thermal pad vs thermal paste....

[Jon L. Obscene]

I answered that the other night Brain

It has a place in the market for test purposes, like tire weld, car body filler etc, for temp repairs.

I found out about this from a few technicians and google and a couple of tutorial vids, if you google it you'll actually see it's split down the middle, so imho I think it's just preference.
But to help back up what I say.......

Application of the predominantly pre-assembled pads is quite simple to figure out: remove the protective film, assemble cooler, turn on your PC, and that's it. The downsides of the pads are that they can only be used once, and when upgrading your processor, cleaning the contact surface is not all that easy.

For this reason, those who regularly change the CPU should opt for thermal paste instead of a pad.

Source

................

"Use a thermal pad for long-term production installations..."
"...Thermal grease is only recommended for development, test and validation purposes. In a production evironment, thermal grease may disperse over time, leaving no interface material between the heatsink and processor. Only use thermal grease when the heatsink needs to be replaced multiple times over a short period."

Video answering the argument "Pad vs Paste"

Source

Hope that helps answer your question Brain

Jonno

[zapjb]

Well said Jonno.

[lynx]

thermal grease may disperse over time

This is absolute bullshit.

Q. Where's the thermal grease.
A. Oh, I think some of it nipped round the back for a cigarette, and I saw a couple of bits heading down towards the pub.

Thermal grease does NOT have legs.

Notice that the AMD video clip is for a production environment.

The reason for recommending thermal pads is that they give consistent results, but not necessarily the best results. In a high speed production environment not enough care would be taken in applying thermal grease. Sticking a pad on the heatsink is much easier and quicker.

[Jon L. Obscene]

Just a question:

All you guys who say paste, have you actually had better results from paste than proper high quality aproved pads?
I don't mean 1C, I mean real results?

I not used paste but my mate did, well the manufacturer he bought puter from did, after 7 months he started shutting down thru over heating, the tech guy came out, put on a pad and he's been fine since

Anyway, my new mobo etc is here, so we shall see

Jonno

[Snee]

Jonno, read through that entire thread you put there as a source, it seems that most people on there agree on the fact that thermal paste is better, and someone also mentions that the stuff referred to at first probably isn't the same kind of thermal paste we use, but rather a different kind of stuff. Which supposedly is intended for testing purposes only, and thus made to be easy to clean off, but not intended to last very long.

I've found that arctic silver or something similar is much better than the pads I've come into contact with in the past.

We're talking a five degree difference, or even more.

[lynx]

I've heard that the Shin-Etsu pads (which AMD were showing) are pretty good, maybe as good as AS3 (but that's a bit dated now). But just as with different pastes, not all the pads out there are going to be as good as Shin-Etsu.

What the cpu and heatsink manufacturers want is for the end user to get reproducible results. If there's any doubt that they know how to apply thermal grease/paste they aren't going to recommend it. I can't see that as an excuse to come out with outright lies though.

[Jon L. Obscene]

Well ironically, Ebuyer in their infinite wisdom did'nt send the pads I ordered.
Luckily I got a tube of paste with my new heat sink :ffs:

Am now having a stressful time

Jonno

[fkdup74]

Well ironically, Ebuyer in their infinite wisdom did'nt send the pads I ordered.

e-mail em a "thank you" letter....they just did you a favor

[Jon L. Obscene]

Well, new board and heat sink on, curently running at 32C
With fan on medium setting

Coooooooooooooooool

Yes with paste, also.....the heatsink I took off, the pad was 99% gone , so there was direct contact between sink and cpu. This is possibly cos the pads were bought in an emergency and they were really cheap shitty ones with no name

Anyway, will see how it goes

Jonno

[clocker]

.....the heatsink I took off, the pad was 99% gone , so there was direct contact between sink and cpu.

Which is exactly what you want your TIM to do.
The pad/paste is only supposed to fill in the voids between the two surfaces, not necessarily coat the entire interface.