Do retail athalon 64 chips have thermal interface material applied?

[fueledbymetal]

I'm in the middle of building my first system and there appears to be a film of some sort on the heatsink of my new, retail 3700+ processor (includes heatsink & fan). Is this the thermal interface material? The heatsink packaging was raised in the area of the film leading me to believe that it is, but I want to make sure. I don't have any thermal material on hand, otherwise I would just clean of the film and apply something new.

 

[the cobbler]

yeah, it's a gray square

soft and tacky stuff, don't touch it to avoid contaminating it with oil/dirt

the stock TIM seemed to me to be very effective

 

[fueledbymetal]

Awesome! Thanks for your quick reply

 

[Cardio]

It's not always gray we just got some with White paste applied and really! thin........

 

[redhatlinux]

just to get this right, the HSF has the compound applied, not the cpu. the PCTC (phase change thermal compound) is often protected by a thin layer of plastic film which must be removed before installing.