How Critical Is Replacing Thermal Interface Material?

[Hastibe]

My motherboard died (the RMA replacement will arrive on Wednesday), and I was looking at the AMD CPU installation sheet that came with my processor, and I noticed that it says:

"Note: If the heatsink is removed for any reason, all of the old phase-change thermal interface material must be removed. Then, new AMD-recommended phase-change thermal interface material must be installed on the heatsink."

I of course did remove the heatsink and processor from my dead motherboard, before RMA-ing it, and I don't have any thermal interface material on-hand, do any of you know if this is a critical step or is more a "if my CPU starts overheating, apply thermal interface material then" step?

 

[beanoslim]

Vital to remove all previous paste, clean well and replace with new.
http://www.arcticsilver.com/methods.html

 

[Hastibe]

Okay, great, so it looks like this will do: http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2216879

 

[beanoslim]

Perfect...and pick some of this up to clean everything with.
http://www.radioshack.com/search/index.jsp?kwCatId=&kw=arcticlean&origkw=arcticlean&sr=1

 

[Hastibe]

Best answer selected by Hastibe.

 

[Hastibe]

Off to RadioShack--thanks so much for your help!

 

[beanoslim]

No worries [:bohleyk:1] Remember less is more.