CPU Question

included and pre-applied to the bottom of the heatsink.

Yup, as far as I know it is included. But I would'n use it if you care about your cpu. Same goes for the heatsink.

stock heatsink and fan are not good for overclocking but they are adequate for stock fequencies

If the user won't overclock the unit, an aftermarket is not such a necessity , stop filling his head with preconceived ideas brought up by "know-it-all" experts. CPU's have no problems if they run at 60/70 degrees Celsius in full load, even for long periods of time.

There are just a few cases of simply terrible choice of cooling options for a couple of CPU's , that's where u should really look at.

As for the question at hand, as other people already said , the CPU and cooler heat sink come with thermal compound already applied, so there is no concern there, the thermal paste they use is not terrible since they don't intend them to brake , obviously .

It's included, but shit. You'll want a better heatsink, fan, and thermal compound.

Even without overclocking, you want it purely for noise. Ignore Thyshaw.

Yes. But you will have to eventually change your thermal paste after 6 to 1 year. Buy a Cooler master 212 which is great, comes with its own thermal paste and instructions.

Yes. Also, heatsink quality can depends on what CPU model you are buying.

Paste is cheap and usually much better than the one you get for the boxed heatsink. Applying it might be intimidating for some, but its really no science.

Arctic Silver all the way. Throw away that POS you got bundled.

I'm not planning on Over Clocking, so is buying my own Thermal Paste and applying it right when I get it necessary right now? I think I'd be fine until I actually need to apply my own Thermal Paste, correct me if I'm wrong...

This is a reply to everyone who is talking about OverClocking and Noise that it'll make. I do not care about noise, it's always really loud in my room, because I have two fans on, and I have headphones to block it out. I will never OverClock, because I don't feel it's necessary.

If your processor isn't over 90 degrees [it wont be if you dont oc it] then it has almost 0% chance of shortening the lifespan. I got an antec midrange tower case [no special cooling features] and nothing runs over 50 under load in my machine.

Edit: running 3770k and gtx660 oced[out of the box, and then further by me].

It usually comes with mediocre thermal paste, but i recommend using better thermal paste like Arctic Cooling MX-4.

I have 2 intel CPUs and 3 AMD cpus, all of them have thermal paste on it. Because the heat sink is directly connect with the surface of a CPU, the thermal paste is required to be sealed inside CPU box for buyers. But the original thermal paste is not on high standard. If you intend to overclock your cpu,personally I suggest that you may need to buy another CPU fan or water cooling and better thermal paste.