Is that stock Intel cooler making contact with all the dies?
What do you mean?
A lot of the stock intel coolers have a round plug in the middle that's ~28mm in diameter.
http://www.legitreviews.com/images/reviews/880/i7_roundup-027.jpgTo make good contact with all the dies you need a square base of at least 33mm. With the cooler pictured you'd have bad contact with the four center dies and no contact at all with the corner dies.
Oh, no it isn't. I'll need a better way to cool this thing though. Any fans you recommend that do the job (and are below $40)?
