Do you think that thermal paste or gel transfers heat better, or should i get a thermal pad to put in between the processor and the heatsink?

thermal pads are useless. they do a poor job at transfering heat. Thermal paste do a better job and the ones that contain silver are the best

A few thoughts on pads versus compound... AMD recommends pads over compound, apparently because the pad will still be there in 5 years but compound has the potential to drift away and thin out. Seems like not a lot of people take their point seriously though - me neither. Arctic Silver III is the best, as it uses silver within the compound. Pads are impossible to screw up, whereas too thick an application of compound can result in an insulating effect. Compound is easier to completely clean off, an advantage if you're going to replace your heatsink once in a while. A good application of compound will get you about 3C cooling advantage over a pad. The keys in cooling are ventilation, the heatsink/fan, and a not-screwed-up job of compound application. The type of thermal interface is a smaller factor. Pads do an adequate job and are easier to install. Outside of overclocking, your cpu will run fine with either a pad or compound. If someone is going to the trouble to learn about heatsinks and cooling and babying their cpu in this way that many of us do, they might as well go the distance and use AS III and learn to apply it just right and they'll end up with the most effective cooling solution. http://www.heatsink-guide.com/paste.htm http://www.over-clock.co.uk/amdwarranty.shtml

How can you apply too much gel. When you hook the heatsink on, won't and excess gel be squshed(sp?) out?

The heatsink retainer clip is not meant to squeeze out excess gel, though you make a good point that if you put too much on, some will be squeezed out. My input on this point is that myself and others have started out with a huge amount of gel on the cpu and noticed that temps were way too high, and after aiming at doing a better job of putting on a smaller and thinner coat, the temps improved. I now put on a volume of paste/gel/compound about equal to a bb, stick my index finger in a plastic sandwich bag, and spread the compound equally around the cpu until the whole area is the same color. This education has gotten me a couple degrees of better temps, though I cannot say anything about what happens after a few years. That's why I presented pros and cons of pads and compound earlier, because imo the jury is still out.

I think the pads do a better job of protecting the core of the CPU. Athlon and Athlon XPs chip easily. The pads do not provide as decent a thermal contact as thermal paste. If the HSF shifts, there may be grooves in the pad that do not provide any heat transfer. I prefer thermal paste. Nothing that I've read or seen convinces me that generic thermal paste has significant disadvantages over Arctic Silver and other high quality thermal pastes.