To make a long story short. I've found that having my MB horizontal vice vertical made my core temps drop by about 20 degrees. No typo, 20 freakin degrees. I guess the clip on the heat sink really sucks at keeping the thing square and even against the core. It's friggin amazing, my crappy volcano 9 with the fan turned down nice and quiet (3500 rpm) is keeping my core within 5 degrees of the case temp.