Thermal paste or Thermal compound???

[Johnniest5]

Hey all, just wondering which is better. To use thermal paste or leave the thin layer of thermal compound on the bottom of the HSF? Just got new HSF but unlike previous HSF I used to have, this one has the thin layer of rubbery thing that is pasted/glued onto the bottom of HSF and I just wonder if it is better to remove it and apply thermal paste or leave this thin layer material alone.

Please share you experience or knowledge. Thanks all!

[Hoot]

Get it off of there and any residue it leaves behind. The performance is inferior to a good thermal grease like Arctic Silver or Dow 3140 (white stuff).

Hoot

[ackgt1xl]

Go ahead an spend the extra 10 bucks on arctic silver 2 it's worth it, just peel off the thermal compound on the HSF and make sure u use a good degreaser to take off the excess(be careful not to scratch the heatsink) then use rubbing alcohol to clean it off. applying the arctic silver 2 is easy too jus put a small dot (which is usually hard to acheive with the syringe it comes in cuz it spews out a lot all at once)on your CPU core and take any edge my prefrence is an exacto knife and make sure its been cleaned with rubbing alcohol and spread it over the CPU core. After that your done you just place the HSF on it and lock it down and your finished.

[Kriegster]

Yeah lose the thermal pad. I am using the cheap silcon-paste ( 1 dollar for 3 cpu's worth) and it works good. I may get some of the arctic but the most speed I can probably get out of it would be maybe 20 mhz (if that).