Thermal Paste: Best application method?

doobyscoo

doobyscoo

doobyscoo

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I am about to build my first gaming PC. I now have all the components. I have watched some guides on thermal paste application, but people seem to do it differently: some do a single dab (or multiple ones) and let the cooler do the rest, other‘s evenly spread the paste. Is one method preferable to the other, or does it make little difference? I have a 7800X3D and I will be using Noctua’s NT-H2 paste under a NH-U12A cooler. Any advice would be gratefully received :)
 
Most pastes have a guide as to the correct/ideal application method it will vary between pastes - if in doubt a blob in the middle will be close to as good as anything else if not better (you can't go wrong really with doing it that way).

Most pastes these days have been tweaked to be fairly tolerant of poor or not as prescribed application methods but it is still best to do it as per the documentation.

Personally I tend to try and do a small line across the middle of the die but you need to know the die geometry and position under the IHS to really do that and get the best results.

Spreading by hand with most pastes is almost always sub-optimal but a small number of pastes are designed to be hand spread - it used to be a thing with older pastes but modern pastes tend to work best when spread by the pressure of the heat sink.

Noctua has an application video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBS2SfB4wB0 though I'm not personally a fan of that application method but will work well enough if you don't have knowledge of the CPU layout I guess.
 
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Thank you so much for the comprehrensive answer. Extremely helpful indeed. As per your suggestion, I shall follow the instructions included with the paste. I watched a Noctua video guide of how to secure the NH-U12A on an AM5 CPU. The method they used was a dot of paste in the middle and four at the corners before attaching the cooler. I shall see if their paste advises the same method. Thanks once again for your advice :)
 
Go by the instructions if there are any, but as long as you use an appropriate amount any method should be as good as the next.

There was a video somewhere which had a clear plastic over the pasted heatsink which gave the opportunity to see that the pressure spread the paste nicely regardless of whether the paste was in an X, line or dot.

So big two things for me are: have I put thermal paste in, have I take the plastic film off. If yes should be all good.
 
Nothing to do with thermal paste, but I hit a roadblock with the cooler fans. I removed them to install the cooler, and now, for the life of me, I can’t reattach them. I feel like an idiot. I had to cover everything up and leave it for today because I could feel my blood beginning to boil. When I feel like that, I know it’s time to step away.

DavidTJ said:
Go by the instructions if there are any, but as long as you use an appropriate amount any method should be as good as the next.

There was a video somewhere which had a clear plastic over the pasted heatsink which gave the opportunity to see that the pressure spread the paste nicely regardless of whether the paste was in an X, line or dot.

So big two things for me are: have I put thermal paste in, have I take the plastic film off. If yes should be all good.
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Thanks for the advice. Hmmm… I‘m worried now that I didn’t remove some plastic film. I’m pretty sure there wasn’t any on the cooler. I really hope there wasn’t. Lol. It‘s a Noctua cooler. It had a bulky plastic guard over the plate.

FloppyPoppy said:
pea sized blob or a long grain of rice down the middle
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I went with the pea option :)
 
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One tube in the socket before inserting the CPU, one more on top of the CPU IHS and the third on the fan as it'll distribute it on the heat sink for optimal metal to air contact.
 
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doobyscoo said:
Thanks for the advice. Hmmm… I‘m worried now that I didn’t remove some plastic film. I’m pretty sure there wasn’t any on the cooler. I really hope there wasn’t. Lol. It‘s a Noctua cooler. It had a bulky plastic guard over the plate.


I went with the pea option :)
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I'm sure you didn't, they usually have huge warnings printed on them
 
Just a pea sized amount in the middle is fine and actually recommended. I saw a video where an 'x' shape also yielded good results, but I would stick with pea. That's what was recommended when I last used paste which was the new MX-6.
 
mickyflinn said:
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It somewhat depends on the thermal paste used and can impact things like longevity also not sure if in the video they considered potential factors like the paste bedding in over heat cycles, etc.

AS5 for instance when it was newer hand spreading it could see up to 5C decrease once it had set - which could take as long as 200 hours (and also result in significant impact to longevity), though because people persisted with hand spreading it despite saying not to in the documentation, except in certain specific applications like certain server socket types, they eventually tweaked it to be more tolerant.

Your average bundled paste which sometimes comes with heatsinks, etc. pretty much won't make much odds how you apply it unless you do something stupid, as per the video maybe 1-2C max difference.

EDIT: Also most Ryzen CPUs have a different layout than Intels - a line generally isn't the best for them as they have multiple packages, some of them dummy and/or the larger package offset from the centre, etc.
 
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Best advice above, "take plastic film off" and make sure you cover the ihs. (paste spreads out when you secure the heatsink)
So long as you are not an l33t overclocker you cant really go wrong / check temps against expected under full load after a couple of days of application. (hwinfo64 etc)
My pet hate is thermal throttling. (& I know modern cpu's run hot, doesnt mean I have to like it)
 
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Thanks for all the replies. Much appreciated! In the end, I went for the pea. I finally closed up the case this morning. Had a couple of scares. At one point, I thought I might have damaged my GPU when I inserted it. Luckily, it wasn’t the case.

I’m currently idling at 25c, so I must have got the thermal paste right, thankfully. After stress testing, I’m going to take a long, hard look at my fan curves. The Phanteks intake fans are too noisy. They’ve started to give me the hump.
 
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Arthaei said:
Again, the guys who literally make the paste recommend pea sized blob in the middle.
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The advice is usually the method which the end user will least likely screw up - not necessarily the optimal method if you know what you are doing. Problem is for that you really need to know what is going on underneath the IHS and the properties of the paste.
 
Rroff said:
The advice is usually the method which the end user will least likely screw up - not necessarily the optimal method if you know what you are doing. Problem is for that you really need to know what is going on underneath the IHS and the properties of the paste.
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Given my inexperience, I’m glad I took the path of least resistance. It seems to have worked out OK :)
 
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Whatever you do - don't try it like what this person did. They have more qualifications that anyone. They should know.

*EPIC THREAD* Major Problems with Coollaboratory Liquid Pro Thermal Compound DEAD CPU

hey guys, jsut had a lot of problems with this paste stuff, im wondering if any of you guys have had trouble with it? i wouldnt even class it as a paste becuase it has the qualitys of mecury :S input and opinions welcome
forums.overclockers.co.uk forums.overclockers.co.uk
 
Rroff said:
The advice is usually the method which the end user will least likely screw up - not necessarily the optimal method if you know what you are doing. Problem is for that you really need to know what is going on underneath the IHS and the properties of the paste.
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Yes yes yes this more of this kind of thing please. It never used to matter so much, as the dies were close to center, however this isn't the case in this modern chiplet world. Do yourselves a favour and cross it up my brothers.
 
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