You might also like our most recent HW news video: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/ppZolpuEsMWRdaM.html Article: www.gamersnexus.net/guides/3346-thermal-paste-application-benchmark-too-much-thermal-paste Grab a brand new GN cobalt blue beer glass: store.gamersnexus.net/products/cobalt-blue-tear-down-logo-pint-glass-libbey-17-oz Have you seen other really frequent comments on YT that you think might be overblown? Let us know. We might test it.

I bought the whole tube I’m gonna USE the whole tube

Don’t put too much CPU on your thermal paste

There's only one major downside of too much paste: It's a real pain to clean up the mess next time you want to replace or reseat your cooler.

0:02 - Me: Okay, seems like a lot there, but I'm a newb. Maybe they know something I don't. 0:06 - Uhhhhh.... 0:15 - Ohhhh, ISWYDT 0:25 - Make. it. stopppp. 0:28 - Spit take, dead

Every now and then i come back to watch the intro to this, just to make myself feel something again

I think the suicide rate just went up from the intro

Years ago (circa 2005) me and a workmate wondered about this. We decided to research it using a sheet of glass that we machines and drilled holes in to accept a cpu and cooler (upside down) so we could physically see what the paste did. We found that it took surprisingly little to get an even film.you dont actually want a thick layer, it is only there to transfer the heat to the cooler. We also found that the CPU lid and cooler heatsink plate flatness was a factor. Bored engineers do weird things.

It's always surprising how little is actually needed. Every single time I need to apply thermal paste I get the strong instinct to put a bit more, because that tiny half-pea just doesn't seem even close to enough, and I get the feeling that it won't spread to the whole heatspreader. But I quiet that instinct and put just that very small amount, and what do you know, the next time I remove the heatsink, the entire heatspreader has indeed been covered by the paste. You really don't need much.

The Verge took the intro seriously 😂

I don't use thermal paste. I underclock my i9 to 66 mhz and it runs just fine.

4 years later and I'm battling the entirety of TikTok on one of my videos where I spread a thin layer from a Kryonaut Extreme jug before installing a heatsink.

If you're curious how different application patterns look, you can test the thermal paste spread using glass or a plexiglass sheet that will allow you to see without removing the cooler plate.

Putting thermal paste on the socket gets the best thermals because it probably won’t even boot

You're on the verge of putting to much on it.

I really appreciate how high quality and professional the videos are on this channel.

The delta in results could be due to shifting magnetic resonance in the earth's crust due to changing magma densities. The resulting gravimetric changes also dilate time and shorten rulers. So that's gonna play a SMALL PART too.

Just thought I'd share this guys, but I applied the amount shown in the video's intro and now my Ryzen 1700x is a 2700x. Thank you.

One problem i've had finding out how much thermal paste to apply is getting a visual example. People always try to describe how much to apply but no one i ask is able to show me, so i'm really happy that right at the top of the video you provide an example rather than make me watch the whole 20 minute video.

This continues to pop up in my suggestions and I keep watching it! I can't get enough of the first minute, cracks me up every time!

At the risk of bricking a cpu, it would have been nice to add a ‘no paste’ metal-metal control.

If the thermal paste manufacturer contacts you to thank you for your support, then it's too much thermal paste.

You were being to stingy with the paste in the intro. 1 tube = 1 CPU. Simple.

The Verge saw this and went "Yes"

wholy crap the trolling in this intro... its relentless! "Stop, hes already dead!"

Beautiful application of thermal paste there. Almost no need for a cooler with the sheer amount of thermal mass.

Just take a large tub of thermal paste and dip the whole motherboard in it just to be sure

pretty epic and still on point for 2021, repasting old thermal does seem to help more than the method of application.

Steve is the most nonchalant, decisive, cool, calm, and collected pseudocomedian I have ever seen on KZfaq. This guy literally has me dying laughing at least once in each of his videos whether it's him being absolutely blown away by someones stupidity, or his mind numbing solutions to poor product design, "And this is how you remove the tempered glass side panel insert." *tips pc until panel falls out face first onto table* *camera facing smile*

Brilliant. Also, that was way too much in the AMD socket. You need an even amount on both top AND bottom for even heat dissipation.

I think the "too much" crowd is from the old Arctic Silver 5 days. That paste was very thick and hard for the cooler to squeeze all excess out the sides.

I would have loved to see a "too dry" one, like when you let it try while working on the PC and so it can not spread that well

I use toothpaste. Consequently my cpu has never had a cavity.

The human eye cannot see above pea size thermal paste.

The bigger issue here is the way you have your paper towel roll. It's on the wrong way. Should go on water fall style

I absolutely love the sass here…it was deserved and GN definitely delivered

RIP that socket

Love the intro, because I always use a LOT of thermal compound right inside the CPU socket before I put the actual CPU in there. The CPUs never get above 0 degrees. Of course, they never actually start up or work for some reason, so there's that... Maybe I didn't use enough thermal compound?

This is truly the greatest intro ever shot. It'll never be topped.

Old video, but I did stop worrying about it DECADES ago. Still using Artic Silver 5 and thin, even cover with a credit card. Always worked. Never saw a dead cpu.

Gamers Nexus intro: *exists* The Verge: Write that down. Write that down.

Steve, we need to have a talk...

There is another technique for apply thermal paste: rice on chess board. In that case you put several very small droplets across the CPU, barelly the size of rice corns. I use a 3x3 pattern for small CPUs like Socket 11xx and up to 7x5 for Socket 3647. I usually make the middle drop quite a bit larger than the rest but way below pea size. This techique usually coveres the whole die pretty good and is quick to apply. From educated guesswork I would say you can use less thermal paste than with most other techniques.

I wasn't sure how much thermal paste to add, but after 30 seconds of watching this vid, I saw how much and where to apply it, So I saw no need to watch the rest of the video. Thanks GN!

Once when i was a kid i decided to clean my PC. So i did! I pretty much disassembled the whole thing into pieces,without really knowing what each part meant. I was just confident in my visual memory to mount every part where it belongs. So at one point i removed the CPU cooler,and i was like; damn,that is a lot of "dirt" between that cooler and CPU. So i "cleaned" it! Only after a couple of years i accidentally found out that,THAT "dirt" was actually meant to be there and that it was thermal paste. Looking back now,i still have no idea how that CPU survived all those years,but it did! And i used to play A LOT,every single day.

So I think this is Gamers Nexus way of politely saying STFU about thermal paste

I had an ex gf break up with me because I apply too much toothpaste onto my toothbrush. True story.

How about putting a glass that fits on the processor when the paste is applied? This will show how the paste is spread:)

I'll be honest, those first thirty seconds got my eye twitching.

That intro is hilarious, I love your hater trolling.

Thank you for this video. It's my first time building a PC, and people make out "not enough thermal paste" and "too much thermal paste" as something that'll just ruin the whole thing. I was super nervous! But I feel more confident now, I'll just do what I feel is right and it'll probably be okay.

Those first 40 seconds. OMG. I felt very anxious.

0:28 That’s when my soul left my body

I prefer the large pea size with the 4 dots midway to each corner. I don't like the thin spread because it squeezes out like toothpaste and makes a mess. I never really thought much about it. As long as the paste is good and your mating surfaces are clean, it should work either way.

Should use a clear plastic version of a heat sink to “show” application under tension.

I remove the silver thing on the cpu and apply it right to the cores!

Thousands of voices cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced.

This classic video still being recommended after 4 years :)

Highly suggest the "peanut butter and jelly technique" where you apply a nice thin even layer (of thermal compound, not peanut butter lol) on the entire CPU Heat Spreader's contact surface, and another nice thin even layer (again, of tc, not jelly) on the entire contacting surface of the Heat Sink. Now, put the "two pieces of bread" together, half-tighten-down the retention of the "two slices of bread," gently twist the heat-sink (only a couple of millimeters is necessary, don't get aggressive here) to eliminate/minimize any air pockets, then fully secure the heat sink onto the CPU. - - - End result is full, even coverage, thin layer, no air pockets, no risk of overflow. Temp drop improvement? Either something noticable or something minimal, but I guarantee the heat pulling performance will never ever suffer with the peanut butter and jelly sandwich technique.

that's why i use CPUs made of thermal paste

Every basic nerd building their first gaming PC: "I'mma spend $20 on thermal paste, it's got actual SILVER in it" "I'mma spend $20 on a no-brand PSU, it says it's 900 Watts!" Priorities, lads.

The pressure applied by the cold plate is what determines the thickness of the spread of thermal compound provided there is enough to cover the surface of the cpu. It does not matter how much you add. The extra paste oozes out of the sides. If how you applied it mattered it would be done at the factory.

This video is the gift that keeps on giving.

This debate never seems to go away and has been around for years.

_Still too little thermal paste_

My video has 12M views and 90% of the comments are about the amount of thermal paste I used. I feel your pain.

Just had an interesting experience a couple of days ago, and had to mention it here. One of my coworkers replaced something (heatsink, motherboard, not sure) on the laptop a few months ago. Cx had a new issue, so I got the ticket and started working on it. When I picked it up, I noticed that it was extremely hot. I brought it back to my office and ran a CPU stress test. The CPU hit 99* instantly, and I shut it off. When I took it apart, I noticed that the screws for the heatsink were almost finger-loose. Pulled the heatsink off and saw so much thermal paste caked on I couldn't believe it. Scraped it off, repasted the CPU, re-installed the heatsink this time with the screws properly torqued down, and re-ran the CPU test. CPU was down to 70*. So... Yes. Too much thermal paste CAN be bad when you don't torque the heatsink down properly.

I'd just like to say that, even a year later, this remains my absolute favorite intro of all your videos. Thank you for this absolute fucking gem of an intro.

This was both, entertaining, and really useful.

This was 20 minutes of a middle finger to know-it-alls who don't know when to just shut up.

When he put that much of a thermal paste on the intro i was like "haha thats really bad couldn't get any worse" and then he put it on the socket

I guarantee some noob is going to watch just the intro, pause the video and say okay I know how much

My blood pressure spiked watching that first segment

It's been 5 years and I still come back to this video just to watch that intro

10:19 Ahhhh, I see you guys even tested "The Verge" method even before it was named that. Great job! :)

I'm missing "not applying any paste" in the charts.

I know the intro is just Steve being facetious but it still gets me every time when he drags the paste across the entire board, over the chassis, across the table, then onto another board and starts loading it directly into the CPU socket. No cost was spared in the making of that joke - Nice work, lol

Dude I literally got goosebumps watching the first 40 seconds of the video.

I tried the pee amount but it splashed everywhere in the case

I would like to see a 'no thermal paste' for reference

finally someone using the whole tube for one cpu as intended

For cpus, it seems the major difference is between no thermal paste and thermal paste altogether and NOT the style of thermal paste application itself.

I can feel everyone’s cringe when he moved to the other board. Lol

Very informative. I personnaly never used any cooling system of any kind on my CPU. But now that I'm considereing turning my PC on, I might look into it. Keep up the good work boys

Thank you for the reassurance! Even I've attracted the "too much thermal paste" comment on my much smaller scale (in fact, they said "way too much thermal paste", which, erm, I think you've redefined!) I started with a pea-sized dot, on my new aftermarket cooler, and when I started it up, under medium load the thermals just didn't feel right: they were higher than with the stock cooler, and fluctuating more. I wanted to be more scientific in my testing, but didn't want to push things with the best PC I had at the time, so I just powered down and re-did the paste straight away. I'd never owned a cooler with copper heatpipes before, and when I pulled it off, it was the opposite problem to gaps in IHS coverage: the IHS wasn't too badly covered, actually, but the paste had gone in the gaps between the pipes on the cooler, and left a lot of the heat pipe area untouched (there were four heat pipes, and I'd have said only two had anywhere near a significant amount of paste on them.) I found advice that, in this instance, you should apply a small amount of paste linearly on each pipe, which seemed to make intuitive and logical sense. So I did that, and got the "way too much" comment. But the thermals are much better and much more well-behaved, so...yeah...I'm happy...even happier after watching this video! (Besides, even if there was too much, it was a mere fraction of a tube...and I'd gained experience of what would happen to the excess paste, anyway...it'd probably end up 'safely' in between the pipes!)

The information density in these videos is off the charts. I have to keep pausing to take it all in!

This is by far your most painful video, even to this day. It's an absolute masterpiece.

I submerge my mobo in liquid cooled liquid nitrogen. Cpu won't boot but at least the Temps are low

I always found the little spatula to be a joke as long as I've been building PC's but recently I started using it to make a thin spread and it's actually quite good.

I solder the cooler on the cpu with thermal solder and the result is rock solid

That intro was genuinely difficult to watch. Send help.

Oh the intros you can make when you have plenty of dead motherboards

In 2013 I came across a PC that still had the clear plastic cover on the heat sink from shipping. Whoever installed it had somehow neglected to remove it, and obviously neglected to use any thermal paste. After checking service records I found that this had been in place for over four years without issue. This was just a lifecycle replacement. Obviously it wasn't used for gaming or overclocked, but it was used for 8+ hours 7 days per week for years. Upon learning that thermoset plastic will work if no thermal paste is available, I stopped worrying about the nuances of thermal paste application methods.

They're too good. GN is underrated.

Thermal paste directly into the socket? Dennis from LMG would be so proud

Dude..... Those HAVE to have been defective motherboards for you to record this intro, holy sh*t 😬

the real question is why use thermal paste at all, the simple answer to that is to fill all the micro and nano gaps in the metals to give a larger surface area of contact. so you only really need a tiny smear of a coating for it to work. a good twisting and sliding action with pressure would help thin out the application and distribute it more evenly over the cpu.

You need to get a piece of acrylic and put mounting holes in it. Then screw it down onto a CPU to see how the thermal paste spreads.

Doing my first build today, so glad I tuned in at 32 seconds for the correct application. 😁

Have you ever tried plain silicon oil as a thermal compound? I use it on lapped mirror finish surfaces and it works incredibly well. Liquid metal performance level and a couple degrees better than any other paste I've ever used. But I never did any comparisons it on normal surfaces... so your experience could help.