I've been playing a game called ARC Raiders and noticed my Ryzen 7 9800X3D's temperature skyrocketing to 95-96°C, even with a 240mm AIO cooler. I was puzzled and stressed about the high temps and loud fans until I took off the cooler and realized I forgot to apply thermal paste. Is it common for CPUs to reach such high temperatures without thermal paste? After applying it, how much of a temperature drop should I anticipate?
4 Answers
Sounds like you were throttling without thermal paste! You could be losing a lot of performance due to those high temps. Once you add the paste, expect your gaming temperatures to stabilize around 75-85°C under load, which is way better than what you're seeing now. I'd recommend something like Arctic MX-6 or Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut.
Thermal paste is definitely necessary for CPU cooling; without it, you're in trouble. Once you apply thermal paste, you should see a significant drop in temperatures, potentially leading to better performance too. I’d say you could put a pea-sized dot on the CPU and reinstall your cooler. Make sure not to power on your PC until you do this!
Yeah, running at 95-96°C is pretty much expected when there's no thermal paste since it causes bad heat transfer. The thermal paste fills the gaps between the CPU and cooler, which is crucial for heat conduction. You should definitely see much cooler temps once you've applied it!
Not normal at all! I have a Ryzen 7800X3D paired with a 240mm AIO, and I usually sit around 74°C while gaming. The 9800X3D should actually run cooler with proper paste applied. Get that thermal paste on there ASAP!
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