The Thermalright SLK800 and the Swiftech MCX462+T hsf units are designed to cool differently. The MCX462+T is using a 226 watt peltier element for active cooling of the processor and the SLK800 is a regular hsf. Do you perhaps mean the regular MCX462+ versus the SLK800? I've been a user of Swiftech MC462 based products for over a year now and just bought an MCX462+ last month to replace an Alpha PAL8045. The other Swiftech I have is an original MC462 from when they first hit the market. Both of them are quality hsf's and will not dissapoint you in performance. I'm using the 68 cfm Delta focused-flow 80mm fans on both and they both do an excellent job of cooling any XP out there, old or new. The mounting system used is one of the most secure on the market, but your board must have the 4 holes around the socket for mounting them. The original MC462 had some clearance problems with some boards but I don't see any clearance problems with the new MCX462+ as long as the mobo maker adheres to AMD's recommended Keep out and height restrictions and zones. As far as for crushing the core, you have a higher probability of doing that with a clip based system than with the mounting system used by Swiftech. Also, with the new MCX462+ mounts, Swiftech has sent self-locking nuts to secure the mounts to the mobo, so rotating mounts are now a thing of the past. Once you have the mounting sockets installed on the mobo, there is no need to pull the mobo out of the case to remove the heatsink. I never had much of a problem with the standoffs rotating on my old MC462 but the new system totally cures any tendency for the standoffs to turn when you are trying to remove the heatsink. This makes removing and installing the hs a snap; takes less than 10 minutes to do a processor change, including the time to clean the old thermal goop off the heatsink and apply more AS3.
As far as the SLK800 is concerned, I've never owned 1 so I can't tell you anything about them from experience. Their price is basically exactly the same as the MCX462+ and I know the quality of the Swiftech already, so it made my choice easy. However, if I didn't have the 4 mounting holes around the socket, I would definitely go with the SLK800 due to all the great reviews I've read on it.
This new MCX462+T is in a whole different ballpark than the others. It is using a 226 watt TEC, which will require a separate, special psu for power. The cost of the psu will be over $100 unless you trust your XP to be cooled by a hsf cooled by a pelt powered with some used psu you might find on ebay or something. I've done the pelt thing and it's neat, but expensive to do right. Also, you need to do some research into active cooling due to condensation problems that you will encounter with using a pelt. Another drawback to the MCX462+T is the minimum fan required is the 68 cfm Delta 80. These are pretty noisy as I can attest to. You would be even better off using the Vantec Tornado with this setup due to it's higher airflow and static air pressure but then you are talking about even more noise. Last but not least, you will then have to try to vent all that heat out of the case. Remember, with a pelt you not only have to remove the heat it is removing from the proc, you also have to get rid of the heat created by the peltier element itself in moving that heat. You are talking about roughly 300 watts of heat to be removed from your case and this doesn't even count the heat produced by the pelt psu, which can be considerable. So unless you have deep pockets, stick with straight air or water cooling and leave the TEC's alone.
I'm presently waiting for sidewindercomputers to get in some of the 45 cfm focused-flow Delta fans so that I can replace the 68's I'm presently using with something quieter and still has a decent static air pressure.
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