Old IT guy told me never to use thermal paste on CPUs, argued it was a scam

I followed his advice for 2 years until a PC I built in July hit 95C under load and I finally caved, added paste, and now it idles at 35C - so was he totally wrong or did thermal paste just get better recently, has anyone else had an old timer swear by this?

3 comments

3 Comments

alice_kim2mo ago

Completely changed my mind too. Used to think it was hype, not anymore.

troythompson1mo ago

I read somewhere that early thermal pastes actually could dry out and become less effective, sometimes even cause issues, so maybe that old guy was stuck in the 90s with that memory. But yeah, modern stuff is totally different and basically required now. You ever wonder how many CPUs got fried from bad advice like that?

the_hugo2mo ago

Dude I had almost the exact same thing happen. My first build I listened to some old forum post saying paste was a gimmick and the CPU would be fine. After a year my AMD chip was hitting 90C while gaming, fans sounded like a jet engine. Finally caved and used some Arctic stuff, dropped to 40C at idle and never went above 70C under load. Totally changed my mind, I don't know what that guy was thinking but it's not like paste was invented recently.