Thermal gel and fans

[gospel]

I just bought a AMD Athlon XP 2800+ w/barton core (retail boxed version). It came with heatsink and fan. The way my pc is setup the power supply is covering approx. 1/2 of the cpu fan with only about 5mm in between the two. Is this enough room for adequate airflow? I haven't finished the build yet due to this. I wanted some expert advice first. There is another recommended heatsink and fan I can buy that is 8mm shorter. In other words 8mm more room for airflow.

Another question I have is about thermal gel. I was told that the retail AMD heatsinks do not have thermal material already one them so you need to apply the gel. No where in the installation instructions on the processor does it say anything about appying thermal gel. It does say to be careful to not damage the "rectangle of phase-change thermal material". Do I need to apply gel or not? Is it going to hurt to apply it even if I don't need it?

Sorry to be so long here, but I figured I'd just go ahead and ask everything in one place.

One more thing. The case fan I bought did not come with mounting screws. Does anyone know the size of screw to mount a 80mm case fan with? I can't seem to find any laying around the house.

 

[Nubius]

You need more space above the CPU fan for sure. You should really try to get more than 8mm room cause even then it's a little cramped, but if that's all you can do then I guess ya gotta work with what ya got.

Also the retail heatsinks come with a thermal pad on the bottom as you've read, you DO NOT put thermal compound over that.

If you want you can remove that little bad using a plastic edge, credit card, something along those lines to scrape it off. You don't want to use metal because you don't want to scratch the heatsinks finish. If you can successfully get that pad off nice and clean THEN you can apply some thermal compound and you'll get possibly better temps.

Make sure you only put a little bit of compound on the CPU core, a very thin layer. You don't put the compound on both the CPU Core and heatsink as that will just be too much.

Don't know if there are 'standard fan screws' ya just gotta find some that'll fit. I have nuts and bolts on some of my fans. Also they have self-tapping screws which are usually what fans use. They go in without requiring a bolt or sticking out so it looks cleaner.

 

[gospel]

You need more space above the CPU fan for sure. You should really try to get more than 8mm room cause even then it's a little cramped, but if that's all you can do then I guess ya gotta work with what ya got.

Actually if I get the shorter heatsink and fan I will have 13mm between the power supply and cpu fan. Maybe it will be ok? I am putting one of those PCI slot exhaust fans kind of close so maybe that will pull some heat off of it also. Thanks for your help.