Quote Originally Posted by andyr(uk) View Post
Is it easy to remove the stock cooling even after it has run for a while or is it best done from new ?
I am thinking the heatsink compound will get baked
No worries. I went a couple of weeks before changing to the EK blocks. Didn't like laying the heatsink on the QPI/DRAM chipset so now I'm using the Koolance MB-ASR2E block on the NB/SB. (Awaiting the QPI/DRAM add on)

Here's a picture of the heat pipes/blocks removed. As you can see, it is predominately thermal tape as opposed to TIM.

Click to enlarge...