Thermal paste or Plate?? on new board.

[webtek]

I am going to be putting a new Barton 2500 processor on a new board this weekend. One thing that I forgot about was to buy either a plate or some thermal paste.
Here is my question. Is one better than the other and if I do use thermal paste how much do I use and how do I actually apply it. (to what surface??)

Thanks so much, this forum has certainly made me much better at this stuff. You guys are great.

Regaurds,
Rich

[fishybawb]

Thermal paste is better than those pads you can get. Most people recommend something like Arctic Silver (http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=35-100-007&depa=0), but whatever you get you won't go far wrong if you follow the application instructions here (http://www.arcticsilver.com/instructions.htm).

[zybch]

AMD reccomend using a thermal pad for long term applications. They seem to think that paste will eventually become displaced from between the die and HSF.
I have NEVER seen this happen.
I have been using AS3 since it came out and now use AS5. You get much better temps than with a pad and its much easier to remove than a pad.

[stix_kua]

I myself am stciking with the pads...It works for me all the time...For example, I am running my Pentium 4 2.6 C at 3.5 GHz and the sysetm has very cool temps...ambient temp is cold but the system runs nice espcially with a total of nine fans...

2 PSU fans
4 case fans
CPU fan
Northbridge fan
Video card fan

[stix_kua]

i just don't feel the need for the expensive thermal goop....the pads have always sufficed for me.

And besides..i don;t have the time to wiat for the goop to break in...:rolleyes:

too much hassle...

[_Mystical_Night]

Right now im using the thermal pad that came with my Athlon XP 2600 ... however i have a tube of Arctic Silver 5 that i might use if i buy a better heatsink/cpu fan to cool my cpu, I still havent tested the pc to see how hot it runs ... waiting on a part (http://www.sysopt.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=159508) that should come by wednesday

Short n sweet version (for lazys)
================
I usually prefer thermal pads because thier easier to apply ... less mess too if you cant fit the cpu heatsink on the first try :p *some are a pain in the rear*

However ive heard good things about arctic silver 5 ... ive yet to try it but i own a tube because its easier to find then thermal pads

[zybch]

The new thermal pads are a lot better than they used to be. I have one from an old Cyrix 6x86 and its made of some loosely woven fabric coated with rubber on both sides. How it was supposed to healp with heat transfer I have no idea.

AMD has thankfully moved away from the wax based pad that would melt was all down one side of the cpu (in a tower case that is). They now seem to be made from some metalic stuff.

The intel ones are just rubbish. Wax/carbon coating both sides of a thin aluminium plate. But (until prescott) they didn't make as much heat as comparable athlons and had a heat spreader so the heat had a larger surface contact area over which to move.
They still run a lot cooler with AS3/5

[causticVapor]

Plate... but you need some REALLY fine grit sandpaper...

Normally those woven fabric pads were there because the HS was so badly finished that the rubber interface transfered more than direct contact alone....

[zybch]

Yeah. You look at some of the early (celeron/P3) anodized heatsinks from intel and the bases are so rough you could grate cheese with them.