Best way to apply thermal paste

The application of thermal paste always raises many doubts. How much to apply and how? There are many ways to like peas or simply spread them evenly on the surface of the processor. Igor Walusik from Igor’s lab decided it to make sure For example a graphics card.

The author of the experiment used the reference GeForce RTX 3080. He used Alphacool Apex thermally conductive paste, which, according to his assurances, was completely removed between subsequent road tests. Each time he used the same method for tightening the heat sink, that is, he first tightened the bolts on one side and only after the initial tightening of each of them completed the assembly. Water cooling was involved in everything, and the procedure took place in a room with an ambient temperature of about 22 degrees Celsius.

The graphics card is fully loaded with FurMark In copy mode with post processing enabled. The heating of the test object lasted for 10 minutes, and the thermometer took half that time.

The “sausage” method won, in which the paste was spread along the surface of the GPU before the heat sink was applied. Compared to peas, the difference was 2-3 degrees in favor of the long streak. However, premature covering of the entire surface of the processor increased the heat by up to 5 degrees.

The above technique won this test. How do you apply thermal paste?

Benjamin Blair

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