[NathanLedet]

How important is using thermal paste?

[Phantom118]

Very... Its as important as the cpu cooler. Get yourself some Arctic Silver 5 if your looking into buying some.

[NathanLedet]

Does it generally come with the Motherboard or the CPU? Or do I need to go ahead and buy some with my entire order?

[TheDiceman]

A new CPU usually comes with a stock cooler with thermal paste pre-applied. However, typically that thermal paste is not very high quality. Spend the 6 bucks on some AS5.

[NathanLedet]

Will do. Thank you

[Phantom118]

When you buy a CPU it typically comes on the bottom of the stock cpu cooler. This however is not the best stuff, it will most likely come in the form of a grey patch on the bottom of the heat sync.

Like This..

Some after market coolers also come with thermal paste.

You might want to buy some ArctiClean Thermal Material Remover... sometimes that greyish patch can be hard to get cleaned off.. but if you take it off before you use it, it shouldn't be to difficult, because it hasn't melted yet.

[Sora]

It is a MUST...even crappy Thermal paste is needed. However get some Arctic Silver 5 for like 5 bucks if you can as it's known as the best.

[b1gapl]

How is AS Ceramique?

[peterhuang913]

It is used to bond tiny heatsinks that do not have a clamp like ramsinks. It is just like AS paste but with an adhesive.

Also, @Phantom, doesn't alcohol or acetone melt the bejebus out of thermal patches and paste? I use it to clean processors and HS and it seems to do the job.

[TriEclipse]

Originally Posted by b1gapl

How is AS Ceramique?

Not as good as regular AS5. I heard a while ago that Ceramique, because of its different composition, made it very hard for you to seperate the Heatsink from the CPU because there would be no air left and the Ceramique is tougher than the regular stuff.

Don't know why you wouldn't get the regular stuff anyway. =/