Had a chat with a retired IT guy at a diner last week about thermal paste

I was in a diner in Tulsa last week and this older guy saw my laptop bag and started talking shop. He said he hasn't used thermal paste in over a decade, he just uses those pre-cut thermal pads for everything including CPUs. I always thought pads were for lower-end stuff or laptops only but he swore by them for desktops too. He walked me through a few builds he's done with them and claimed temps stayed under 75 degrees on air cooling. Anyone else given up on paste for pads and seen good results?

2 comments

2 Comments

colethomas5d ago

Wait, is this guy secretly a thermal pad salesman or just trying to save himself from sticky fingers? Sounds like he'd put a pad on his toast if he could.

alice9284d ago

Doubt it's that serious honestly. Thermal paste works fine, it's cheap, and a tube lasts years. Pads have their place but full on CPUs with big air coolers seems like overkill. That 75 degrees might hold up on a midrange chip but try that on a 14900K or something and you'll be throttling in no time. Plus pads can be a pain to get the right thickness on different CPUs, paste just works.

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