thremal pad or paste?

[munkeyboy123]

im getting a amd athlon 2500+ barton core with 512 mb pc 3200 ddr ram and an fic au13 mainboard and a heatsink with fan, but im trying to get the 2500+ retail because its cheaper and comes with a heat sink and fan included from amd, and it talks about butting a thermal pad or paste on it i heard a thermal pad is better if u plan to keep it there for a long itme, my question is does the pad come with a heatsink and fan or do u have to buy it somewhere or would the thermal paste be just as good?

[JohnE.]

If you're not planning to do any overclocking whatsoever the thermal pad will be good enough but thermal paste is generally much better than any thermal pad. It requires a bit more effort to apply paste but is well worth it, even if you're not overclocking because the CPU temperatures will usually be 2-3 degrees lower and it makes it far easier to replace or upgrade the HSF (heatsink and fan) if and when necessary.

[DanU]

The retail HSF that came with my barton 2500+ doesn't use a thermal pad. It uses a pre-applied thermal grease. It also includes a copper heat spreader on the bottom. For a retail HSF, it's actually quite good.

[Uncle Bob]

Just throwen' in my $0.02. I had to pull a heatsink for cleaning. I
used artic silver and got a four degree lower temp.

[bombledmonk]

how hot is a 2500 supposed to get?

[DanU]

You generally want to keep it below 60C. Mine runs at about 35C idle and 40C under load. It's also mildly overclocked at 10x200, 1.7V.

[DallasDon]

There are pad, then there are Pastes, and then compounds. Unless you are into advanced overclocking, the AS Ceramique is probably a good all around solution.


Old School Paste Review

The long answer

[Starfury_2260]

I've found about the same thing as DallasDon. The Ceramique seems to be the best overall. It has the same performance as AS3 but it's non conductive.