It's the first thing I do with any new laptop, be it Apple, HP, Dell, or Lenovo. It really makes a massive difference.
In my experience HP pushes the thermal boundary more than most (they generally offer higher TDP options for custom builds than their competitors without tailoring for it).
Some people take this to the next level and decap the processors and then use liquid thermal compound instead of the paste. That probably voids your warranty.
> Some people take this to the next level and decap the processors and then use liquid thermal compound instead of the paste.
They're probably deliding the CPU (removing the integrated heat spreader (IHS) to put the compound on the die directly), not decapping it. I can't imagine a CPU surviving the latter.
The CPU in the article is lid-less so that's not a concern.
And some CPUs have a soldered heatspreader, this allows for much better heat transfer to the IHS but means delidding is destructive (though way less necessary to be fair). Ryzen chips are soldered.
I don't know about those other machines from HP, but the Spectre with i7 standard high-end issue in my office (Big4) is only trouble.
Those are nice if you develop a spreadsheet with some VBA now and then, but once you actually need the power if you're developing enterprise applications you can forget it. Under any serious load they overheat and clock the processor down from 3Ghz+ to 2Ghz.
In my experience HP pushes the thermal boundary more than most (they generally offer higher TDP options for custom builds than their competitors without tailoring for it).
Some people take this to the next level and decap the processors and then use liquid thermal compound instead of the paste. That probably voids your warranty.