Thermal Paste or Thermal Pads?

[pww82]

can i get any ones thought on thermal pads vs paste on 4820tg's cpu and gpu? i read some things about people trying to use paste and the gap being to to far from the heatsink to get good contact. I'm not sure if it come with paste or pads from the factory as I haven't taken the heatsink off. I already have some Prolimatech PK-3 TIM if i can use the paste, also what thickness pads should I be looking at getting?

 

[DarkSable]

Use thermal paste. Thermal pads are very very, bad.

That being said, replacing the TIM on a notebook really isn't going to help at all.

 

[abbadon_34]

+1, if you get lucky the 1st time a therman pad will work, after that you need thermal paste for any changes or addition tries, plus something AC5 is going to be much better, like comparing a stock to aftermarket cooler