PLease take a look at my heatsink base

I took the thermalright 120 extreme out of the box and it's obviously not been used, but it looks like it was someone's return since there was no 'please remove' sticker on the HS base. Consequently, I've noticed a tiny, tiny dink or indent over the 3rd heatpipe. Probably insignificant, but thought I'd check. I've taken some photos, do you think there's anything here that could affect performance?

edit: not to worry, I've been told it's nothing that will affect performance since it's right on the edge. Just me being overly perfectionist, lol.

As long as it doesn't stick down and touch the top of the cpu, it's fine.

How's the flatness of the heatsink base? Most of the TRUEs are quite convex and benefit significantly from lapping. Have you checked it by sliding a straight edge over the surface?

try getting a flat razor blade and put it on top with a bright light on the other side and see if there is any passing through but otherwise it looks pretty good.

Weeell, I might do that sometime. But right now, I'm happy as a pig in sh.. ^_^ because I dropped 10 to 12c with this amazing heatsink! I started with core temp 19c idle with side off, and now it's 21c with cover on. I'm going to remove the side fan as it's not doing any good and I may turn it into an outtake fan. I think I can get it back to 19 or 20c.

My sequence of events today, after having done some serious cable management once mobo was removed. Messy line of TIM, eh? I smudged a bit I was trying to wipe off. You can also see how the fan surround is touching the ram and you can see how high the fan is, there's a gap between fan and top of HS. Before applying line of TIM, I cleaned HS and cpu with isopropyl, then coated both with MX-2, then wiped it off, to seal pores. Then I did the line.

lap and washer mod that true!! otherwise you're not getting the best performance from the thing

e6600 said:

lap and washer mod that true!! otherwise you're not getting the best performance from the thing

Click to expand...

I've no idea what washer mod is. Out of interest, since I'm getting 19 to 20c idle now (stock speed, nothing overclocked), what kind of numbers are we looking at when lapped?