I just bought a Artic Freezer Pro, it has paste on it already. Waiting for the Q9450 too come out. If the cpu has paste on it will I have too remove it from the heat sync, or leave it on both.

CPU's do not come with pre-pasted heatspreaders.

sell that junker, and toss the paste too

sorry to tell you, if want just cool any cpu to 3-3.4ghz its fine

i will not cool a quad core, and its a poor choice. The better the cpu cooler the longer your cpu lastests, its a low cost investment. While they look nice and they look like other coolers that are top of the line they are not.

research anandtechs cpu cooler ratings

yes cpu's do come, i am not sure what planet this is from, but both the q660o copper core cooler i just opened, has paste on it - as does the uselss cooler with the e2180. I think you ment to say after market coolers do not come prepasted - yes that is true for the most part.

the paste that comes stock with the intel cpu hsf is good for testing, test it remove it and remove the paste - in fact you can test 3 cpus until the paste falls off and spreads too thin

The FP7 is a fine basic heat-pipe cooler.

Just because you won't use a cooler on a quad core doesn't mean everyone else should be so silly...

Yes, it really depends on how extreme the OP's overclocking plans are. If he's only doing moderate OCing, even the stock Intel cooler should work fine and both CPU and cooler should last until he's ready to get a different CPU.

If it doesn't make a difference *during your use* of the CPU, it's a waste of money.

You misunderstood: both the OP and beurling are talking about CPUs, which do NOT come with thermal compound pre-applied to them.

Yes, as the OP noted, the stock Intel coolers do come prepasted.

No

It depends on the specific cooler.

Dragon got it all wrong, CPU's don't come pre pasted, CPU boxed coolers on the other hand do, the Freezer Pro will do a better job than the stock cooler for sure.

I recommend removing the paste from the freezer pro and aplying Artic Ssilver 5 or something similar (google around).

freezer pro and stock intel copper cooler are about the same

you get 57c give or take a few c with both coolers with the average c2d clocked around 3.4ghz
with artic 90mm fan or stock copper core intel cooler running 2200+ rpm

Ok I Give, lot of different answers on this. If I spend the money on a Q9550 I need a good cooler. What do you think I should use, I can sell the FP7 if I have too. Just want too protect my system.

you should not use an atic cooler with a quad core you want to overclock it will not work good.
the artic cooler is ok for dual core cpu's - they look like they should cool great they look like a copy of thermalright, but they do not.

zalman 9700 or 9500
thermal right ultra 120 or even 90 but its not that much better then artic

i have one buy i have not tested it, the zerotherm - it got a high rating its sililar to ones above

ninja mini is not bad

the giant towers are too top heavy i would stay away

You may want to re-read those ratings yourself. Anantech rates it very well for stock speeds, and average for overclocking. Not quite a "Junker".

check out frostytech.com, they have reviews of many coolers. a friend has the one xigmatek thats at the top of their list and it seems very effective. im thinking about picking one up myself.