i ask because i just got all my parts today in the mail, thinking there should be no problem, but when i saw my ram: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6820145177
i saw that it is HUGE, i mean dayum i didnt expect it to be half that size.
The first thing i thought of was, 'Oh dang how is my CPU fan going to fit with these ram being so big!
heres my cpu fan: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] man%2b9700 as you can see, its pretty big as well, so i predict i might be having a problem with space between those two parts
mobo is the ga-p35-ds3l if it matters at all.

just wondering if the fan allows me to sit it any way, so the heatsink on the fan takes up space in an up/down fashion rather than a left/right way..

and if it does actually fit both ways, which way should i sit my fan -_-;
never really thought about it, but now that im ready to overclock i want to do everything just right.

also, i have an antec 900, im sure that that is pretty important if i can indeed mount my fan any way, because of the 200mm on the top and the wind tunnel that can be moved to blow on the cpu. My question is: which way should i do et

You will want your fan blowing towards the back of the case. It will blow thru the heatsink, out the rear exhaust. The top exhaust will take care of any heat that the rear fan doesn't catch.

Or just stick with the stock Intel CPU cooler, which should be fine unless you are pushing the CPU quite hard; DDR2-800 RAM suggests you won't be doing that.

I bought a custom rig similar to yours with the antec900 and zalman9500, originally i didnt have enough money for the the zalman so i stuck with the intel stock, my motherboard (x38-DQ6) reported a cpu temp of 60 degrees centigrade on idle.

i've mounted the zalman facing up and thats brought me down to 45degrees under full load(prime95)

my reason is i have 3 walls close to the rig (behind,left and right) the top is the most open space. in the end the antec900 draws air out from the top and the back, it shouldnt matter too much as long as you aim to the back or top.