Does anyone have any suggestions as to what the best cpu heatsink is that blows down onto the motherboard. The fan is parallel to the motherboard rather than perpendicular. Like the stock intel heatsink. I realise these don't perform as well in general, but my system stays cool enough with the stock HSF, so I can afford to sacrifice a little performance so that I don't have to have a behemoth of a heatsink right in the middle of my case.

I've heard that the cooler that comes with the extreme editions are quite a lot better that the other stock coolers, but none of the online stores carry even the stock intel coolers anyway. Does anyone know if I can even buy that style without the processor? Are there any reviews that have a section dedicated to these kinds of HSFs?

you can buy the stock Intel HSF on ebay i sure people will like to make a few quid from their junk!

take a look at the Zalman's collection. there are one or two that does the similar design but much more efficient and powerful.

http://www.zalman.co.kr/ENG/produc [...] sp?idx=158

this is the best i know for this kind of CPU cooler. this copper version is better then those alluminium version as copper conduct heat better.

A few minutes on Newegg reveals several heatsinks of the type your looking for. Also, frostytech had like a top 10 heatsink list, and there were 3 or 4 on that list that had downward blowing fans.

myself i like this one
COOLER MASTER GeminII RR-CCH-ANU2-GP CPU+ Board Cooler
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6835103026
E6600 OC to 3Ghz while having the fans turned down low so it is whisper quiet.

www.zalman.co.kr/eng/product/product_read.asp?idx=295
even better than previous ZM me thinks

Good reviews at http://www.frostytech.com/top5heatsinks.cfm
Depends if you want to emphasize cooling or quiet.

i only realise that Scythe have take 8 places in the chart. well done!!

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/c [...] -c12p.html

They said it was one of the best top-down coolers.

I question their results when the Ultra 120 is higher than the 120 Extreme. Every review I've ever seen has put the Extreme ahead of the Ultra 120.

I just looked and it states at the bottom "*Heatsinks are ranked according to the lowest rise in ambient temperature on Frostytech thermal test platform"

Rise in ambient temp not lowest maximum temp of the CPU?

The Scythe Andy is supposed to be pretty good, along with the Asus Triton. I personally picked the ZEROtherm CF800, fan throttles itself, which keeps my temps higher than I would like, but still works I guess.

Scythe Orochi will beat all of them coolers!by sitting on it!!!lol