Alright i may have a dumb question but im about to build a new computer. Now when i buy the cpu it comes with the heatsink and fan does that mean it also comes with thermal compound or should i buy some artic silver? this is the cpu im going to buy if you need to know

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?...N82E16819103533

thanx for the help.

Boxed CPU's come with a standard cooling system that includes a fan and a heatsink with a pre-applied sticky, once-appliable thermal pad.

EDIT:

To make things clear: that means that tray/OEM CPU's come WITHOUT cooling...

Although i haven't performed any actual tests on the "pre-applied sticky"

it visually looks more like an insulator than a heat transfer medium.

In my opinion, the minimal cost of Artic Silver is worth the peace of mind.

Anytime i remove the heatsink from a cpu it gets a cleanup and a fresh

application of Artic Silver.

shark

Edited February 1, 200620 yr by Shark007

Agreed. Arctic Silver 5 is your best bet. AS5 @ Newegg

thanks for the replies. just to clarfy then cpus come with a "stock" thermal pad. but arctic silver is a suggested replacement. is this what everyone agrees on?

Pretty much yeah ^_^

I would agree as well with getting artic silver. The stock thermal pad still performs well out of the box actually.

The best 2 things you can do though is:

1) Get AS5 compound

2) Get a full copper heatsink (stock is usually aluminum)

You should then be set at the very least for decent cooling in the event you want to overclock a tiny bit. You can remove the existing compound using Isopropyl Alcohol (Rubbing Alc) with ease.

Nice processor choice btw Running an AMD64 4000+ (San Diego) here.

Edited February 2, 200620 yr by Chozo4

I would agree as well with getting artic silver. The stock thermal pad still performs well out of the box actually.

The best 2 things you can do though is:

1) Get AS5 compound

2) Get a full copper heatsink (stock is usually aluminum)

You should then be set at the very least for decent cooling in the event you want to overclock a tiny bit. You can remove the existing compound using Isopropyl Alcohol (Rubbing Alc) with ease.

Most of that I agree with, except the last statement. If youre gonna spend $4 on AS5, spend the extra $5 and get the AS compound remover as well. It sucks the old compound off REALLY easily and completely.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?...N82E16835100010

Its totally worth it, and theres tons in a bottle. If you use alcohol, youll regret it--not only does compound really NOT want to come off, but you wont even remove all of it. (of course, without the AS compound remover, alcohol really is the best alternative...just use high purity alcohol, ie 91%)

Most of that I agree with, except the last statement. If youre gonna spend $4 on AS5, spend the extra $5 and get the AS compound remover as well. It sucks the old compound off REALLY easily and completely.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?...N82E16835100010

Its totally worth it, and theres tons in a bottle. If you use alcohol, youll regret it--not only does compound really NOT want to come off, but you wont even remove all of it. (of course, without the AS compound remover, alcohol really is the best alternative...just use high purity alcohol, ie 91%)

REALLY! I wasn't fully aware of a specific remover as I didn't quite look . Granted, rubbing alc (70%) worked just great for me whenever needed to remove compound and it did it quite well for that matter. Left not a trace of the compound behind in my case.

Useful bit of advice there. I'll be picking up a bottle myself for the next time I need to remove any compound.

Edited February 2, 200620 yr by Chozo4

The stock cooler and thermal compound that come with Intel CPUs perform quite well; in most cases you can overclock them quite a bit with only the stock cooler.

AMD's stock coolers seem to be less performant so their thermal compound is likely to be as well. Getting a better cooler for it wouldn't be such a bad idea.

However, when you remove the cooler for cleaning, then Arctic Silver is preferred thermal compound to use on reassembly.

Thankyou for the great replies you all have been a great help

I used to use white "heatsink paste" on rf power transistors and dc power regulators and diode bridges, and they get REAL hot and like it.

I have had a 4gram tube of paste stuff for years and now used it for my cpu.

I actually looked up the company on the tube and look

MG Chemicals http://www.mgchemicals.com/products/860.html

The tube had 860-4g on it I guess someone had a pail of them somewhere

Now the specs, the max temrature is what i look at arctic is 130c max and the one i used is 200c

ARCTIC SILVER http://www.arcticsilver.com/as5.htm

check this out too, lol

press play

http://www.mgchemicals.com/techsupport/860_demo.html

Seems to be a good product

retail value $2

found this: http://www.thetechzone.com/reviews/roundup...und/index.shtml

Mine Did