First off, NO sleep problems whatsoever with the Gigadesigns upgrade. Checked both over night and after 2 minutes. This is at 1 Ghz; haven't tried 1.2 Ghz yet, but I have not heard any reports of sleep problems. Thanks for the tip about Menumeters, Fran. As for the thermal paste issue, the card comes with it's own copper heat sink (thermal transfer plate) attached to the CPU. This plate fits flat and very tightly against the core heat sink of the Cube (the black fins you see under the top vent). A comment from "Cube Guru" about thermal paste can be found here: http://www.cubeowner.com/forums//index.php? s=ec921d147e84520a154e1df8daa8455b&showtopic=4179&st=40