Continued

Taking a closer look at the contact area shows where the cooler would contact the CPU. While the contact area is flat and the base does not protrude past the heat-pipes, clear machining marks are visible. This means that more thermal paste is needed to fill the gaps and extra care needs to be taken to make sure that those gaps are filled. Xigmatek recommends that you spread the thermal grease on the base of the heatsink rather than the IHS of the processor during installation. Take notice that the heat-pipes are also off center of each other. I am not sure why Xigmatek laid out the pipes this way but part of the IHS on my Core2Duo was exposed. 

The fan that is included with the cooler is of the 120mm variety. The specifications rate it at 56.3 CFM @ 24 dBA max, while spinning at a range of 800-1500 RPM. 24 dBA is very quiet considering that a whisper is measured at 40 dBA, but these measurements do not include the noise the air makes as it passes over the fins of the heatsink.

 

Let's put it together

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