Thermal Paste/Heatsinks

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Drummer4Life05

Drummer4Life05

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I'm going to be building an AMD Athlon XP2600+ system in a couple weeks, and I have a few final questions:
1.) I'm buying the retail version of the processor, which comes with heatsink and stuff. I've read that you don't really *need* thermal paste, because it already has something on it. But would it hurt to put some termal paste on it?

2.) As I mentioned, it does come with a heatsink, but many say that they're cheapie ones and they don't work as well as separate ones. Is it really necessary to buy another when it comes with one?

I will not be overclocking either.
I can provide the rest of the specs if necessary.

Thanks guys!
 
What you're probably refering to is the thermal "pad" that come on alot of stock heat sinks. I did what you're about to do about a month ago and asked the same question. If you DO use the paste you MUST remove the thermal pad completely.

I bought a processor without the heatsink (XP2800+ Barton) for $99 and bought an aftermarket heat sink for $10. I actually ended up saving money that way. The proc i bought didnt have the same warranty has the "Boxed" version with the fan and heat sink, but the way the salesman put it- the first thing AMD is going to ask for is the work order / receipt of the AMD qualified shop that built the computer (thereby voidint the warranty cause i built it myself). That could be bullshit- as i've never made a warranty claim with AMD.

Good luck sir
 
Cool, thanks a lot.

So, to me, it comes down to: which is more effective: the thermal paste, or the thermal pad than already comes on it?

-Justin
 
Cooling Questions

The stock heatsink/fan that comes with the processor was rated for at least that processor and it will adequately cool it. AMD/Intel would be foolish to wreck their own products in THAT way.

HOWEVER! If you are putting the computer together you will need more than just the heatsink/fan to keep your processor cool. The heatsink/fan will only disperse the heat away from the processor core but YOU need to make sure of a couple other things:

- the hot air coming off the heatsink is quickly and efficiently exhausted out.

- cool air is brought in.

You can have a heatsink that is made for the processor but if you keep it sealed up in your computer case that hot air will just sit in there and things will start heating up quickly. natural aspiration is not fast enough. You can ensure that hot air is exhausted by getting a good 80mm case fan (over 30cfm airflow should be good) and mounting it to the grill that should be on the back of your case right above the motherboard inputs. SO that takes care of the hot air out. So what about the cool air in? Assuming you don't have a mess of cables and your pci slot covers aren't all off (which i am guilty of doing!) this SHOULD take care of itself. So now you have cool air coming from the front of the pc and whisking away the warmer air..letting the rest of the warm air travel upwards and onwards out of the pc. A little prevention goes a long way. I'm not telling you NOT to put an intake fan in..i'm just saying the exhaust is of MUCH more necessity. The larger heatsink/fan combo's and thermal paste are really only a necessity for overclocking. As long as you don't block the airflow from the front to the back of the pc and have a good exhaust fan you will be fine. You can check your cpu/mb temp with a free program called motherboard moniter (mbm) if you are concerned about how hot it's getting when running certain applications or you can do a quick reboot and go into the bios to get a reading of cpu temp.

dlv
 
Thanks a lot musk!
Here is the case I am looking at:
NewEgg.com Link

It has a fan on the side, and the front has little vent holes. It looks to me like the case fan on the side is right over the processor, and it will blow out all the hot air collected by the heatsink. Am I correct>
There's also space for another fan at the rear, under the power supply -- should I get another fan for that spot?

Thanks for the tip! :)
-Justin
 
fans fans everywhere...

actually that fan right above the processor should do you just fine.

I'm running a p4 3.0ghz in a case similar with the fan right there and no others and its working just fine. It's actually better to have 1 good fan exhausting all the air out at one place than multiple fans doing it at different angles...you don't want to disrupt the flow of air through the pc and having too many fans will actually do that. So with this setup you will probably have air coming in from the front and the back and coming out of the side. This is good.

The proof is in the pudding, however...I'd install motherboard manager and run it through some cpu intensive processes and then check the temp on it. Hopefully the fan that comes with the case can move a decent amount of air..you should be able to feel the air coming out with your hand a few inches away from the case...I'm sure the case fan will do just fine...

dlv
 
Sometimes the thermal pad is just a little square of thermal paste already smudged on the bottom of the heatsink with a sticker on it. If that is the case then you don't need to put anymore on.
 
Okay, thanks Seifer.
I'll buy some paste just to be safe. :)
 
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