Thermal paste myths I believed for way too long

I always thought you needed a perfect pea sized dot every time, but last week I tried spreading it thin with a plastic card on a customer's old gaming rig and the temps dropped by 8 degrees. Has anyone else found that the method matters way less than just using good quality paste?

2 comments

2 Comments

hugo_jones21mo ago

I spread it with a credit card on my old Ryzen 2600 and got 6 degrees cooler.

hernandez.ben1mo ago

Bro my buddy tried the exact same thing last week on his old i5 and was shook when his temps dropped like crazy. He was all about the pea method for years until he just went full ham with a spread job using an old gift card. Now he's convinced that as long as the paste is decent and covers the whole IHS, it really doesn't matter how you apply it. He even said his idle temps went from 45 to 38 on a hot day. Made me rethink my whole paste game honestly.