cooling

[Stormwind]

is it okay to cut the black circle plastic bits on the cpu since it prevents hsf from having largest contact with the cpu?

[wildone]

no
if you cut those off you will crush your core , they dont prevent anything but a cracked core.
wildone

[TT120]

Yeah, you want to leave those little "feet" on your chip. They provide stability to the HSF when putting it on and keep you from chipping the core. They dont keep the HSF from contacting the core at all as they squish down when you secure the clip.