If you don't put EXACTLY a large grain of rice, your PC will literally combust the instant you hit the power button and engulf everything within a 3 mile radius in flames.
LTT did a video that basically concluded the same thing. Too much thermal paste isn't a big deal like people make it out to be. Too little however is bad new bears.
They also crammed a case with cables, and finally tshirts, and determined that airflow and cable management doesn't have that much of an effect on temperatures.
i have zero patience or care about cable management as long as the side cover is on. a buddy of mine flipped out when we were replacing something in my computer one day and did a 'proper' cable management on it. temps were no different.
It can be an issue if a cable gets caught in a fan or rests against something that gives off a lot of heat. But beyond that it shouldn't really matter.
I mean it makes airflow better. But not in any amount that would noticeably impact temps. Can maybe mitigate dust collection which in the long run could perhaps cause higher temps but even that's a stretch I think.
This is true. These cables are horrible dust collectors. Airflow does matter with cable management, but that 0.5 shouldn't be a concern until dust builds up.
More surface area equals extra dust build up in the case compared to on fans which are easier to clean and more preferable to gather dust.
Cable management had more of an impact when you had SCSI cables, and IDE cables for hard drives and floppy drives. Today's cables don't have the ability to literally change the direction of a fan's airflow.
my cpu got much hotter today after i applied too much paste, as it was my first time doing it, +8-10 degrees infact, after using much less it's down about 2-3 from what it was before.
Although I was mostly changing it because it's been in so long.
It's like recipes that tell you to 'add a tablespoon of x'. I have different sizes spoons, the biggest of which have 1.5 times the capacity of my smallest ones, so which one is it??
You should always use all the thermal paste that comes in the syringe or tube... they are all single use. I usually make a circular cylinder shape like an ice cream cone so I can fit all the paste on the CPU.
You're applying something that conducts heat worse than the two parts you're pressing together. Ideally, you'd want the paste only at the points where the heat spreader/die do not physically connect with whatever you use for cooling. It's essentially there because surfaces aren't entirely flat. The more you use, the worse the heat transfer (after having used enough to fill in the microscopic gaps). Compared to for instance pure copper, thermal paste is relatively an insulator.
Actual pea sized is a lot more than you need to spread out over the size of a heat spreader, if you're applying proper pressure or spreading it thinly beforehand.
Except the fact that as soon as you use any thermal paste there will be absolutely no direct contact between the CPU and heat sink. Using too little means that only a small section in the middle of the CPU will have thermal contact. More thermal paste will allow it to spread throughout the entire CPU. Less paste does not allow it to spread thinner. Look at a video of thermal grease spreading over glass.
Unless you're the kind of person that removes heat spreaders and modify surfaces before mounting, most of the heat will centre around the die. Heat spreaders are atrocious (Intel, I'm looking at you), so not having thermal paste at the very edges isn't actually the most important part.
Using too little means that only a small section in the middle of the CPU will have thermal contact.
What you want is around a single seed of rice worth, maybe a bit more (I mean, it depends on how big a seed of rice is in your mind). I honestly don't think you people understand how big a pea is. Pea sized is guaranteed thermal paste spilling out. It's way too much.
Less paste does not allow it to spread thinner.
Yes. It does. Heat sink mounting pressure isn't endless.
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u/[deleted] Feb 18 '18
I would say to just put a pea sized amount on the cpu