Thermal Paste

[Token]

Is thermal paste necessary when installing the heatsink on an AMD 64 processor (retail)? The heatsink has a thin square of some sort of material on its underside but since this is my first build im not sure whether this is sufficient. Any advice would be helpful

 

[loltim]

Should be fine, its worth wiping that off and using AS5 if you want the 2/3°C decrease though.

 

[Fireblade2K4]

I have left the default thermal paste on the stock HSF that came with my Opteron 146 and my temperatures are 33-34c idle and 45-46c on load and my processor is overclocked to 2.5Ghz.

I have an Arctic Freezer 64 Pro to fit yet and with that I will use AS5, I'm sure I will then see the difference in the temperatures, but at the moment I'm happy with them so it's not something I'm making a priority.

But I'd say its just fine to leave as it is.

Stu