63C. That is getting a little warm. The point is to have some sort of thermal transfer material between the CPU die and the HSF. I would be a little concerned that if you know the pad is sticky that you touched it and got oils from your finger all over it.

Read the prep and application instructions at the Arctic silver website to learn more:
Arctic Silver Instructions

[juppy]

Yeah, PMich, you did the conversion right. That is a little warm, especially if that is just the idle temp under no load. If that's under full load then its not too terrible. I think someone posted that AMDs "dangerous temp" is like 93 or 95°C. You can start having heat-related disorders like random restarts and stuff at temps in the 70s or 80s though. Just depends. If it's running fine and not having any problems it may be okay. If it's restarting on its own or locking up or anything, you may want to try the Arctic Silver.

[Nuclear Krusader]

Based on my personal experiences I have found the paste to be way better then the pad.

I agree, that CPU is runnin' pretty hot.

[morriswindgate]

ANything closer to a liquid is going to have better heat conductivity than a more solid substance, as the more liquid the more it fills the imperfections in the surface, thus meaning more overall surface area.

[Confused]

Thing to keep in mind using the pad is this. If for any reason you need to remove it you will need to scrape of the residue and use some thermal compound as the pad cannot be reused. I would recommend Artic Silver if you ever have the need.
Chas

[sleepypost]

At any given time it is usually at about 127 degrees F. It will often fluctuate from 39.00 C to 45.00 C. Maybe I read the reading wrong because you're right, 63.00 is pretty hot. That is a good point about not touching the thermal pad. I'll keep that in mind from now on.

Doesn't performance decrease when temps are warmer?

[Cricket]

You have to remember those temps are taken from the CPU core, not the surface, so they'll be higher than if the motherboard read CPU surface temps. If your system isn't acting strange, there's nothing to worry about.

No, performance doesn't decrease when temps are warmer (INTEL and AMD say their CPU's can function properly all the way up to 90C before damage occurs). Some will say that CPU life expectancy will shorten if you run your CPU hotter than suggested, but most people upgrade their system way before the CPU is ready to call it quits because of heat death anyway, so why worry about it?

Cricket