Checking for thermal paste

spyguy

Prominent
Dec 3, 2017
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I bought a prebuilt pc that had some screws missing from the fan and a cheap off brand psu so ive checked everything else in the pc but the heatsink. The cpu is an i7 7700k with a corsair h60 liquid cooler. Ive had the pc for about 5 months and daily have long gaming sessions. If they had forgot thermal paste would the cpu have fried already? I would check but ill have to go buy thermal paste to reapply and ive never applied thermal paste. I check temps from time to time, nothing crazy. The highest I remember is around 70 C under load.
 
Solution
The H60 comes with compound preapplied to the unit, so chances are they just used that. Not the best but not the worst. If you want to pull it and reapply it's not a terrible idea.

For more than you probably wanted to know on thermal compound, I'd recommend reading up through these two articles. They're not super recent but not much has changed in the compound world.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/thermal-paste-comparison,5108.html

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/thermal-paste-performance-benchmark,3616.html

azaran

Distinguished
Feb 17, 2010
155
1
18,715
The H60 comes with compound preapplied to the unit, so chances are they just used that. Not the best but not the worst. If you want to pull it and reapply it's not a terrible idea.

For more than you probably wanted to know on thermal compound, I'd recommend reading up through these two articles. They're not super recent but not much has changed in the compound world.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/thermal-paste-comparison,5108.html

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/thermal-paste-performance-benchmark,3616.html
 
Solution

volkgren

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Aug 13, 2017
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610
If you aren't having overheating then there should be thermal paste. The Corsair coolers come with thermal paste pre-applied, so they would have had to clean it off in order to forget to reapply it.

Highest temp under load being 70C means you have thermal paste.
 

USAFRet

Illustrious
Moderator


What 'brand' was this prebuilt?

If the max you've seen is 70C, then the paste is in there. Almost certainly just the preapplied stuff that came with whatever CPU fan is on there.
 

mdd1963

Distinguished
If your temps are not over 70C, that's probably about the best you are going to get with the H60 on a 7700K anyway...

(My 7700K hits 63c in BF1 with even a Noctua NH-D15 with all 4 cores at 4.5 GHz, so, your 70C is not 'bad', IMO...)