Is there a Cover over the thermal paste?

[LinComp]

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 (greyish or silver colored) – one in the center is rectangular strip like shape (or bar 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!

 

[DRagor]

Stock Intel heatsink comes without any cover.

 

[R_1]

the plastic cover the heatsink came in is the cover. it is shaped to keep away from the sensitive surface keeping it and the thermal paste pristine
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=61FVSDRmZps at @ 4 minutes in you can clearly see the cover and how it is clear of the paste.

remove the heatsink from the plastic and seat the heatsink on the CPU.

 

[LinComp]

Thank you guys so much DRagor & R_1 !!! I really appreciate this information!!!

This information has certainly helped me a lot!!!

Both of you are right. R_1 – the video you have shown clearly shows there is supposed to be a type of cover to protect the bottom surface of the heatsink, in fact that was genius idea from intel to put such kind of simple cover which gives good protection to the thermal paste/bottom surface of heatsink and also very easy to remove by the customers. However the heatsink I received did not have any such covers

So the possibilities are 1) the manufacturing unit forgot to put the cover, or 2) this is a returned heat sink to the company by some customer and they forgot to put a new cover on it, or 3) may be now intel has stopped putting this cover any more, so maybe they started sending heat sinks without any covers – possibly – since I have no proof for this.

Thank you guys so much once again!!!