Use of thermal paste

[patkim]

Most of the mobo manuals indicate applying thermal paste between CPU and Heat sink.

Is this really required during a fresh installation?

I am aware of heat sink of box pack AMD CPU having some thermal material already present on it’s bottom surface which comes in contact with processor die.

Is it true for other CPUs like AMD Sempron, P4 etc?

Thanks..

[liljim]

It vary's from different heatsinks but yes, some do have a thermal pad on the bottom of them. I dont like them myself, i scrape the pad off and use thermal grease. It seems to run cooler that way for me.

[icecube]

Intel and AMD have come a long way, the thermal paste they use has gotten better.

I like the Arctic Silver its very good stuff. It has one of the highest heat transfer rates.

It can be a real mess if you are unfamilar with using it. Scrape off the pad on the fan as Liljim recommended. You put a very thin coat on the high part of the cpu that comes in contact with the fan. Too much and it runs all over when it gets hot which isn't a good thing. And you should be all set.

Make sure that the fan is plugged into the motherboard before you apply power. Don't smoke your chip