In context: Certainly one of many oldest debates in PC building facilities on the moral way to apply thermal paste. A single blob, more than one blobs, a disagreeable, or a butter spread? Igor’s Lab lately tried to compare strategies, but finest for GPUs, whereas the debate usually concerns CPUs.

A modern take a look at from Igor’s Lab suggests applying thermal paste in a “sausage-treasure” straight-line down the heart is the finest methodology, at least for graphics processors. The implications arrive with caveats and are now not seemingly to accept to the bottom of age-weak arguments about how most efficient to spread the paste on a CPU.

Igor examined three thermal paste strategies on a reference RTX 3080 running Furmark whereas using Alphacool’s Aurora GPX-N water backplate and the same company’s Apex thermal grease at a 20C room temperature. A DIY liquid cooler, whereas a bit labor-intensive and now not as cheap as a pre-installed air cooler, can save money compared to buying a liquid-cooled GPU.

To be certain reliable take a look at outcomes, Igor took care to effectively clean the GPU earlier than trying each approach. He then spent 10 minutes warming it and five minutes measuring the temperature.

The sausage approach achieved temperatures around 3C cooler than applying a single dot (which Intel suggests for CPUs) and 5C cooler than spreading the paste across the surface of the GPU. Then again, an important detail is how Igor screwed the cooler onto the GPU, firmly setting the screws on one facet, then the various earlier than tightening both. Igor claims that GPU manufacturers kind this to apply power to the paste effectively.

Another caveat is that the line approach significantly differs with larger, excessive-cessation GPUs. Igor admits that the traditional dot vogue is probably right ample for smaller mainstream GPUs (treasure the RTX 3060, which is rising in Steam’s trace charts) because they have less area to cowl.

Even whenever you aren’t interested in the take a look at, the article provides a thorough handbook on applying thermal paste, whether for GPUs or CPUs. It covers steps treasure cleaning the processor’s surface, paste viscosity, and safely attaching the cooler.