Hey everyone,

I'm about to build my first PC and I was wondering, as to applying thermal paste onto the CPU, what's the right amount? I've heard things ranging from using the amount of paste like a small pea or like a grain of rice. Is there a big problem if I put too much paste?

Here's what I'm using:

1 x i5-4690

1 x Noctua U12S Heatsink

Thanks!

A small pea sized amount is fine. You'll get different answers from different people, everyone kinda has their own way of applying paste. Too much thermal paste isn't a huge deal, it's just really messy (If you go waaay over the top it can cause problems though). I use this guide " Arctic Silver Thermal Paste Guide " when building PC's, depending on the CPU you'll want to apply the thermal paste a bit differently. On 4th Gen Intel CPU's (Which is what you have), you'll actually want to pop a little line down the chip and for the heatsink use a credit card to thin out the compound over the contact area.

The Arctic Silver page you just referenced shows that a vertical line is recommended for a fourth generation Intel CPU, not the spread method. In fact, I have never even seen another recommendation EVER to use the "spread method" when installing a CPU cooler. Any time I've ever seen the spread method referenced in my entire lifetime of building PCs was when people were talking about how not to apply thermal paste.

You put a pea-sized amount or a bit more in the middle of the CPU, and then put the cooler on. That's it.

@alphaknowledge, please just watch this.

@Mike: I was referring to the pre-treatment of the heatsink for the credit card bit. If you're not going to go to the effort of lapping the heatsink, it's a good move to pop a tiny bit of thermal paste on the heatsink contact area itself and then run the card along it (removing 90%+ of the thermal paste). It's not entirely necessary, but if you've got a bad heatsink batch with a poor contact surface it helps. I totally agree that spreading over the CPU itself is a terrible idea.

yeah basically you'll want to use as little paste as possible, I like to spread it evenly myself, creating a very thin layer on the CPU using a lil spatula or just my finger with some shrink wrap.

Some people just like to put a little amount of the paste on the CPU and then just pressing the heatsink down leaving it to do the spreading itself, and they swear by this method.

Putting too much paste actually makes for worse heat transfer, plus depending on how much the excess is it'll bleed out of the CPU once you press the heatsink down and fall all over your motherboard and stuff...

Thanks everyone! Here's to hoping I don't break any of the parts I ordered

i would have someone more knowledgeable about building computers do it with you

Well "pea sized" method always "worked" but my temps were always higher than everyone else reported. I've tried multiple methods and honestly nothing really stuck out or changed anything significantly enough to really notice a change. I guess just try and see for yourself, i used the pre-applied past on my h100i and it works fine and keeps my cpu just as cool as it's supposed to. *shrugs*

*edit* all my previous attempts where on air coolers and amd chips, phenom ii and my latest fx8350. I think air cooling just kinda sucks on amd chips, or maybe my case air flow is just bad.

I continue to use the spread method, zero problems with overflow or overheating on the CPU.

line or pea method always works well for me

The 'good-sized grain of rice' size and shape always works for me. Cotton free cloth and some isopropyl for getting rid of it, too, just in case you're not confident in what you've done.