well I agree and disagree, my temps dropped 12 degrees with the AX-7 over the standard heatsink you get from AMD. Which was fantastic. I was now running in the low 40s. I dont know much about your other setup, so you might be right that the AX-7 might not be that much better. 3-4 degrees does make a difference, but the price of noise in my mind is way too high .
If I were you try downloading cpuidle or a software program like that. EVen though they say windows 2000 already does that, cpuidle pro , drops my athlon 2000 temps down another 7 or 8 degrees ( if you can trust all the monitors , and I am ruinning about 6 different ones to be sure ) now I am running my system around 34 degrees which is where I want to be . I think 30-40 degrees for an athlon 2000 is great. I hope when I replace the delta ( since the noise is a killer ) that i will only loose a couple of degrees.