ReefAquarium;394057 wroteIn a pinch you can use toothpaste as a thermal paste.
Sure wouldn't do this with an AMD processor, might have got away with it back in 386/Celeron days but now..??
This is the standard "saran-wrap-in-place-of-condom" question. While some toothpastes may provide the correct type of thermal conductivity, "toothpaste" is too big a category to answer the question accurately. Worse, unless you want to make it a fun science project, nobody is going to be testing different types of toothpastes for thermal conductivity.
That said, the answer is probably "yes." Toothpaste is definitely better than nothing, because air (i.e., nothing) is a terrible heat conductor. That said, there are other properties to consider. From Wikipedia
•How well it fills the gaps and conforms to the component's uneven surfaces and the heat sink
•How well it adheres to those surfaces
•How well it maintains its consistency over the required temperature range
•How well it resists drying out or flaking over time
•How well it insulates electrically
•Whether it degrades with oxidation or breaks down over time
