thermal paste is definately not just for overclocking, ALL cpu's need paste. everything from an old p2 to the latest quad core. not only that, if it has a heat sink on it, it has thermal paste. vid cards heat sinks have paste, the northbridge/southbridge sets have paste, MOSFET has paste. without the paste the heatsinks cannot conduct heat away, and will get very very hot.think of it as a cooling gel lol