Buying a Retail CPU

naednek · Post by **naednek** » Sun Jan 02, 2005 5:04 pm

Tigerdirect has screwed me over, so now I'm back to square one. One thing I'm a bit confused on do I need to buy any paste/greese if it's the retail version of the CPU. I take it the retail version of the CPU comes with a Heatsink. Is that correct?

I have to wait till tigerdirect refunds me befor placing a new order (visa gift card) so I have a few days to do this.

Any help would be appreciated

Zekester · Post by **Zekester** » Sun Jan 02, 2005 5:46 pm

My retail P4 came with a HS and a 'paste' pad already attached to the HS.

It was good to go.

Cam · Post by **Cam** » Sun Jan 02, 2005 7:41 pm

As did my AMD64 3200 CPU. The real question is, which brands thermal paste is better?

Flame war!

Spock's Brain · Post by **Spock's Brain** » Mon Jan 03, 2005 7:50 pm

Yeah, all the retail CPUs I've seen come with heatsink and fan already attached. Just plug 'em in and you're good to go.

naednek · Post by **naednek** » Mon Jan 03, 2005 9:13 pm

cool, now I just to wait for tigerdirect to stop ass raping me. I'm about to hire Jeff Jones to go bomb them

disarm · Post by **disarm** » Mon Jan 03, 2005 9:24 pm

Spock's Brain wrote:Yeah, all the retail CPUs I've seen come with heatsink and fan already attached. Just plug 'em in and you're good to go.

my retail Intel CPU (P4-3.0gHz) didn't have the HSF attached already, but everything i needed was included...the heatsink had a little thermal pad attached to the bottom. all i had to do was drop the chip into place on the socket, clamp it down, then snap the HSF into place on top. the whole process takes less than 5 minutes 8)

TheMix · Post by **TheMix** » Mon Jan 03, 2005 9:28 pm

I thought I read that the thermal pads were not recommended? It was suggested that the pad should be scraped off and paste used instead.

Regardless, both of the P4 2.8s that I bought came with a little one-time use tube of paste.

Spock's Brain · Post by **Spock's Brain** » Tue Jan 04, 2005 2:42 pm

disarm wrote:
Spock's Brain wrote:Yeah, all the retail CPUs I've seen come with heatsink and fan already attached. Just plug 'em in and you're good to go.
my retail Intel CPU (P4-3.0gHz) didn't have the HSF attached already, but everything i needed was included...the heatsink had a little thermal pad attached to the bottom. all i had to do was drop the chip into place on the socket, clamp it down, then snap the HSF into place on top. the whole process takes less than 5 minutes 8)

Cool. They used to ship the whole thing ready assembled. Just show when I last bought a CPU.

Giles Habibula · Post by **Giles Habibula** » Sun Jan 09, 2005 1:05 am

Zekester wrote:My retail P4 came with a HS and a 'paste' pad already attached to the HS.

It was good to go.

Zeke, did you get a new PC recently?
Last I remember, you were running an older rig, as was I.
Did I miss something?

Giles Habibula · Post by **Giles Habibula** » Sun Jan 09, 2005 1:09 am

TheMix wrote:I thought I read that the thermal pads were not recommended? It was suggested that the pad should be scraped off and paste used instead.

Regardless, both of the P4 2.8s that I bought came with a little one-time use tube of paste.

I don't know about Pentiums, but AMD has stated more than once that they recommend the thermal pads instead of paste. I've used the pads on my last two systems with no problems whatsoever.

Pentiums may be entirely different however. I don't know, as I haven't bought a Pentium since my PII 450.

wonderpug · Post by **wonderpug** » Sun Jan 09, 2005 3:46 am

Cam wrote:As did my AMD64 3200 CPU. The real question is, which brands thermal paste is better?

Flame war!

I've always heard good things about the Arctic Silver paste, and it's worked for me on...3? systems so far. Actually, I've never heard any other brand mentioned, let alone recommended...is there another good brand out there?

Giles Habibula · Post by **Giles Habibula** » Sun Jan 09, 2005 5:41 am

wonderpug wrote:
Cam wrote:As did my AMD64 3200 CPU. The real question is, which brands thermal paste is better?

Flame war!
I've always heard good things about the Arctic Silver paste, and it's worked for me on...3? systems so far. Actually, I've never heard any other brand mentioned, let alone recommended...is there another good brand out there?

Every magazine and web site I've ever read has highly endorsed Arctic Silver, and I haven't heard of any other either, so I'm guessing that'd be a pretty fail-safe choice.