So /g/ im building my computer and im at the applying thermal paste part now what ive found is no one can agree on what the best way to apply it is. Ive seen different people say different things with it falling into 3 sides. First and most popular is pea. Second is spread with a credit card or whatnot. And third is like pea but with an X. I plan and pushing my computer a bit so which is the best and are any outright harmful. Also should I apply to the cooler itself or the CPU.
is thermal paste mandatory?
Use mayo.
just make a P and dont spread it, the heatsink will do it for you. If you spread it you will have air bubbles which will make your cpu run hotter. here is a good video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hNgFNH7zhQ
>>54371797
apply it to the CPU. the pea method is the most widely accepted, X is fine too. you don't want it to run off the sides. Don't use the credit card method, it will spread more evenly by itself when you attach the cooler
>>54371812
yes, unless you don't mind thermal throttling and heavily degrading the life of your hardware
Two main methods are the pea and the line method. The latter is good for processors that feature an iGPU as the die is elongated and often what you'll find with the pea method is the outer core or the iGPU won't be fully covered. This can equate to about 2c to 5c temperature differences but will be magnified when overclocking heavily. For best practice it's best to just use the pea method then secure the cooler firmly.
>>54371852
>>54371865
Alright ill just use the Pea then. Also my case came with two fans is that really necessary?
>>54371898
why would that be a problem you fag? are you this autistic, maybe you should go to wallmarkt and let them make your pc
its literally easier than spreading butter over a hardass flat cracker
just do it evenly and make sure it doesnt go over the edges
>>54371797
I'll answer this for you OP because you're missing the ENTIRE point. The reason we use a thermal compound aka "thermal paste" is to cause heat to chemically dissipate up to a cooler source.
The thermal paste isn't a glue or a bond or something that MUST be equally spreaded. No, thermal compound serves to build a heat bridge to the heat sink using chemical.
That being said, a pea size drop would be enough to cause this bridge for heat to travel and rise up to the heat sink then cool down.
Got it? Don't worry about spreading "enough" around worry about having FRESH chemical compound to reach the theory of this bridge.
>>54371898
It's important. One fan is for intake another fan is for exhaustion.
>>54371797
Your goal is to have as much of the CPU's area covered and connected to the heat sink by a thin and uniform film of thermal paste that doesn't contain bubbles.
Air bubbles are bad because they don't conduct heat well. Credit card is bad, because bubbles and nonuniform spread.
A pea in the center, when smushed by the heat sink, should form a uniform circle of paste with no bubbles. It's simple and it werks. The thing is that some people don't like how the corners aren't covered. It's a square CPU and a square heat sink, so why have a circle of paste between the two?
Here comes the X. The idea here is to manipulate the pea in a way that it's pushed towards the corners as well.
People do the pea because it simple and it works. There's probably not much the X adds to the deal to make it ideal. Just put the drop of paste and push it down with the heat sink.
>>54371898
That's a stupid question. Like, >>>/g/sqt sort of stupid. You want heat to be extracted from your components and pushed/pulled out of the way. More fans mean more airflow, mean more cooling potential for your components.
Just make sure the fans are placed in a way that takes air in from front/bottom and pushes it out from back/top. Connect them to Sys_Fan connectors in your mobo.
>>54371852
It really isn't. Unless you're overclocking you don't actually need it.
