Intel I7 920 boxed fan cooler?

Unless you have purchased an oem cpu cooler, just use the stock intel cooler and fan. It should not be particularly noisy unless the cpu gets very hot, either from heavy use, or overclocking. If you find the noise to be excessive, you can always upgrade the cooler later.

None of them are inexpensive. There is the Thermaltake V1, Noctua NH-U12P SE, TRUE with teh LGA 1366 adapter....and I think the Coolermaster V8 comes with an lga 1366 adapter.

Yeah, but that's hardly in the inexpensive category.

It is probably better to stick with the stock fan for now. Many of the aftermarket fans can be a pain to install and the good ones aren't cheap. Also, does using the non-stock void the warranty? Anyway, I think you might as well try stock before you fork over $40-$50 for something that may not help. I also though Intel shipped pretty decent stock coolers, but I'm not sure on that.

Should I get some aftermarket thermal grease/past? Or is the stock stuff good enough?

the aftermarket stuff seems cheap enough if it works better

Ken

The pre applied material works well enough.

However, I would get a tube of AS-5 or MX-2.

If you have to remount the heat sink, you can't reuse the material.
If you don't get it right the first time, and have to remount you want to have some material on hand.

Go to the arctic silver site for a pictorial tutorial on how to use their products.