Heat sink lower surface puzzle

LinComp

Honorable
Mar 8, 2013
143
0
10,680
Hi, thanks for helping me!

I am building a new desktop, I am a newbie of course! I am curious to know is there a cover over the thermal paste of the heat sink that I need to remove before putting the heat sink over the CPU?

The manufacturer of the heat sink I guess has already put the thermal paste on the lower surface of the heat sink, I assume so - because I understand this surface will come into contact with the cpu, but when I look at the lower surface of the heat sink I am unable to see any such cover that I can remove off

What I see there three shaped areas (silver colored) – one in the center is rectangular strip like shape, and the other two shapes have four sides but they are of bit different shape. And there is some gap between these three shaped areas

But I am unable to see any kind of cover that I can pull off or remove from the lower surface of the heat sink

This is a heat sink came with the intel cpu and in the cpu manual – how to put the heat sink over the cpu - they have not mentioned to remove any cover from the lower surface of the heat sink, rather the diagrammatic step by step instruction they have given shows - after the cpu cover is removed then to install the heat sink over the cpu directly and there is no mentioning, at any point in time of any removal of any cover etc from the lower surface of the heat sink

Can I assume this heat sink comes without any cover on the lower surface so can I go ahead and just place it over the cpu when I am ready? Or is there something I am missing, possibly there is a cover but I am not able to recognise it?

Thank you guys so much helping me out with this big puzzle i am facing now during building this pc myself!
 
Solution
The thermal paste of an Intel heatsink doesn't touch anything while in the package; therefore it doesn't need protection. Follow the procedure and you'll be fine.