Just built my new system.  When I first installed TAT, I noticed that my core temps for both cores were 51-53 celcius at stock.
 

 
I have reseated the heat sink fan, added an additional 80mm fan as exhaust, and pointed the cpu fan towards the CPU instead of pulling out from it.
 
I have lowered the average temp at stock to 42-44 celcius.  That seems more in line with what it should be for stock heatsink with no thermal compound.  My question is that I want to do some moderate overclocking, just to get it to 2.8 for now (I'll go higher with a better cooler).  That will probably raise the idle temp some but I think I'll stay under 50 celcius.  Is that ok temps?
 

Use coretemp instead of TAT, because (i think this is true) TAT was designed for laptops, and gives slightly lower temps.
 
the real question for ocing is what are your temps under 100% load?  those should be quite a bit higher.  try to keep your full load temperatures under 65 for either core, at least to start.

your temps suck, on the stock cooler i had 37c idle.
 
on my ninja heatsink i am at 32c on load. im not even OC.

Put in thermal counpound !!! it will make a lot of difference !!

first of all what kind of heatsink are you using, the stock one? if so that is close to normal but if you are using a quality after market one you should be getting quite a bit lower temps, if you are using an after factory one, make sure that it is seated right and you have the right amount of thermal compound, and what are the ambient temps where you are right now?

Arctic Cooler Freezer7 pro's sell for less than $30.00 and work fine.
 
spend the money re-assess the the temps and consider overclocking at that point.
 
I personally try to keep things under 50c with water and under 55c on air under load.

First off, you need some thermal paste/compound!!!!
 
If you have any intentions of OC make a small investment on a aftermarket cooler, most of them are very cheap and well worth it.

I've been looking more and more at the Arctic Cooler 7.  It comes preloaded with thermal compound right?  All I would need to do is clean off my CPU?
 
Thanks.

 
 
 
what lord said

 
Oh, dear --- never seat a HSF without thermal compoud.... a grain size bead of artic silver 5 (AS5) will drop  another 5-10 degrees.

 
Oh, dear --- never seat a HSF without thermal compoud.... a grain size bead of artic silver 5 (AS5) will drop  another 5-10 degrees.I fear that mounting the HS/F without TIM could have scratched the HS/F's Copper surface..hopefully not too bad. :x

I think the safe limit for C2D is 60, not 65 degrees.  
But if it idles at 41-42 - that's pretty good, although it depends on the ambient room temperature.  
 
my e6300 idles at 39-40, with a Zalman 9500, but then again, my room is warm enough to be comfortable wearing shorts and a wifebeater.

The danger point as measured by Core Temp and TAT is 85C, as that is the temperature where the C2D begins to throttle.

damn. and I thought that 50+ was pushing it.  
Thanks for the info dude, I think I'll overclock some more ))