Heatsink i7 2600K question

[idata]

Hello

I hope you guys can help me with some advice

I'm building my first desktop for music production and have not yet assembled it.

I've purchased a i7 2600k and am confused about thermal paste on the standard heatsink?

1. Is the grey substance on the base of the standard intel heatsink thermal paste? If so, is it sufficent?

2. I have arctic silver 5. Should I clean off the intel standard and replace is with the arctic silver 5?

3. I don't plan to overclock the CPU so is the standard setup ok and should I just put it together out of the box?

System components

MB Gigabyte Z68xp UD4

RAM 16 GB corsair Vengeance

PS Thermaltake xt 775watt

HDD WD 2 TB black caviar

SDD OCZ agility 3 60GB

Case Thermaltake V9 blacx

[PWert]

Hi - If you bought a boxed i7-2600 CPU the "gray substance" is a thermal interface material and I recommend you use it as taken out of the box to preclude any warranty problems with Intel. Monitor your temperatures to ensure they remain within spec. Regards. Peter

[idata]

Thanks Pete

You've put my mind at rest.

I can start assembly now.

I keep an eye on the CPU temp.

Cheers

[idata]

Hi Lonienking,

I'm also building a desktop for music production. I have not bought my components yet but I have a good idea of what I want to get.

I wanted to know how your computer is running with your music production software so far? I'm going to be using Reason 6. I read that

I should get a heatsink for my i7 2600K and not rely on the stock heatsink. Also I was considering 8GB of ram but I see you have 16GB - are you seeing a

huge difference? Here's what I'm looking at:

1. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811133181 Thermaltake Armor A60 Gaming Mid-Tower Chassis With Cable Management Water Cooling SSD Support And Tool-Less Installation VM20001W2Z (Model:VM20001W2Z)

2. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131729 ASUS P8Z68-V LGA 1155 Intel Z68 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard (Model:P8Z68-V)

3. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817153126 Thermaltake Toughpower XT TPX-675M 675W ATX 12V v2.3 / EPS 12V v2.91 SLI Certified CrossFire Certified 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply (Model:TPX-675M)

4. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115070 Intel Core i7-2600K Sandy Bridge 3.4GHz (3.8GHz Turbo Boost) LGA 1155 95W Quad-Core Desktop Processor BX80623I72600K (Model:BX80623I72600K)

5. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231460 G.SKILL Sniper Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1866 (PC3 14900) Desktop Memory Model F3-14900CL9D-8GBSR (Model:F3-14900CL9D-8GBSR) - Although I want to double this perhaps.

6. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148697 Seagate Barracuda ST31000524AS 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive (Model:ST31000524AS)

7.COOLER MASTER V8 RR-UV8-XBU1-GP 120mm Rifle CPU Cooler Intel Core i7 compatible

Do you have any other recommendations??

Thanks

[idata]

Hi Dwango

So far the standard heatsink is working fine on the 2600k cpu, all temps are within Intel specifications. I dont think music production will push the cpu as hard as gaming will. My system is dedicated to music production so I dont think I'll need to improve the heatsink.

I've loaded protools and it runs fine. My next effort will to install cubase 6 and some east west/quantum leap virtual instruments(Goliath, symphonic orchestra etc) hence the 16gb of ram. From my understanding these samples and ram hungary, so if you plan to use virtual instruments ram up my friend. 32 gb will be my aim when 8gb sticks come down in price.

Just be warned about windows 7 the lower home versions have limited ram recognition so if you up your ram aim for win7 professional or above.

Hope the assembly goes well for you. I checked and rechecked everything before booting mine up. Presto it started like a dream. The 2600k cpu is a beauty and the Z68 chipset works like a dream and not having to install a graphic card was blissful.

Rock on

Lonienking

[idata]

Hi,

So what is the Intel specifications for the temperature of the i7-2600k?

Thanks,

Naguilian

[idata]

Naguilian

From my research with the standard heatsink 29C at idle to 60C underload.

Cheers

Lonienking