Love how you ignored my response to your response that provided a scientific rationale demonstrating that you don’t have a clear understanding of how thermal paste works, and you just doubled down on flawed opinions. Carry on friend.
Edit: Based on the law of heat conduction, as the paste thickness rises it will reduce heat flow based on the math of the formula. Less is more.
as you pointed out, just get rid of the air gaps with the absolute minimal amount of paste.
my back woods method
ensure your heat sink does not have pre-applied paste or a pad. apply a small amount of paste. cut the thickness with the short edge of an old credit card at about a 30° angle, using just enough pressure to bend the card slightly so the smooth surface of the card presses paste into voids and the trailing edge of the card removes excess to level the surface - you will likely still be able to make out some chip package markings through the paste. remove all edge excess and spillage. fit your heat sink. done.
Meh, I don’t think it’s worth having a discussion about to be honest.
There is a HUGE difference between the perfect optimal application of thermal paste and the reality of manufacturing devices with thermal paste.
Like I said, this paste is applied by a machine, it’s extruded automatically from a dispenser. They don’t want to use too much, because it costs more (although thermal paste at large scales is very cheap and it’s not like they are using a super specialized Thermal Grizzly product, just run of the mill thermal paste). But they very much don’t want to use too little, because if they use too little the device will overheat. The increased rate of RMA is much more costly than the entire stock of thermal paste used for the device. Especially on CPUs with specific hot spots, that need coverage.
If we look at the image the coverage is perfect, not a single bit of the chip is uncovered. So they didn’t use too little, which means it’s already a win.
Now the question is did they use too much? Not really. The thermal paste has a known viscosity and the heatsink has a known mounting pressure. These two combined will make sure the layer of thermal paste in between is actually optimised in terms of layer thickness. The excess material will just squish out the sides under the mounting pressure.
But when we actually look at the image, we don’t see a lot squished out the side at all. Like I said the contact frame is still visible. If it were actually too much that would be totally covered. I also think it looks like more than it actually is. The marble pattern we see in the paste indicates very good contact between the heatsink and the chip, indicating good and even contact pressure. And especially when looking at the GPU, that pattern is absolutely perfect.
Could someone redo this paste by hand, use less and get an even better layer thickness? Sure! Would that really matter? Not really, it might improve thermals by 1 or 2 degrees C. It will have no impact on the actual functionality of the device, it’s lifespan or capabilities. It would on the other hand take a lot of work and an expert hand to do so. Which means it either needs to be done by a human, which is expensive, or some fancy machine would also be expensive. Why would they spend that money, on something that has zero impact on the end product?
They could probably use the exact same machine, load it up with some better quality thermal grease and get the same improvement if they wanted to. At minimal costs.
The rules are just a little bit different when it comes to industrial scale engineering. There’s more to consider than just what the perfect application of thermal grease would be.
If you want some more info about the real world application of thermal paste in computers, here is an article from Gamersnexus thoroughly debunking the “too much thermal paste” argument.
The best part was being accused of being a troll. There is no sense in playing chess with pigeons, they just knock all the pieces around, shit on the board, then claim they won the game.
Clearly you’re a troll. I bet you don’t even know it’s ok to use a roofing nail gun to attach a circuit board to… other things. And people. And they should all be dipped in varnish after the thermal paste.
did your article measure aging? assuming you didn’t fry your PC with the excess paste, there is no edge seal on voids when you use too much. over time most paste will dry and crack, creating new voids and hot spots. there is a difference between hour old transfer compound and 2 year old compound.
Love how you ignored my response to your response that provided a scientific rationale demonstrating that you don’t have a clear understanding of how thermal paste works, and you just doubled down on flawed opinions. Carry on friend.
Edit: Based on the law of heat conduction, as the paste thickness rises it will reduce heat flow based on the math of the formula. Less is more.
this has got to be a troll post. right? RIGHT?!
as you pointed out, just get rid of the air gaps with the absolute minimal amount of paste.
my back woods method
ensure your heat sink does not have pre-applied paste or a pad. apply a small amount of paste. cut the thickness with the short edge of an old credit card at about a 30° angle, using just enough pressure to bend the card slightly so the smooth surface of the card presses paste into voids and the trailing edge of the card removes excess to level the surface - you will likely still be able to make out some chip package markings through the paste. remove all edge excess and spillage. fit your heat sink. done.
Meh, I don’t think it’s worth having a discussion about to be honest.
There is a HUGE difference between the perfect optimal application of thermal paste and the reality of manufacturing devices with thermal paste.
Like I said, this paste is applied by a machine, it’s extruded automatically from a dispenser. They don’t want to use too much, because it costs more (although thermal paste at large scales is very cheap and it’s not like they are using a super specialized Thermal Grizzly product, just run of the mill thermal paste). But they very much don’t want to use too little, because if they use too little the device will overheat. The increased rate of RMA is much more costly than the entire stock of thermal paste used for the device. Especially on CPUs with specific hot spots, that need coverage.
If we look at the image the coverage is perfect, not a single bit of the chip is uncovered. So they didn’t use too little, which means it’s already a win.
Now the question is did they use too much? Not really. The thermal paste has a known viscosity and the heatsink has a known mounting pressure. These two combined will make sure the layer of thermal paste in between is actually optimised in terms of layer thickness. The excess material will just squish out the sides under the mounting pressure.
But when we actually look at the image, we don’t see a lot squished out the side at all. Like I said the contact frame is still visible. If it were actually too much that would be totally covered. I also think it looks like more than it actually is. The marble pattern we see in the paste indicates very good contact between the heatsink and the chip, indicating good and even contact pressure. And especially when looking at the GPU, that pattern is absolutely perfect.
Could someone redo this paste by hand, use less and get an even better layer thickness? Sure! Would that really matter? Not really, it might improve thermals by 1 or 2 degrees C. It will have no impact on the actual functionality of the device, it’s lifespan or capabilities. It would on the other hand take a lot of work and an expert hand to do so. Which means it either needs to be done by a human, which is expensive, or some fancy machine would also be expensive. Why would they spend that money, on something that has zero impact on the end product?
They could probably use the exact same machine, load it up with some better quality thermal grease and get the same improvement if they wanted to. At minimal costs.
The rules are just a little bit different when it comes to industrial scale engineering. There’s more to consider than just what the perfect application of thermal grease would be.
If you want some more info about the real world application of thermal paste in computers, here is an article from Gamersnexus thoroughly debunking the “too much thermal paste” argument.
https://gamersnexus.net/guides/3346-thermal-paste-application-benchmark-too-much-thermal-paste
Writes a novel
@Washedupcynic@lemmy.ca
The best part was being accused of being a troll. There is no sense in playing chess with pigeons, they just knock all the pieces around, shit on the board, then claim they won the game.
Clearly you’re a troll. I bet you don’t even know it’s ok to use a roofing nail gun to attach a circuit board to… other things. And people. And they should all be dipped in varnish after the thermal paste.
did your article measure aging? assuming you didn’t fry your PC with the excess paste, there is no edge seal on voids when you use too much. over time most paste will dry and crack, creating new voids and hot spots. there is a difference between hour old transfer compound and 2 year old compound.