I left a clue to one of my favourite tunes. Comment the Artist and Track. Will be giving away a monitor arm from autonomous. You can support the channel through Amazon> Noctua NT-H2: amzn.to/3Krf1qf Thanks a lot!

yeah I;ve concluded it doesn't matter too much, just don't do anything too weird. The reason why it gets so much conversation is because we can't see our result, and it makes people wonder if they got it right so they start looking up how to ensure its done proper.

Been building computers for 20 years, have used about every thermal paste and method under the sun. It doesn't matter what you do, as long as there's paste. End of story. What, you expected a 200 word essay?

I know I'm late to the video but what you did wrong here was let Aloy run around in circles in an arctic environment. To really stress your CPU, have her run around in a desert. After all, the arctic is colder than the desert, it's easy to keep a cpu cold in the arctic. For those who can't read between the lines, this is a joke.

Thermal paste that is dried on the sides of the socket will not insulate any heat. That is easily debunked. The heat transfer occurs from the cooler touching the top of the CPU and dissipating the heat thru the cooler itself. Insulating the sides of the CPU socket thermal paste will not affect the cooler performance in any way, Thermal dynamics.

Great video. I'd argue it *does* make an argument for not going total ham with the paste, but not for thermal reasons. That suction in removing it later could be awful. I'd guess that bubble in the middle of the final test wasn't there while running, but purely from the suction force trying to get the dang thing back off.

I remember once ripping my CPU from the motherboard with it still stuck to the cooler, in the end nothing was damaged but that certainly gave me a good scare. I've been really careful not using too much paste ever since.

"normal-people insane" is a great term

Yep, pretty much what every sane person expected. Nice video! Thermal paste or other variants like thermal glue, thermal silicone (or solder in recent years) which typically spills on the sides of the actual die has basically been present on any CPU that has had a factory heatspreader in the past 25+ years. Never has this been a problem, so why would it be for the contact between the heatspreader and cooler heatsink? 🙂

LTT already tested this extensively. They found no difference between a normal amount and a RIDICULOUS amount of thermal paste. Only too little paste made worse results. So always use a little more than just enough instead of a bit too little.

I loved this playlist, with a $3,500 PC sitting here in parts waiting for me to build it, this was excellent information.

You did the tests we didnt dare to. Thank you

The Spread Method has always been the way I apply my thermal paste and I don't even ad a dimple in the middle for " good measure ". I use AS5 paste though and this paste is much darker and thicker than most pastes so it's easier to judge the evenness of the spread than other pastes. I also use a paper based business card so I can fold it in half for extra space to get into the cpu area without having to remove stuff and it works perfectly every time.

Finally a KZfaq video that found a use for those gigantic thermal paste syringes 😃

I've had a heatsink glue itself on there when I used too much paste before, and I ripped the CPU out of the socket. Luckily I was able to still use it, but what a scare! Thumbs up for the video.

The biggest thing that was not included in this test, your ambient temperatures. That is the most important thing during these kinds of tests. This tests really means nothing without ambient temps included.

The job of thermal paste is to ensure consistent and even contact between heat sink and heat source. The assumption is that too much paste adds excess conductive material, crippling conduction. This is a fallacy, because the distance between heat source and heat sink remains consistent, therefore, the volume and mass of thermal compound will remain the same. Too little thermal compound reduces the surface area of contact between the two surfaces, thus reducing conduction. Spreading the thermal compound across the heat source ensures *close to optimum* surface area contact between the two surfaces, hence, better conduction. This is all assuming best case scenarios; nothing is ever at best case.

A really fun video to watch. I can see that too much paste is not an issue. (With a nice cooler with good firm and even pressure, and a nice, broad and flat AMD IHS). On the other hand, I can remember to just have an upper limit to how much "too much" paste I am willing to deal with, and then I'll be fine. Thie leaves a LOT OF ROOM to do it right. Anxiety brain calmed. Thanks.

I replaced the stock AMD wraith stealth cooler which came with my Ryzen 5 5600, the new cooler was a Raijintek Orcus 240 liquid cooler. After watching a bunch of videos on this channel, I concluded that it wouldn't even be necessary to clean my old thermal paste off. It was only 6 months old, wasn't dried, and came preapplied to the cooler so I trusted it had sufficient coverage. I added all the paste that came with the new cooler and just slapped it on. I did have some thermal paste on hand to do a clean reinstall if necessary. I tested before and after, room at 20°C, maxed CPU with Prime95 10 minute runs, neither setup thermal throttled. Stock setup plateaued at 89°C, new cooler 60°C. I even let the new setup run Prime95 for 30 minutes, did not exceed 60°C. So, yeah, thermal paste is not the big deal it's often made out to be. All the testing I've seen on this channel was very helpful. Just thought I'd share my experience for anyone else going down a similar rabbit hole.

So... I found out the hard way what happens when you use too much paste over the LONG term. When I went to pull my Wraith cooler off of my 2700x so I could put in my new 5600x, the cooler took the whole CPU with it. Ripped it straight out of locked position on the board. I had to use the side of a plastic knife to pry and pull and finally pop the CPU off of the cooler. (It wasn't damaged and due to my dumb self forgetting to update my BIOS I actually had to put the 2700x back in to do the update) The combination of the grooves in the wraith cooler and the fact I used too much paste, causing it to spill over the side, over time the paste turned into kind of a cement-y consistency. It literally cemented my CPU to my cooler. That being said, the entire time I used it with that much paste, even towards the end of changing the CPU, my Temps never changed to anything concerning, maintaining my expectations while using an air cooler.

LOL! I like your style, dude. Well done!

So basically the temperature differences could have been down to the room temperature changing. Which shows, that in the short term, there's no difference between too little and too much

Personally I like to use the spread method so I can make sure it's all covered and I am not using too much.

I left a comment on your paste comparison video where I mentioned the Thermalright coolers and the paste included with them. Thermalright makes an AM4 bracket that makes removing the cooler without ripping out the CPU much easier. Luckily I know how to straighten pins safely or that glued cpu issue you had would have destroyed at least 4 of my Ryzen Unfortunately it's not cross compatible with all coolers.

Criminally underrated channel

If you use conductive paste, and it gets on your mobo, it will short cirtcuit. Too much paste isn't a problem only if using non conductive paste. With conductive paste you need to be very careful not adding too much.

I've always done the spread method. But seeing your other video of maybe there being an air bubble. I'll continue with the spread a thin layer. But then put a tiny dot in the middle. That way there is 100% coverage without a bunch of spill over.

In the end, it is very basic thermodynamics, that covers the topic on the theoretical side. And that might give some context for your data and the assumption that too much is bad. The transferred power of heat goes linear with the thickness, the contact area, the temperature difference and some coefficient. So the "two much" probably refers to the thickness, double the thickness means half of the heat is conducted. But the thickness is barely determined by the amount (volume) of paste you apply but rather the consistency and the pressure. So yes, too much paste meaning a too thick layer will decrease heat transfer. No, the amount paste you put on will not change (much) the thickness of the layer. Also, half the area means half heat is transferred, at least via the paste. So even where there is too little paste and not the entire chip is covered, there is definitely less heat going through the paste. However, the area where there is no paste, there is not no heat transfer, just less. Your data showed that very nicely. The time plots of the temperatures would have been nice, also because I am very sure that the data noise would have shown very clearly, that the temperatures are all within the margin of error except probably the too little one. Also I think the rise of temperatures is the more sensitive property that shows any tiny difference of heat transfer. But that of course does not change the result that the amount of paste has barely any effect on the heat transfer.

Thermal paste is something people with too much free time think about

I have manually spread TIM for over 30 years to know I have full coverage, without all of the guessing, it 100% removes the guess factor if enough was applied. Never had an issue, and with AMD using Chiplets and I/O dies, 100% coverage is mandatory for all CCX's to be covered. The tiny Pea is only used for outdated Monolithic dies.

Nice, the more info like this out there the better. People think thermal paste application is an artform. It's not. Application of paste is simply binary, just like CPUs. 1) You don't have enough. 2) You have enough. That's it. Do what you want to get it on there. A pea, an x, spread like butter, spread like jam, portrait of the Mona Lisa, at the end of the day either you put enough on, or you didn't.

BASS LINE, you got me there...

The too little definitely wasn't making good enough contact, those few degrees aren't going to hurt anything but definitely worth doing a normal pea-sized drop. The rest of the tests I'd be curious about room temperature and overall margin of error, very interesting to see that they all perform roughly similar. I've been an Arctic Silver 5 fan for a long time so I've been careful not to over apply due to its conductive nature but good to know that if I get a little heavy-handed it's just going to squeeze the extra out the side.

thermal paste has a lower heat coefficient, so the saying 'less is best' is there. You sprinkle a small dot in the middle and really wiggle that cooler around, but you should eventually see the bare metal of the bottom metal plate. The point of the paste is to fill in the gaps between the metals, not become the entire gap between the metals. Maybe if you used 'liquid' metal like in the PS5 it would be better, but that is a very difficult method to replace since liquid metal can instantly ruin your motherboard. I can guess how many PS5s have been ruined due to liquid metals alloys (if you ever used mercury, NEVER do that! Instantly turns aluminum into crumbly dust)

I want to see just pure thermal paste as the cooler - as much paste as you can pile up

great video. 'normal people insane' HAHAHA love that phrase. I'll stick to my spread method... worked fine for 25years of building my own PC's. great channel. keep up the awesome work. got a feeling you'll bmake a video that'll blow up YT any day now.

So the result is: mounting methode is key. Buy cooler which does the best job at screwing it down with the perfect amount of pressure. Another test would be: just put the cooler on. No pressure. Just a bit of pressure. Screw it down like the company intended. Because too much paste+not enough pressure will such hard.

Good job. 🤣

This is helpful, thanks!

Just watched your few related videos. And finaly some one smashed this fully! I'm Gonna draw N letter (as my firts initial) in area of half of the size the chip, in the middle and this why I leave my spirit to work on magic numbers :)) Thanks

I apply thermal paste with my fingers, it is just a bit stainy , but overall no difference with applying it with a plastic flat tool.

@8:00 - Nasty not being able to get the cooler off like that. Motherboard manufacturers really should make the CPU release lever longer for situations like that so that you can just pull the whole thing out and pry them apart with a chisel or whatever. :)

too much thermal paste being a problem is only valid if your paste is electrically conductive and it gets into places it shouldn't, shorting out things on your pc is bad, but non-conductive pastes aren't an issue if you put too much on there. one point of testing you could have done, no thermal paste at all, that may have crashed on cinabench or maybe thermal throttled, and of course higher temps, i wouldn't be too worried about it causing permanent damage, cause the cpu will throttle to save its self if it gets too hot and even shut down if way to hot.

Excellent work!

How many of these videos need to be made before people finally shut the hell up about "too much" thermal paste

you know, there is something under the lid that transfers heat between the actual CPU and the CPU lid. no amount of paste is going to cure if you have defective thermal transfer between chip and lid. which might explain your results.

That was some Confucius wisdom on that final quote there

normal amount is good for me

Thermal paste has a shelf life, if you're someone who isn't going to use it it's irrelivant how much you're saving to throw away later.

Have been looking for a video of just this test, thanks you! Also you present your data in a good clear way.

I always used the 'buttered toast' method. (Yeah I know it sounds like hindsight is a wonderful science. However it always felt like common sense.) There is one thing to add, which is that I paste the CPU when it's out of the socket. .. Noted you having difficulty spreading with it in the socket.

20 or so years ago too much paste could and did cause overheats , i think nowdays the heatsink securing hardware is tighter and more even so it tends to squeeze excess out more reliably

I think because the paste gets pushed out, as long as you have enough pressure on the cooler then it should be fine is my prediction.

Best way to clean thermal paste is using Brake cleaner.Runs off and leaves no residue behind and not hard on electronics. Been doing so since 1979.

9:03 Okay, okay... I think it's colorful :)

The only time it'll really be an issue is if you use a paste that is electrically conductive and capacitive like artic silver 5, or other metal based pastes, with artic silver 5's "silver" particles inside which can short out other components on the board from spilling over too much, the other issue is dust attraction, dust eventually can begin to act like an electrical conductor not just a thermal insulator, electrical conductivity in varying degrees depending especially on it's composition, which is purely environmental, when it squishes out the sides of under the cooler, it can build up dust around the base of the CPU's ihs heat spreader or further and potentially form dust bunnies over time, really it's not a bad thing to put a decent thin foam airtake inlet filter on the case to help keep things clean. Artic Coolings mx6 carbon based thermal paste is a great choice as it is non electrically conductive or capacitive.

Another tuber already proved that paste conductivity has a negligible increase from no paste at all. Your own video also showed this though you're baseline was not a correct baseline. A correct baseline would have been no paste.

I think all those numbers are statistically insignificant.

so it doesn't matter at all.

Great video

I think my M1 Mac Mini is always cool always quiet. 😄

Tests must have a system which can't go into thermal throttling. All clock and voltages must be fixed in BIOS and OS. And the test runs need to be done of a length of time for heat soaking, and you must eliminate variables like ambient temp and water cooling coolant temp. A short test run may be only showing the initial heat up of the die and is heatsinked off by the IHS. Personally I only use the spread method, for a complete coverage and the thinnest layer possible, as ALL thermal paste is an insulator compared to the two metal interfaces' coefficient of heat.

The thickness of the pastes is inverse proportional to the weight you put on top. The ideal case is to apply while the CPU is hot (lower surface tension, thus making the paste escape easier) and apply as much weight as the motherboard can support.

Bro are you the leader singer of Small Town Titans? I honestly can't tell. Great vid.

I think the point of less=better is the fact of the next time you won't have to clean off so much paste i hate touching old thermal goop that stuff will not stay off of ur fingers or your clothes lol

I have tried several different methods and the one that works the best is to make sure you get some between the heatsink and the CPU. I just squeeze out a fat pea sized blob in the center and mount the heatsink. I intentionally add what I think is a little too much. I've got lots of 91% alcohol and paper towels if I accidentally make a mess. I used to fuss over stuff like this and actually since socket A it really hasn't mattered.

I think it doesn't matter as long you have a full application

Your cooler and the number of heat pipes is going to have more of an effect on temperature than your application of thermal paste.

I once applied too much thermal paste, it drowned my cpu, had to remove it and clean it with an extra thin needle because some paste went inside the slot lol. Si yeah, too much paste can kill it. Anyway, great vid.

Thanks for the video!

How well are you controlling the ambient temperature? The small deltas are too small to discern from ambient variances.

Too much paste, to little paste, It's actually making me crazy I did my PC And I put a good amount of paste on it, My CPU temperature is Under 60 Celsius At all times I'll just see how it goes if there are issues I'll just do it over it's very easy to do thanks for the video

I've been wondering if thermal paste goes bad while in its container. For instance is it worth buying 10g thermal paste and use for the next couple of years or is it better to buy it when you need it.

I think it depends on the CPU cooler honestly I hear liquid cooling is superior I might try it....

I think the cpu is holding the temperature at that same point by reducing clocks or something no matter the amount of thermal paste. I think benchmarks could give you more accurate results.

Thank you, I'll just stick with my stock thermal paste provided by BeQuiet Dark Rock Pro4 on my 5950x.

Not the first video of this type, but informative and conclusion is the same. I think it way LTT testing amount of paste on CPU and Jayz2cents, when messing about with some gpu where he covered die and area around it within those metal brackets. Card was fine.

You should run a repeatable full load test like stress(-ng) or prime95. But then, if you put too much paste on... the IHS and the block will squeeze it out anyway!

heat will pick up later as the paste dries out when there is too much, when it's fresh it squirts out the side and works somewhat normally

thanks alot for good test

By applying "way too much thermal paste" you also ensure that the motherboard around the fan is also cooler because it overspills. Motherboard is fine to be a bit flooded around a fan

Peanut butter had about the same result. Choosy mothers choose Jiff.

Hello. What settings do you have your ryzen 5900x running at? I have the same cpu and a negative curse of -15 and I have higher temps than you. I have corsair h115i pro for cooling. Just curious about your pbo settings. Thanks.

Amount of paste was never about thermals. It was about clean up and removing of heatsinks. Been that way forever in the server world

I have some other question. Is using laptop on a flat surface enough or do I need a stand? (like I play games only occasionally, mostly I just use laptop to multi-task browsing, writing, music, streaming & watching videos).

What a lot of people fail to know, is the CPU isn't the same size as the lid. The CPU is only the size of your thumbnail in the center of that lid; hence you only need a little dot of paste in the center.

Would it be simpler to say in the title whether or not it is, then people can watch to see what happens?

I applied too much thermal paste on my CPU, but the pc is working fine and there's a noticeable fps boost on the games that i play. unfortunately this also makes the heatsink stuck to the CPU. Should i just let it be and try to take it off when i want to reapply the thermal paste again sometimes in the future?

I think I'll alternate between the X and the buttered toast with the dot in the middle. XP #IAreNoob

I think it matters little so long as there is adequate coverage on the cpu.. but I think if you want to best spread on a cpu, I would go with spread and small pea..

For CPU grinding try X4 Foundations with the expansions. That game made my PC thermal throttle on a stock cooler. ( i7-7700 )

You should add to test one try without paste.

I'm not sure. I'm no expert.

How did you control for ambient temperature?

Copper foil, like multiple layers pressed in sandwich. Wonder what that would do... "Searching on ebay for copper foil" 🤔

I have just commented on another video involving paste and I reiterate my previous comment. It's hard to screw this up. However - Have you ever tested with NO thermal paste? Perhaps that should have been a benchmark?

Hey just one question, were your fans working at a constant rpm through out these tests or were they throtteling up and down to keep a constant temperature?

Do another test with a 1 mm thick of paste, but _don't_ tighten the bolts. Just let the CPU float on the paste.

you forgot to do 0 thermal paste in the test

all of my bias' have been confirmed!