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Thermal paste arguments: too much or too little, which side are you on?
I was at a shop in Austin last month and watched a guy slap a thick layer of thermal paste on a Ryzen chip, like butter on toast. I told him that's overkill, he said I was being paranoid and that it spreads fine under pressure. But I've seen the opposite too, someone using a pea-sized dot and getting air pockets that spiked temps by 10 degrees. So which is it, do you guys go heavy or light, and have you actually tested both ways on the same cooler? I've got my own results but curious if anyone else has a stubborn preference.
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the_christopher24d ago
Ah yes, the butter on toast method, a classic. I love how thermal paste turns grown adults into arguing scientists every single time this comes up. Here's the thing though, most pastes are made to fill tiny gaps, not to be a full meal, so a huge glob mostly just makes a mess around the socket and gets squeezed out the sides. That said, too little is way worse because you get those air pockets you mentioned and temps jump like crazy. I've tested the pea dot vs the thin spread on the same cooler and honestly the temps were within a degree or two, the real killer was not tightening the cooler down evenly. So my take is a dot in the middle, let the mounting pressure do the work, and stop trying to frost the whole chip like a cake.
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