This is an excellent cooler not just for people looking to overclock their computers, but also for anyone looking for a quiet cooling solution for their CPU. It offers great cooling as well as very low noise.
The design is excellent and extremely attractive to look at if you have a case that lets you see inside. The blue LEDs really set off the copper fins.
As others have mentioned, this cooler is *very large, so make sure you look at the dimensions to see if it will fit in your case. Odds are, if you have a 120mm exhaust fan in your case this should fit. The cooling fins are held above the motherboard, so you shouldn't have any trouble with motherboard heatsinks touching the zalman. Your main concern is the height of the cooler fitting in the case. This cooler can also be set in any orientation (providing you have the room) to blow air front, back, up or down depending on how you have your airflow setup. Most people will set this to blow air out the back of the case, and usually this will lineup directly with your case's exhaust fan.
Mounting is very easy, although you will definitely have to remove the motherboard from the case as it comes with its own backplate. The backplate and mount screw right in and after you apply thermal paste to the CPU (there is a zalman paste that comes with this, or you can get the better Artic Silver 5 also called AS5) the cooler screws right into the mount. The included directions and a little common sense are all you need.
Once installed, you can choose to plug this into your motherboard and let it decide the fan speed or you can use the included Fan Mate 2 controller to manually control the speed of the fan. I use the fan mate controller to turn the speed down all the way to "silent". At that setting it really is silent, as I can hear everything else including hard drives, power supply, video card, etc before I hear this fan. If I'm doing something where I know I need extra cooling, I just turn the controller up a little bit, but usually it stays in silent.
For me, the controller kept my Q6600 quad core at 28c (82F) at idle and 47c (116F) during full load with stock speed at 2.4Ghz. With the Q6600 overclocked to 3.2Ghz, temperature only increases to 30c at idle and 50c at full load. Those are very good temperatures and were achieved at a lot less noise than with the standard cooler that comes with the chip.
Other coolers that are comparable in both cost, performance and noise are the Thermalright Ultra-120 Extreme and Tuniq Tower. Zalman CNPS9700LED Ultra Quiet Cpu Cooler
I just built a new system using a Core 2 Duo E6750 chip and added this cooler with Arctic Silver thermal grease. I'm using the Raidmax Smilodon Extreme Black case (the one with the green LEDs). It's got four fans, two to bring air into the machine and two to exhale.
My machine runs in an air conditioned room, so I've actually recorded really low temperatures at idle. So far I've recorded a steady 27° C with this cooler. It's absolutely amazing. I notice that the fan automatically powers down (in RPMs) once the ambient temperature in my room hits 17° C (bringing the ambient inside the case to sub 20° C). The fan automatically speeds back up with the AC unit turned off. It's quite brilliant. The Zalman 9700's blue glow seen through my cases' side panel adds a nice counterpoint to the otherwise green LED fans inside the case and the Mushkin powersupply.
Great stuff. I highly recommend this to any DIY tech enthusiast. Make sure that you get the Arctic Silver thermal grease when you buy this. Don't use the thermal grease that comes with this unit. You won't get as low temps as you would without it.
Really this CPU cooler is excellent. Compatible with my Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 quad-core processor, LGA 775.
You must see how this work ! ! ! Simply with efficiency. The temperature is mantained in 54 degrees. I usually work with video editing. Until now No Poblem with heating transfering. I think it is the right CPU cooler I needed.
No noise and no vibration in Silent Mode.
1. These comments only apply to Intel Socket 775 installations.
2. For an initial installation into a clear-sided enclosure, this device is acceptable. For an upgrade, it may not be worth the effort, and it is definitely not worth the cost. Noise reduction is not that much when compared with 20 dollar CPU fans (as determined by ear and meter for both push-pin and bolts-with-back-plate installation designs), and not at all noticeable if you are running six or more drives (which I am). So the main selling point is how it looks, which is pretty spectacular (wasted if your enclosure does not have a clear side or you can't live with an enclosure panel removed).
3. To read the instructions, you will need a magnifying glass! And they are misleading and incorrect when it comes to inserting the S-type clip into the base of the device. But this misinformation becomes obvious with a dry-run installation (highly recommended). Also, a very long, thin Philips screw driver will come in quite handy.
4. The "better" installation process is to first insert the S-type clip into the fan base, and then attach and fully tighten the fan to the clip support (the black-plastic thing with "legs"). Do this before attaching the clip support to the motherboard (MB) and the back plate (the black-plastic thing that goes behind the MB). Then insert the longer clip-support fixing bolts. Tighten the bolts alternately and carefully, since a fair amount of force will be exerted on the MB (and the processor).
5. If you have access to the back of the MB opposite to where the processor goes, the MB does not need to be removed. However, the MB will always have to be horizontal during the installation.
6. Once installed, the fan can be rotated in any direction using the thermal grease as a lubricant. Very cool indeed.
7. Be careful to position the wiring harness that delivers and controls power to the fan so that it does not end up caught in the cooling blades (or the fan blades).
8. Bottom-line: Not for the faint of heart or the budget minded.
WILLIAM FLANIGAN - Cpu - Zalman - Cpu Coolers - Fan'
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