the pad on my heatsink, stay or go?

hi all,
simple questions for those who know..bought a new intel approved fan and heatsink for a celeron 2.2ghz skt478.it came with a thermal pad pre attached to the bottom... the question is..... do i remove it and apply thermal solution which i hear is better or leave the pad there as it is intel approved after all?? would the difference be major?.. ie, affect the speed? ..this is my first build, advice would be super!!! thanks

 

some good thermal paste would be better.... it doesn't affect speed.... just helps keep the temp on the CPU down..... if you plan on overclocking it, or plan on really stressing the CPU with high end games and video programs, you pretty much have to get thermal paste.... if your just kind of an average user you could stick with the pad.... but still, paste in my opinion (Arctic Silver)

 

but if you already got your comp, just keep the pad for now, watch the temp, and if you think you need it you can remove the pad later, clean up the right way then add the thermal paste later....

 

thanx for your advice jjjirish05, am a average user my highest cpu usage would be music or video playback/downloading. was expecting to be fitting a p4 but ended up with a celeron and want it to run as best as it can to avoid further dissapointment.. i heard that a cooler cpu runs better!! but if its not that great i think the pad will do as my inexperiance could have me putting to much/to little solution which could be counterproductive(not worth the risk for little or no gains)
thanks again
K.

 

From personal experince the pad dried out after 3 months and became very inefficient, admittedly this was in summer and room temp was 32-33C but I ripped it out and applied AS5 and lowered temps by 5C instantly and permanently. The important point is how hot will it get in the room you use the PC?? If you are going to OC definately use thermal grease.

This site shows application is rather easy (need about the size of the grain of rice on the middle of the Intergrated Heat Spreader (IHS):

www.articsilver.com

I will never use a pad ever again but it is up to you in the end, if you keep the pad just be sure to monitor temps at least 1-2 times a week and keep your eye on things, my 2c.

 

thanks for advice bold eagle but i installed it with the pad already! will monitor temps accordingly, i'm kinda hoping to install the p4 cpu as planned in which case i will have to remove the pad and would use the solution. 5 degrees seems quite a lot! the ambiant temp would be around 25 degrees in the room i also installed fans front and rear of case (get a good crosswind going)
thanks

 

You will find solid backed up support for both the pad and thermal grease. If overclocking you want all the head room you can get so then thermal and Zalman has a new one that is beating the AS in reviews?

All thermal greases (Arctic silver, Arctic silver ceramic etc) I have used in the past have deteriorated to some degree over a few years of use and I have redone the application and regained the benefit. So for normal use, I can't see much benefit over the pad?????

 

You might also want to check the terms of the CPU warranty. AMD takes the position that using anything other than a thermal pad will void the warranty, but I don't know what's in the Intel warranty.

If Intel wants you to use thermal pads, you might consider leaving the pad in place until you run the warranty out.

A good thermal grease like Arctic Silver 5 will generally provide better heat transfer than a thermal pad -- if the application is done right. Thermal pads make it easier to be sure that you got it right. There's much more potential for screwing up with a thermal grease, and some screw-ups can damage the hardware. When you go for a thermal grease, get the best instructions you can, and follow them carefully. Arctic Silver has some very good instructions on its website for its products.

Within the normal operating range (up to, say, 60C) the CPU doesn't run better or worse with better cooling. But it lasts longer. Some say that each 10C rise in temperature halves the operating life of the CPU.

 

This is probably very true but I think it may depend on where you come from in the world. I live in the sub-tropics (17-42C) and as part of housekeeping use thermal grease, monitor temps through EVEREST but may refresh the grease 2-3 times a year. I like gaming and sometimes this pushes my "Prescott" which is a hot CPU straight from the box upto 73C last week. Stripped everything down (heatsink especially) and now lucky if I hit 60C but I monitor temps on a regular basis and refresh when needed. Will be completeing PC1 below in a couple of weeks and then this one (PC2) will go to the missus who doesn't play games so temps won't be a significant issue.

 

Since I am too cheap to purchace Everest, I downloaded and have been using SpeedFan to monitor my temps. So far, it's doing what I need it to do, monitor my cpu temp.

 

Everest Ultimate is the non-free one, Everest Home is free: http://majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=4181