Thermal Grease/Pads

[Bostonsox46]

Ok I built my first PC about a month ago. (specs listed for those interested)

Pentium 4 2.8Ghz Northwood
ASUS P4P800 SE
128MB Sapphire ATI Radeon 9600XT
80 GB SATA drive
512MB Transcend PC3200

Well I didn't install any type of thermal grease or pads (just the stock HSF), and I am not having any problems with the PC but I am wondering if I should have used some type of thermal grease. I do not overclock and Asus probe is telling me my CPU temp is 31C (87F) while im pretty much idle. When I was building the PC i was under the impression that thermal grease/pads werent necessary unless you were doing some heavy overclocking. Like I said the PC is running great but I don't want it to crap out on me in a couple months. On a side note which generally runs hotter AMD or Intel?

 

[mRk]

It's not actually necessary for a processor to have thermal paste on it, but you really should put some on. If you're running at 31 degrees, then you're fine.

What thermal paste does is it fill in the small gaps on the heatsink that doesn't touch the slug of the processor so that the heat from the processor can fully transfer to the heatsink.

I believe that AMD produces more heat than Intel.

 

[Icedragon]

Theraml grease can cool down the Temp alot, but yea 31 degrees is really good.

 

[Richard]

Your cpu already has a thermal pad on it. With today's speeds, it is necessary to use thermal paste.

 

[crazybeans]

Does anyone know where to get the "pads"? I have searched tiger direct, newegg and a few others with no luck. I have read that thermal pads are better than grease for people who don't intend on changing their cpu fans/heatsink regularly. Grease disipates and dries up after awhile and is said to work best on systems that are upgraded on a regular basis. Need to find pads!! Thanks

 

[Kangaroo]

You should look for "Arctic Silver 5", it is a thermal grease and to my knowledge, doesn't evaporate over time.

I have heard lots of responses to the question "which runs hotter, Intel or AMD?", but the truth is, it depends on the model of your CPU, the quality of cooling, or the ambient room temperature.

Intel have a lower temperature threshold so that would suggest that their CPU's run at a lower temperature, they are hardly going to have operation temperature and maximum temperature too close together, because that is just waiting for disaster.

Intel run cooler but their maximum temperature is lower, AMD run at higher temperatures but their maximum temperature is higher.