I'm glad you found a 3 year old review using an outdated test method. If you'd done a little further research on that website, you'd have found that XBit Labs abandoned their hot plate test method for a "real world" testing method.
You can find their "new" test method, an Asus P6T motherboard, a Core i7 920 cpu, etc., etc., here:
Current XBit Labs cpu cooler testing setup.
As for not finding problems with the Tt BigWater systems, typical complaints have included cracking cpu blocks in the acrylic top, cracking acrylic reservoirs, pump leaks and premature failures, radiators leaking and having horrible cooling, to name a very few. Just have to Google Thermaltake BigWater failures to find thousands and thousands of hits for them.
For the radiator, Tt chose to use what is known as a condensor style radiator design....round tubes making 180 degree turns over and over, running through aluminum fins.
Unfortunately, that style of radiator is never used by any other radiator manufacturer due to its inherent problems in cooling.....namely laminar flow problems. This is the problem fluid has when moving through any tube, etc. Essentially, the outer layer of the fluid, the layer in contact with the walls of the tube, moves slower than the inner core layer of the fluid. So flow decreases. Next, this slower moving fluid does cool well, but insulates the faster moving core fluid from ever cooling properly within the radiator's tube. So performance is terrible and on and on.
A picture representation of what happens inside a round tube vs. a flat tube radiator:
Picture of flat vs. round tube cooling in radiators.
From a watercooling guide by MaxxRacer on XtremeSystems watercooling forum:
"Several years ago, condenser style radiators, which are used for refrigeration systems, were popular when we did not know better. Since then, they have lost their popularity, but they still seem to be alive and kicking in certain parts of Europe due to incredibly strong misinformation on the part of manufactures.
"To avoid these condenser style radiators we need to know a bit more about them. First off, they can easily be spotted by the numerous 180 degree bends of tubing on both ends. Secondly, you can spot them by their characteristic round tubes. The last common characteristic is their incredibly high fin density which is designed for VERY powerful fans. You can see the numerous 180 degree turns on it, which creates an incredible amount of restriction for the pump leading to VERY low flowrates. What you can also notice is the round tubes. The round tubes provide less than adequate cooling efficiency because less of the water is close to the walls of the tube, unlike the flat tube radiators."
And while your Zalman 9700LED was derived from a just OK cooler design, that design cannot compete with good air cooling today. In that test linked above, done 4 months ago, a Zalman 9900LED was included in the cooler comparisons.....and it finished dead last in performance, so your 9700 would do even worse. I should hope your Tt cooler would do better.
As an aside, when you finally get your system set up, let us know where your idle and load temps get to.
For mine, which is a very low-mid range watercooling setup (Q9550 cpu @ 3.6GHz on 1.2V Vcore), Asus Maximus Formula X38 motherboard, 4GB Mushkin Redline RAM, 4870 1GB video card), I manage 27-29C idle temps. Load temps under OCCT 3.0.1 in medium test for 1 hour produced temps in mid-to-upper 40's.
My cooling system consists of a Watercool HK 3.0 cpu cooler, DDC2 pump, EK S-Max NB block, Feser X-Changer 240 radiator, Swiftech Micro-Reservoir, 3/8" x 5/8" tubing.
Some pics of my temps during a play-around testing session with my Q9550 just after I got my HK 3.0 cpu block.....cpu was at 3.65GHz @ 1.22V:
CPU core #1.
CPU core #2.
CPU core #3.
CPU core #4.
CPU VCore.
Subsequently to that, I upped the cpu's speed using that VCore voltage to 4.0GHZ, but I just didn't like the load temps for a 24/7 use. So, instead I dropped the VCore down to 1.18V, and the cpu is humming along nicely at 3.7GHz.....idles at 27-29C and never sees over 50C, unless my house gets warmer than 75F.
Good luck with your build.....you're going to need it.