Thermite88-
Not that tough to sand it down. get a sheet of 400 grit wet/dry sandpaper, and a really flat surface, like a plate glass table to do the work on. Hold the sandpaper grit side up on the table, and move the workpiece with a swirling motion, rotating your grip 90 degrees every few swirls. Go easy at first, to get a feel for how fast it cuts. Put the heatsink against the cpu and hold it up to a light to check the clearance.(Do this before you start sanding,too) repeat til it looks right, and maybe a tiny bit more. Go slow, be patient. you may notice that the processor is not really very flat, sanding fcpga processors is only for those whose ba!!s are bigger than their brains. Even if the sink rocks on the slug a very (repeat,very) tiny bit, it is better than having any clearance. I think that this is a QC issue for Intel, rather than Alpha. Intel simply does not have to hold this dimension really tight for the stock HSF. My alpha rocked a little bit out of the box, but works great.