Cooling/Thermal Compound Myths...

[MagGoT_4_liFE]

Over my (very few) years of building p.c.s, I have heard of many things about Thermal Compound that I'm not sure is actually true. I would like to find some advice/answers, and I would hope other people would add there own myths/questions for more people to learn from.

#1: Stock vs. "Brand Name": Does buying better thermal compound really change the temp./preformance? (EX. Stock compound that comes on an AMD heatsink vs Artic Silver 5)

#2: Overflow: Does letting a little compound ooze out, as long as its not alot (e.g. dripping on the mobo) decrease the preformance or cause over heats? (EX. after applying the compound to cpu/heatsink and strapping it down, a little can be seen oozing from the sides.

#3: Pad vs. Compound: Personally I've never used a heat pad, but which works better, Thermal Compound or a Heat Pad. Also, do people even use heatpads anymore?

Thats all I can think of now, but feel free to add more questions, and, if you have any answers or tips, please post!

 

[bball4life]

yes, yes and compound. Well generally something like as5 will work better because it transports heat better, in addition adding two much compound will create too much of a barrier between the heatsink and the chip decreasing heat flow, and thermal pads are just too think, for most things it will be ok like most heatsinks for gpu ram are pads, but something like as5 is better.