How much thermal paste do you need for your PC?

Best answer: You don't need to go overboard with thermal paste when installing a CPU. Using a conservative corporeality is improve than going all in and making a mess. If you need to pick some up for your GPU or CPU, I rely on the MX-4 compound by Arctic, which has served me well over the years.

Amazon: Arctic MX-four ($10)

When it comes to thermal paste, less is more

Thermal paste aids in the transferring of estrus between the CPU and an installed cooler, and so more than might seem similar the all-time approach. But that's not the case with thermal compound. Hither'southward the thing people may not realize before installing a heatsink: this slab of metal will be locked atop of the CPU with a sure amount of force per unit area practical.

This socket-locking mechanism will force the thermal paste applied to be squashed nether the load and spread to the outer edges of the CPU. If y'all apply too much paste, it'll seep out of the cracks and onto the motherboard. Non simply does this look messy if you tin encounter effectually the socket, it'll also be a hurting to become rid of when switching out the cooler. There'due south fifty-fifty a chance it could cause electrical bug and overheat in farthermost cases.

Even component manufacturers urge for a more than controlled application of thermal compound.

Utilise the right corporeality of compound

And so only how much thermal paste practice nosotros recommend? A modest blob of the stuff will exercise. Consider the size of a small garden pea you can boil for dinner. Y'all want to aim for about that size on the very center of the CPU, which volition and then be evenly spread across the top when the heatsink is installed.

Some compound packaging may fifty-fifty come up with a handy tool that allows you to evenly spread the paste across the CPU. If you don't take one at hand, the heatsink usually works only fine, so long equally you apply even pressure when installing the cooler to not take all the compound seep out of one corner.

If y'all somehow manage to apply a little too much, use some alcohol and paper towels to wipe clean the CPU before re-applying the chemical compound. So long as yous follow the garden pea technique, y'all'll take a solid thermal chemical compound spread every fourth dimension. Bottom line: Do not apply a ton of thermal paste thinking more paste with provide a better event. Less is more in this scenario.

Our pick

Chill MX-4

Keeping your CPU cool

The Chill MX-iv thermal chemical compound paste is specifically designed for use with a CPU or GPU and is metal-complimentary and non-electrical conductive. Not simply is information technology perfectly rubber to employ, but this thermal compound does a stellar task transferring estrus between your components and the installed cooling solution, maximizing the amount of performance you tin can accomplish.

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