I got the Zalman today but other things got in the way of doing the upgrade damn it! I hope to be up and running on the new system tomorrow night. I’m going to do some benchmarks and hopefully for the first time get something uploaded on here with the results. I had initially picked up the ZeroTherm based on the cooling and OC abilities but after seeing the fine print of how loud the fan was and that it also left metal fragments when screwing it in, I went with the Zalman 9700. While the reviews put it at the Zalman at the center of the pack, I’ve seen too many happy reviews about it and since the 9450 is 45nm it should do fine and it’s a bonus that it doesn’t throw metal fragments on the motherboard when installing.

We’ll see how the Q9450 and Formula compares to the E6600 & P5W later today. Until then….