I disagree.. the idea of having a hole to enable hot air to expand makes sense, but such a hole would really be placed on the side, and not on top where the paste+heatsink creates an airtight barrier.
>First of all, Intel itself doesn't really use paste, but a
>pad.
the pad melts upon first use, and spreads out all over the heatsink. Its not like it remains like that for longer than a few seconds or so. after it has melted, it isnt too different from regular paste.
> Just a little canal in it would be enough to let the
> little bit of air escape.
Just imagine how the air in that "canal" would heat up ! really, HSF manufacturers try their best to make those heatsink bottom near perfect mirrors, with the sole reason of eliminating as much as possible any air trapped between the cpu (or heatspreader) and the heatsink. thermal paste does the rest.. you are talking about microscopic small ammounts of air here that are already a problem they try to evade.. an air duct would really totally ruin such efforts.
>Secondly, a Pentium 4 can very well handle some "air
>buckets" with this big heat spreading area.
I'm not too sure.. it does create hotspots, and I don't see how the P4 is immune to this. Its not like the fastest P4's out there are only getting luke warm and would only need small coolers..
> After a while, you even create a little vacuum when the
>CPU cools down, so this also explains the phenomenon that
>when you remove your heat sink, you often also pull the CPU
>out of its socket..
Yeah, but if its a vacuum, it means air can't get in. When it can't get in, it probably can't get out either.
= The views stated herein are my personal views, and not necessarily the views of my wife. =