Yeah I actually completely removed the stock heatpipe/heatsink assembly to replace the stock TIM with something better. In my case it came off with reasonable effort, not to much work but I took my time so nothing broke! The tough part was fully removing the stock TIM left on the heatpipe/heatsink along with cleaning the NB, SB, and Crosslinx chips! After that I used MX-2 and then very carefully replaced the stock heatsink/heatpipe assembly making sure everything was properly attached and made good contact! In my case I hadn't done much preliminary testing so I can't say if it made any difference but I assume it did based on how bad the factory applied the stock TIM!

EDIT: Just realized you found the answer to your own question, please just disregard everything I wrote, lol!