BitWrangler wrote:The thermal conductivity of all thermal pastes is utterly crap... utterly....compared to any metal, it just so happens though that it's 10x better than air, which is what you've got left in there if you don't displace it with thermal paste. However, while one thermal interface is essential, two aren't.
That's one side of the coin. The other is actually cooling more area from the heat spreader. TIMs have an order of magnitude less heat conductivity than copper, true. At the same time your heatsink will be acting on an area 4 or 5 times bigger. Note I didn't say lower temps would be achieved, I said similar or equal.
Matth79 wrote:An extra layer and extra thermal interface would probably not be good - look at the complaints over Intel's TIM.
With the small size of the core, the quality of the TIM is probably more significant than with larger contact areas
1st statement is a different problem altogether. People delidding today still recap, they just replace the TIM.
2nd statement is debatable: that's the entire purpose of a heat spreader. EDIT: sorry, misread your comment. Agree that high quality TIM is important.
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