bigben2k: Thanks for the invite to WBTA, I've been on here for ages so I've seen that attempt since its inception. i'll take a look and join in once I've got the die sim up and ready and got something to discuss about!
jaydee: yeah Zalman initially claimed that the 9500 was better than watercooling in their marketing blitz. Even Xbitlabs "claimed" in their testing that it beat the Gigabyte w/cing kit which is very dubious.
everyone else: Cheers for the suggestion regarding the noise factor. Will get a sound meter to accurately measure noise of the fans at the different rpms.
As for the IHS issue. Isnt there a flip side to this, removing the IHS we get more accurate temperatures closer up to the core. With the IHS on, half the time I've found the temperature gradient across the IHS to be relatively high with the edges showing quite a bit lower temps than the core.
With the smaller contact patch, we get back into the old AthlonXP vs. P4 debate on heatsinks dont we.
anyhow, I'll see how else we can get the standard up a bit more
Thanks fellas