The Stock fan was LOUD under full load, so I broke down and bought the Noctua. I noticed that after an HOUR of aida64 the stable boosted clock speed was a little higher, but only by like 0.03 MHZ and it ran at about the same temperature. The sound was less at full RPM speed. I did not use the low noise cable as the mother board adjusts fan speed on the fly.
For anyone curious here are some screen shots of the thermal performance, HIGH and Low fluctuation, before I stopped the test to make sure the system was GTG after the "upgrade."
you can decided if it's worth it for you.
It was much easier to put the case back together without the stock CPU cooler scraping the top and the cooler seems to have an easier time drawing in air. The Noise level does seem noticeably less. Replacing the Stock Cooler doesn't seem like a necessary option though.
For anyone curious here are some screen shots of the thermal performance, HIGH and Low fluctuation, before I stopped the test to make sure the system was GTG after the "upgrade."
you can decided if it's worth it for you.
It was much easier to put the case back together without the stock CPU cooler scraping the top and the cooler seems to have an easier time drawing in air. The Noise level does seem noticeably less. Replacing the Stock Cooler doesn't seem like a necessary option though.