I lapped my 6800 a little bit and the first thing you notice is the outer edges are visably higher than the core area, so at least this helps flatten it out. I do think that even if you coould remove the spreader entirely, there would be sink seating problems as the frame of the socket is already higher than I would like and even a med size sink would sit on some caps in all likelyhood. In any case, the closer to the core the better the temps as a general rule. I haven't seen a spreader yet that actually helped cooling. they are there to avoid crushing only.