what might I gain running neked?

ouch! Hope you find another gem.

I avoided the hammer, just used vice only for little more control.

first into the breach!

of the three 4790k's he brought me I got what looks to be a pretty good one.

I got it delided and it still works but,.................... I have to get an EK neked kit.
Why you might ask, the stock bolts have shoulders on them that stop the bracket, without the heatsink the cpu is not pressed to the pins and there is no contact between the little cpu contact pads and the pins so you get a no boot/no post.

Yeah, there are pluses and minuses with bare die.

You get a 20C temp drop from liquid metal/IHS back on. You get another 5+C temp drop by going bare die plus only dealing with 1 tim. But that extra 5+C comes with some some additional modding. Either mobo or waterblock vendors need to supply some bare die ready blocks/sockets. MSI and EK only ones jumping in so far.

I would like nebs to chime in with what he did to run his neked.
I'm going to order the ek kit, liquid metal today and that will give me time to check these other processors for something someone just told me to check.