amy858•11d ago

Thermal paste is overhyped for older machines, here's why

I kept reading everywhere that you HAVE to use premium thermal paste or your CPU will melt. My old i5 from 2015 started hitting 90C under load and I was about to drop $15 on some fancy Arctic stuff. Then I remembered I had a tube of basic white thermal paste from a 10 year old CPU cooler I never threw away. I cleaned the old stuff off, slapped that crusty white paste on, and my temps dropped to 75C under full load. That was 6 months ago and it's still running fine. I think people forget that the biggest improvement comes from just replacing dried out paste with literally anything, not from buying the expensive stuff. Has anyone else tried using the cheap paste that came with old coolers and got good results?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_zara11d ago

I read that even toothpaste works in a pinch for old CPUs.

pipera5011d ago

My cousin tried that on his old gaming rig and said it worked surprisingly well for a few months till he got proper paste. Just make sure it's not the gel kind with those little crystals in it.