Intel Stock Cooler Quality?

[TheGamingPhoenix]

Short version? For a user who will only be using their PC for web-browsing, email, and other assorted low-energy tasks, will the stock Intel CPU cooler be enough?

 

Long version? My mother is a retired teacher, but still does a bunch of babysitting and care-giving work in her neighborhood. For the last several years, she's been orchestrating all of this via email on her phone, and as you may imagine, that brings a fair number of headaches with it. Attachments frequently won't load, she can't directly print out important documents she gets sent, so on and so forth. So to help alleviate those headaches, I offered to build her a new computer since I've recently finished building my own, and did so problem free. We ordered all the parts last night, including a Corsair AIO CPU cooler, but I found out this morning that apparently, the i3 7100 CPU we ordered actually comes with its own stock cooler. This caught me off guard, because I was under the impression that Intel no longer included coolers with their CPUs. Especially since the i7 6700k I bought for my rig a few months ago didn't come with one.

Granted, now that I've said that "out loud", I realize that it makes no sense on Intel's part to include a stock cooler on an enthusiast-grade chip, since the user would almost certainly replace it anyway for the sake of overclocking.

 

In any case, my question remains the same. For a user who won't be doing anything other than web-browsing, email, word processing, and document printing, would a stock Intel cooler be sufficient to keep the CPU safely cool?

[imPixelTV]

Short answer: yh

long answer: yeah

[EPPHO]

3 minutes ago, TheGamingPhoenix said:

Short version? For a user who will only be using their PC for web-browsing, email, and other assorted low-energy tasks, will the stock Intel CPU cooler be enough?

 

Long version? My mother is a retired teacher, but still does a bunch of babysitting and care-giving work in her neighborhood. For the last several years, she's been orchestrating all of this via email on her phone, and as you may imagine, that brings a fair number of headaches with it. Attachments frequently won't load, she can't directly print out important documents she gets sent, so on and so forth. So to help alleviate those headaches, I offered to build her a new computer since I've recently finished building my own, and did so problem free. We ordered all the parts last night, including a Corsair AIO CPU cooler, but I found out this morning that apparently, the i3 7100 CPU we ordered actually comes with its own stock cooler. This caught me off guard, because I was under the impression that Intel no longer included coolers with their CPUs. Especially since the i7 6700k I bought for my rig a few months ago didn't come with one.

Granted, now that I've said that "out loud", I realize that it makes no sense on Intel's part to include a stock cooler on an enthusiast-grade chip, since the user would almost certainly replace it anyway for the sake of overclocking.

 

In any case, my question remains the same. For a user who won't be doing anything other than web-browsing, email, word processing, and document printing, would a stock Intel cooler be sufficient to keep the CPU safely cool?

Sure it will. Especially for i3 CPUs. You are good to go with it

[Jade]

The stock cooler will be fine for literally any CPU they sell that comes with it -- if it wasn't, they wouldn't ship them together. Just don't try to OC & don't expect to get the lowest temps possible.

[19_blackie_73]

it is fine, even if you'd game. If you live in a pretty hot environment, it would run pretty hot, but in every half decent room with temps between 20-30°C it is fine

[Froody129]

3 minutes ago, 19_blackie_73 said:

it is fine, even if you'd game. If you live in a pretty hot environment, it would run pretty hot, but in every half decent room with temps between 20-30°C it is fine

Lol mine is fine (if a bit loud) at like 35C on a quad core. You don't need a cooler

[19_blackie_73]

1 minute ago, Froody129 said:

Lol mine is fine (if a bit loud) at like 35C on a quad core. You don't need a cooler

i meant 20-30°C room temps.

Have had a system with an i5 4460, didn't exceed 65°C maxed out

[TheGamingPhoenix]

Damn, I forgot how fast people tend to respond here!  Thank you all for the replies.

[Maxinfamily]

TL; DR: yes, keep it, for lightweight tasks you wont need it, but its preferable to replace the termal paste.

 

Its fine, It will keep your cpu between working temps always, but Its always better to run you cpu at 40º - 60º rather than 60º - 80º. It gives you longer lifetime to your cpu and It also prevents thermal throttling at 100% usage. What I would never keep is the stock termal paste. It almost glues your cpu to the heatsink if you dont replace it, I dont know how many years It takes to became "glue" but Ive removed many stock coolers with the cpu of the mobo because I just couldnt separete them.

[TheGamingPhoenix]

1 minute ago, Maxinfamily said:

TL; DR: yes, keep it, for lightweight tasks you wont need it, but its preferable to replace the termal paste.

 

Its fine, It will keep your cpu between working temps always, but Its always better to run you cpu at 40º - 60º rather than 60º - 80º. It gives you longer lifetime to your cpu and It also prevents thermal throttling at 100% usage. What I would never keep is the stock termal paste. It almost glues your cpu to the heatsink if you dont replace it, I dont know how many years It takes to became "glue" but Ive removed many stock coolers with the cpu of the mobo because I just couldnt separete them.

Thanks for that. I was actually just looking through my drawers to see if I still had the thermal paste I used for my own build, and I do, so I'll be sure to use that instead.

[Maxinfamily]

34 minutes ago, TheGamingPhoenix said:

Thanks for that. I was actually just looking through my drawers to see if I still had the thermal paste I used for my own build, and I do, so I'll be sure to use that instead.

Your welcome! Always willing to help