Stock IVY i7 cooler install?

[eTanium]

Hi all!

I am going to start a new build soon - I have all the parts - but looking at the stock heat sink (which I plan to replace with water cooling sooner or later), it already has some thermal pads on it. It has one long strip in the center, and two square-ish patches on either side of that. Inbetween these is bare copper.

Now, I know too much thermal paste/compond actually creates more heat, but this doesn't seem like a lot. It doesn't even cover half of the chip's serface area. The ivy bridge is known to be hotter too (Intell using crapy thermal compound within the chip).

Should I add more thermal paste?

 

[SavageCupcake]

nope just use it stock

just dont for to long as the stock cooler is awful

 

[jamesriley94]

The actual processor is located in the middle of the actual chip if that makes sense. The metally bit on the top is a form of heatspreader so you only really need a tiny dab of thermal paste in the middle of the chip and the edges do not matter so much as theres nothing under them to get hot. The paste intel puts on is adequate for stock, but agreeing with SavageCupcake, the cooler is awful. But they dont exactly need to make it good since 95% of people buying a quad core ivybridge and building a rig themselves wont be using the stock cooler anyway

 

[Sheza]

Using the stock fan (don't add any paste) was fine for me. I could easily live with it, but I wanted to experiment with overclocking so I got myself a Noctua which I've just installed today.

Seriously thought, idle temps are the same on this. Around 35 dead idle, browsing etc (for some reason seems to put some laod on my CPU, dunno why) is around 40 on Noctua and was 45 on stock.

Video encoding was around 75 on stock and it's just 50 on the Noctua, so it's obviously different when you're doing intensive things. But I could run this machine on the stock cooler no problem.

 

[eTanium]

Yeah, I would love to be ready to water cool it now, but I am not. I am going to run the stock for as long as I can without ruining the CPU, or until I get water cooling.

What's the highest temps I should be looking for, as far as a safe operating temp?

 

[SavageCupcake]

aslong as you dont overclock id say mid 50s or low 60s as a max for a stock cooler

if its getting to much for your liking just buy a cheap air cooler till you get your water cooling kit

 

[eTanium]

Yep, the aftermarket aircooling is my backup plan until I can get all the water cooling stuff together. We'll see if I need it or not

 

[Big WigglyStyle]

I'd grab a Hyper 212 evo or something similar until you can watercool just as a cheap alternative it is like 30 USD I'm using the stock intel cooler for now and it isn't terribly bad but stock temps on my i5 2500k aren't so great under load or idle about 35 idle and low 60's load

 

[airdeano]

yeah, just a small bump in cooler option can open you up to some overclocking

and find out if you actually need water cooling other than to dazzle yourself and

friends.

airdeano