How Does Thermal Paste Work?
Techquickie
·Techquickie
·2017-05-06
·
888 words · ~4 min read
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do you really need that goopy gray weird
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smelling paste on your CPU can't we just sit our impressive looking heat sinks on
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top of our processors and be done with it no not even remotely and here's why
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many heat sinks don't sit flat against your CPU and in some cases with good
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reason but that might be for another video rather they're either concave or
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convex so there's a fair amount of space where your heat sink and processor
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aren't making prop contact also even
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though the top of your CPU or the bottom of your heat sink might look perfectly
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smooth even shiny in some cases they're actually rougher at the microscopic
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level than you might think and as a result they don't actually sit
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completely flush against each other this means that without thermal compound air
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pockets exist between your CPU and your
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heat sink so why is that a problem well
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it turns out that even though hot or cold air makes dramatic difference in
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how your body feels as the seasons change air is actually a very poor
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conductor of heat in general if you don't believe me try holding a steak an
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inch above a frying pan instead of placing it inside and let me know how
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that goes for you so thermal paste fills these would be air gaps so that your
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heat sink and CPU are touching more directly and the good stuff anyways is
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also made from special materials that help conduct heat properly so that it
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can go up into your heat sink so while you can use toothpaste as thermal
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compound to save money you probably really shouldn't for this to work best
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the conducting material in thermal paste is usually some sort of metal with more
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expensive varieties containing things like powdered silver and while this
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makes sense since metal conducts heat quite well it used to cause problems for
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novice Builders who put on too much thermal compound because metal Paste can
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also end up being electrically conductive oops fortunately it's less of
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an issue these days with higher quality compounds like Arctic Silver 5 managing
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to remain non-conductive in spite of using metal
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though you still need to keep it away from metal contacts and traces as it is
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mildly capacitive which can still be a problem but if you want to be really
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safe you can buy thermal paste that contains no metal at all these are
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typically made of ceramic though more Exotic Solutions that contain things
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like diamonds do exist although they sadly won't add a bling factor to your
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rig they will do a decent job of keeping your processor cool however the downside
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of these is that you typically won't get quite the same level of performance as
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you would with a more metallic based Pace but highquality Ceramics are not
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only cheaper they will also only set you
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back by a few degrees in most cases and are actually the best option for exotic
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Subzero cooling which you can check out
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here and of course if you want to avoid messes entirely you can get thermal pads
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usually just is made of silicone which just sits squished between your heat
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sink and whatever you're trying to cool you commonly see these on small graphics
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card components since there's no danger of leakage but since they can't get down
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into the micro crevices as well as paste performance won't be nearly as good so
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you don't see them on CPUs or the actual specific GPU very often whatever you do
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though make sure you aren't accidentally buying thermal adhesive these glues or
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epoxies permanently bond to two things together this stuff used to be somewhat
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common in certain PC components but has now been mostly relegated to smaller
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electronics that aren't meant to be taken apart nonetheless it's still easy
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to buy so make sure you're getting the right stuff if you don't want to end up
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stuck without a working CPU I'll show myself how it that was a
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little brutal if you're not a member of Dollar
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shap Club yet join today and get your first month of razors for free they
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deliver amazing razors directly to your door and membership means that you can
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probably afford to shave with a fresh blade anytime you want which is
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fantastic you'll get a first class shave when you use the executive blade without
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hurting your wallet and you can also use Dr Carver's shave butter using it with
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the executive blade uh creates a wonderfully smooth shave they ship to
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the US Canada on Australia so head over to dollarshaveclub.com Linus to give it
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a try for free if you guys like the video like it or dislike it if you you
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don't like it or whatever if you're like this topic sucked I have a good idea for
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another one let us know down below and give us a comment and whatever else you
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want to do also check your Channel Super Fun because they are super fun and I'll
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see you next time