I am cooling a stock r5 3600 which I use for 3D workloads and occasional gaming. The games I play are not heavy on the processor, so I judge based on the 3D software (mainly Blender). With the 3600x cooler (wraith spire, not even the stealth that comes in the box), it would reach 80+ degrees in 3D rendering, but now I only see temperatures in the 80s during heatwaves (I had idle temperatures of 45 degrees, but the ambient temperature was also around 40). With normal room temperature, it reaches a maximum of 72 degrees in 3D rendering. At these temperatures, I noticed that the 3600 managed its frequencies better. In single-core Cinebench r23, it consistently maintained the advertised 4.2 GHz, while with the spire, it would run slightly lower. Similarly, in multicore, I now gain 100 MHz (all-core 4.1 GHz from the previous 4 GHz). The performance differences are not significant. I may gain 2-3% in render times, but the cooler was installed with the logic that it may be needed to cool a Ryzen 9 (always stock and without OC or PBO enabled) in the future.
The significant upgrade, however, is the noise. The fan curve starts at 40% and goes up to 100% at 70 degrees, with intermediate steps at 50 and 60 degrees. At idle, and in combination with 3 pure wings 2 in the case, the computer is really quiet. Under full load, it can be heard, but at a level (low) that is not bothersome to me. I set it to render at night and sleep 2 meters away from the PC without the sound being a problem. Obviously, noise is subjective... someone else might be sleeping next to a server stack.
The build quality is excellent, and the packaging is well done. I didn't have any issues with the RAM, but the fan (which is a silent wings 3, one of the good things about be quiet) required quite a bit of pressure to attach to the tower.
In general, be quiet! and Noctua are the premium/expensive solutions for air cooling, but they are also the best in terms of performance, noise, and build quality. Invest without fear.
Update: Ryzen 9 5950x with stock settings and a custom fan curve profile has not gone above 75°C under 100% usage and idles at 40-45 degrees. I don't think it has much room for significant overclocking, but it handles stock settings just fine. The rest of what I mentioned above regarding noise intensity still applies. Lastly, the brackets for the fan that I complained about, once I installed them and removed them a couple of times, it became easier. You just get used to it, I was just afraid of it at first.
