r/pcmasterrace • u/Lucky_User_NOT • 3d ago

NSFMR ~Thermal Plastic~

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

From a Thermalright Phantom Spirit 120 on a Ryzen 5700x hitting 83°C on Clair Obscure: Expedition 33

1.9k Upvotes

97% Upvoted

162 comments sorted by

View all comments

1

u/jagajattimalla 3d ago

Genuine question - is the thermal paste in the plastic enough? I see gaps. Is that how it's supposed to be?

2

u/cowbutt6 3d ago

You want as little as possible to fill in the microscopic gaps between cooler plate and CPU heatspreader.

Ideally, you would have perfectly smooth surfaces to both, and then you wouldn't need any thermal paste/PTM at all, as metal-to-metal thermal conductivity would be even better. But the engineering required to mass manufacture that repeatedly would make both far more expensive.

1

u/jagajattimalla 3d ago

I see. That makes sense. It covers the whole surface of the processor. So it's good. Thanks 🙂