P4C Thermal Cooling - First Timer Needs Help

[msgirard]

Question:

I have a P4 2.8C retail box. I am planning to use the heatsink that came in the retail box. I am not planning on doing any overclocking.

Is is necessary to remove the thermal material on the bottom of the stock heatsink and replace it with S3 or the the like?

Or is the material that comes on the bottom of the heat sink out of the box sufficient?

Or should I use S3 or the like on the processor in conjunction with the thermal material already on the heat sink.

Thanks!

 

[techronin]

i think you should get rid of the thermal pad and use some arctic silver 3 or nanotherm.
thermal compound

if you could i would ditch the stock cooling and spend a little and get something better.
(the thermaltake dragon orb is less than $20)
cpu coolers

 

[JimMc]

Nothing wrong with techronin's advice if you don't mind spending the money. But the folks at Intel aren't idiots, the stock pad and HS will work fine unless you have some unusually hot conditions around your PC. I think many are even hitting some decent overclock speeds with the factory setup.