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Anybody used thermal pads rather than paste ?

gooober

gooober

gooober

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27 Oct 2012
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120
Hi all, iam looking at swapping cases, so iam looking at getting the thermal pads rather than paste as it will be easier for a noob xD My current max temp seems to be around the 65 mark under full load

Also maybe a silly question, can they be used on gpu also? Or cpu only?

Thanks for any info. Hope this was the right place to post this.
 
don't be afraid of using paste, it's really not very hard and there are plenty of guides on youtube or to be found on google.

Generally pads are for VRMs and stuff, but you use paste on CPU/GPU chips
 
As mentioned prior, pads are reserved for VRM's, and paste is for cpu/gpu chips. That being said there are pads for cpu's known as graphite pads, but honestly you can't go wrong with paste. If you're concerned about it spreading out/getting on the board etc you can just get non conductive paste.
 
daveyb said:
As mentioned prior, pads are reserved for VRM's, and paste is for cpu/gpu chips. That being said there are pads for cpu's known as graphite pads, but honestly you can't go wrong with paste. If you're concerned about it spreading out/getting on the board etc you can just get non conductive paste.
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My worry is using too much or too little lol. Is there much price difference between non conductivity and conductive? It will be ny first time doing it so it's just nerve wracking as if I get it wrong iam worried about it ******* jy pc up as I cut afford anything lol.
 
I'd imagine the price difference to be pretty negligible, something like Arctic MX2 is a few quid at most. General consensus for years regarding paste was a pea sized dot, though with chips nowadays having a larger heatspreader/die people opt for a line/cross etc - heavily debated subject. I'd look up the chip you have in some build guides on YouTube/Google and see what people do regarding paste.
 
At the end of the day, the paste is so cheap that you can trial run it and see for yourself how it covers/spreads. Just apply paste, put on the cooling (with a slight twist back and forth before screws are fully tight), tighten up, then take it off and see how it spread over the CPU.

Clean it all off and reapply with any adjustments. You should have more than enough paste in 1 tube to do this several times.
 
daveyb said:
I'd imagine the price difference to be pretty negligible, something like Arctic MX2 is a few quid at most. General consensus for years regarding paste was a pea sized dot, though with chips nowadays having a larger heatspreader/die people opt for a line/cross etc - heavily debated subject. I'd look up the chip you have in some build guides on YouTube/Google and see what people do regarding paste.
Click to expand...
What paste do you think I should go for ?
 
montymint said:
Arctic MX-4 2019 Edition or thermal grizzly kryonaught
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agree. I use thermal grizzly kryonaut but the artic stuff is prob just as good - I see many different graphs showing generally similar performance. The carbon pads can be re-used but can also tear and get squashed. Overall the paste is prob more foolproof. As mentioned it is easy to apply - there are a variety of techniques but they probably all work equally as well - I tend to use either: the small pea sized blob in the middle; or a cross; or put some on and spread it thinly with a credit card. Yes you should be able to use the carbon pads under a gpu if you wish but I think that paste is more effective. As long as the paste is non-conductive then even if you put a bit too much it doesn't matter (just squashed out the side a bit).
 
I have a graphite pad thing on my machines. The 2400g seems to suit it well, the 3600 ryzen not so much for some reason. Just seems to run hotter than I would like and am going back to paste soon.
 
Just for everyone's reference, thermal pads can have quite exceptional performance on CPUs and GPUs.

As a material the thermal pads have ~5x the thermal conductivity of thermal paste:
I personally haven't tried the pads, however I would expect good and very reliable performance.

To quote Puget Systems
We did plenty of thermal testing, and rather than getting into details let's just say that the graphite pad was just as good as high-quality thermal paste
Click to expand...

The thermal pad degraded after several re-uses however. So if a thermal pad is used once it should perform the same as paste, it is quite expensive to do it that way.
 
I used the Thermal Grizzly pad on my 3600X for a few months to test, was 5c higher than their paste on average, they can be reused if your careful but they do rip easily as mine did when I took the motherboard block off when I switched back to air.
 
I wouldn't worry too much about repasting if your max temp is 65c, which CPU is it? 65c is very good, I would only be worried if it went to the high 80s depending on which CPU it is.
 
Orcvader said:
I wouldn't worry too much about repasting if your max temp is 65c, which CPU is it? 65c is very good, I would only be worried if it went to the high 80s depending on which CPU it is.
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I have a ryzen 7 1800x.
How much do you think I will need? 8g or 4g? Sorry no idea how much I need
 
gooober said:
I have a ryzen 7 1800x.
How much do you think I will need? 8g or 4g? Sorry no idea how much I need
Click to expand...

Then those are very good temps, it's no where close to overheating levels.

Any will do, you won't be using all of it in one go, for the 1800X you'll be squeezing out a pea size in the middle.
 
Thermal pads are designed for thicker gaps, where thermal compound is designed for direct contact where small are gaps are filled. You will have a much worse performance replacing compound with pads. Take a look at graphene pads, they are designed to squish and for this purpose.
 
Paste is easy. Just squirt a pea sized amount in the centre of the CPU. this is how much I used of TF8 paste. Temps are exceptionally low with my NHU12s
 
Its all or nothing
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Don't forget to cool the socket as well you don't want that to over heat :D

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(Disclaimer it will only work if you are building PC in Verge, otherwise it will break your CPU and motherboard)
 
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