Is thermal paste required?

[Francois_C_N]

Just bought a P4 3.2E, no thermal paste came with it, is it bad if I don't put any thermal paste between cpu and heatsink? Or it will just be a cupple of degrees hotter?

 

[UltimaParadox]

Just bought a P4 3.2E, no thermal paste came with it, is it bad if I don't put any thermal paste between cpu and heatsink? Or it will just be a cupple of degrees hotter?

Depends on what you are doing...

If you are not o/cing definetly do not worry about, since applying thermal paste nowadays voids your warranty.

If you are o/cing thermal paste allows the heat to dissipate a little faster so you can squeeze out those last few mhz.

 

[Francois_C_N]

ok good, I dont plan ocing this a lot, maybe not even oc at all.

 

[Dan_D]

You don't usually need thermal paste with Intel Processors because they have a TIM. (Thermal Interface Material) pad already on the heatsink. You do need either a TIM or thermal paste.

They are VERY necessary.

 

[Francois_C_N]

TIM = The metal thing over the core that comes with all P4 now ?

 

[RancidWAnnaRIot]

TIM = The metal thing over the core that comes with all P4 now ?

no.. TIM is like a black grey thing on the bottom side of the heatsink that comes with a retail P4.. there's usualy a square of it..

you do need some sort of heat dissipation material.. no listen to people that tell yo, you don' t need it.. that's bullshit

 

[Dan_D]

The metal thing is the heatspreader. The TIM is that greyish colored square on the bottom of your heatsink.

 

[FreiDOg]

you do need some sort of heat dissipation material.. no listen to people that tell yo, you don' t need it.. that's bullshit

It's benificial, it's easy, cheap, worthwhile, nice, and a doezen other pleasantries, but what it is not is mandatory.
Your CPU will not overheat and explode if you don't use thermal paste /TIM.
It will simply run a little hotter. (gain is typically on the order of 2-5C, but the quality of the grease / TIM and the contact between bar HS and heat spreader do leave a fair amount of room for variance).
If this is a retail chip, you have a TIM, use it.
If it's OEM cooling and you don't have grease right now, don't sweat it. You're perfectly fine mating bare metal to metal. I would deffinately recommend that you get thermal grease, it's cheap, easy find and use, and typically provides a nice benifit, especially since that 3.2E is lible to run pretty warm to begin with. Or if you want to do better than thermal grease you could lapp your HS and heatspreader.

 

[Evil Weazel]

I guess that's one opinion!
Why do you think AMD and Intel Supply a TIM or paste with all their retail processors? (i.e. the ones that come from the factory with a heatsink and a TIM or paste) Yes, you can decide not use it if you like but it is not reccomended. Why? because air is not very thermally conductive. I have seen CPU's where you could slide a thin piece of paper between the heatsink and CPU, granted that is not usually the case but it can happen. Now when it comes to the Intel Presscots, they run very hot + 2-5 degrees celcius can be as much as 10 degrees fahrenheit, if you have a chip that is already running almost too hot this can be the few degrees that throw it over to instability or shorten the chips life expectancy. Use the paste or at the very least a TIM (Thermal Interface Material)

 

[FreiDOg]

I guess that's one opinion!
Why do you think AMD and Intel Supply a TIM or paste with all their retail processors? (i.e. the ones that come from the factory with a heatsink and a TIM or paste)

because it's cheaper than Al. Easier to package too.
If a penny worth of good thermal padding can drop the HSF's C/W rating a few hundreths of a point, you can make the HS smaller to accomidate the better heat transfer charactersistics. Lopping a few mm off the fins may not seem like much, but when you're bulding a few million HS.....

I have seen CPU's where you could slide a thin piece of paper between the heatsink and CPU, granted that is not usually the case but it can happen.

That's called an improperly installed HS.
That kind of tolerance was accpetable back in the days of PII, but so was passive cooling and no case fans. If you had that today the chip would hit it's thermal max grease or no.

Now when it comes to the Intel Presscots, they run very hot + 2-5 degrees celcius can be as much as 10 degrees fahrenheit, if you have a chip that is already running almost too hot this can be the few degrees that throw it over to instability or shorten the chips life expectancy. Use the paste or at the very least a TIM (Thermal Interface Material)

Stability, maybe an issue. And thermal grease / TIM is the obvious and easy first step to correcting it.
Let's not be so meledramatic about the 'lifespan of the chip' though.
At you're typical 'max die temp' of 85-90C (at the transistor level), you're looking at a lifespan of a decade. (Max die temp for the same lifespan is probably slightly lower for Prescott as Eox is a bit above 1M V/cm now, voltage just isn't scalling well enough to keep up with thining gate oxides).

 

[Evil Weazel]

I've been building computers since it was cool to have an IBM XT or clone with a wopping 4.77 to 10 MHZ 8088, so I know how to install a heatsink, which by the way didn't become a necessity until the 486 most CPU's before that where unsinked. And like I stated a very thin gap between CPU and heatsink is not normal but it has happened even with a properly installed HS. It was however usually on CPU's that were not capped. Almost anyone here would cringe somewhat at someone saying, "Hey, no problem run without paste or a TIM".

Quote
"because it's cheaper than Al. Easier to package too.
If a penny worth of good thermal padding can drop the HSF's C/W rating a few hundreths of a point, you can make the HS smaller to accomidate the better heat transfer charactersistics. Lopping a few mm off the fins may not seem like much, but when you're bulding a few million HS....."

The point was AMD and Intel include a TIM for a reason, it's not just for looks. Many CPU's are reaching the limits of air cooling, saving a penny on a quarter inch of aluminum is not why they supply a thermal pad. I'ts better heat dissipation, better stability, a satified customer and more money in their pocket. That is why Intel and AMD started making Copper\Aluminum or Cu/Al heatsinks for their retail CPU's it costs more but they were able to get a few more Mhz hout of their cores before they topped out.

Also a gap no matter how microscopic is still a gap and air is much less conductive than any thermal interface that fills that gap.

Now the real point, Can you run your CPU without it? In most cases Yes, but Intel and AMD saw fit to include it for a reason. Last I checked neither CPU maker was recommending not using the supplied TIM and I'd be willing to bet they would void your warranty if they found out you didn't as well as if they found a quarter inch of Arctic Silver on there they would for that too. Not to be flaming but, a thermal pad or paste may not be absolutely necessary but it's pretty close to it.

 

[starhawk]

got this absolutely ancient amd k6-ii here... (trying to pawn it off with a mobo and some ram for a measly $25)

it's got a heatsink and fan (well... it did), but the tim's adhesive is long since kaputnik.

does the tim work still? or does that need fixing?

and how would that affect the price i could sell it at?

 

[Codegen]

I have heard a few horror stories when some people don't use Thermal Paste/TIM. Other people do, however, manage well with it.

 

[Brad4321]

Considering how cheap it is, I don't know why you would consider not using it.

 

[frostyflakes]

i need it for my processor, w/o my processor will shoot up to 90c degrees and my pc will be unsable
with it, the temp is like 50c and at least i can use my pc

then again, my duron 900 is ancient