First ground up PC build

Adding some form of thermal paste or thermal grease (they're really just different names for the same thing as far as I know) is important for modern CPUs as it helps to fill in the microscopic flaws in the heatsink or CPU surface. These would otherwise just be pockets of insulating air.

Note however that you only need a very thin layer of paste, any more and you'll actually impede the heat transfer process, not help it.

edit: typo.

Congrats on getting to build one from virgin parts. I haven't had that privilege in a while. I pretty much do that kludge thing.

Anyway, I was thinking that thermal grease might be a term for something that is mostly silicone grease, and paste a term for some of the more exotic compounds you see these days. I don't know either if there is a real difference between the two. I do know that using thermal paste is like changing your oil at 3000 miles (as opposed to say, 7k). It's cheap, good, insurance. Check the wikipedia entry for thermal paste. It pretty much gives you the run down.

Thermal compound fills voids, be they divots in the heatsink, or larger areas of non-contact that might come from tiny bumps on the heatsink. You can visualize what would happen if an area an 1/8 inch in diameter wasn't in good contact between the CPU (or GPU, or southbridge, etc) and the heatsink. You'd end up with a hotspot, which you know ain't good. Fill that tiny gap with a better thermal conductor, and said hotspot should be reduced. If you have enough of those tiny gaps over the surface of the core, it adds up.

Some folks like to lap, or carefully flatten the surface of a heatsink (or even the CPU- but I think that is nuts). While I imagine a good percentage of those folks probably grind in more irregularities, lappers STILL use thermal compound in a situation where theoretically the two parts will marry almost perfectly.

So, to summarize my blather, use the thermal paste/grease/compound- be it the fancy stuff with x,y, and z exotic additives, or Radio Shack's old fashioned silicone grease. Have fun with the new box!

Mike

The two terms mean the same thing.

If the processor you're going to buy comes with a heat sink, it will have a thermal paste, or a small container of thermal grease included (at least, it really should. Never yet seen one that hasn't).

The thermal pads aren't as good as careful application of paste, but it'll work. Never put thermal paste on a pad.

Tons of information:
Linky

you never forget your first build mine did not go so well 1.I had no case (just like apple crops ) 2 I had no idea what I was doing.the
jman box stared life as a load of old useless parts and I put them all together and I did not work right (no os) it could not find the hard disk master and slave not set (that is a noob mistake) but i com got better and my dad asked me to make his and it still runs to this day!!
just a few weeks ago I bulit my 3th computer for my site www.awns.co.nr but I am have networking card issues so it is
still a work in progress (you can read more at www.awns.co.nr if you like) but I still think back to the first jman box

If its ide, then the card might not be able to handle big drives, or you're using FAT32, ntfs can handle bigger drives.

Not meaning to nag at all, but there's a lot of info on this by Googling "127 GB limit"

One link: Here