Thermal Paste

Category: infrastructure

A heat-conductive (but electrically insulating) paste used to fill microscopic gaps between the CPU and its heatsink.

Paste is the "bridge." Metal-on-metal is never perfectly flat; tiny air pockets act as insulators that trap heat. The paste fills these gaps, allowing heat to flow out of the CPU and into the cooler, preventing thermal throttling.

Common Examples

• After removing the CPU cooler, we cleaned the old, dry thermal paste and applied a fresh pea-sized dot for optimal heat transfer.
• Misapplying thermal paste—either too much or too little—is a leading cause of overheating in DIY PC builds.