- Joined
- May 30, 2007
- Location
- Austin, Texas
Just recently I bought a new Zalman 9700NT from Fry's (they had a deal better than newegg somehow) and brought it home, eager to strap it to my 5600+. At the time, it was running at stock speeds with the stock cooler. It was idling at 32-36 and loading 100% on both cores at 55-58. Not terrible, but could and should be better.
First of all, the finish on the heatsink is glorious. The bottom was pristine with a mirror finish and I checked it with a razor blade and a light for concavity and it was flawless. Excellent build quality, I really have to say. I did scoff at people who claimed they cut themselves on the fins at first, but accidentally running my finger along the edge of one a bit too quickly humbled me a little, those things are sharp!
Anyway, mounting it on an AM2 socket was a breeze, aside from the metric ton of pressure I had to put on the heatsink to get it to latch. That's OK, though, now I KNOW it's not going anywhere and that it's probably making pretty darn good contact. I did have to remove my graphics card to get the right leverage on the lever to get it to snap down, but that took all of 1 minute. Not having to remove the motherboard made me very happy! I used AS5 just because it's almost surely better than the stuff Zalman provides.
Noise impressions - not loud at all. The NT is a PWM fan so it's controlled by the motherboard, and my case fans are definitely louder than it, even with the case fans running at medium and the Zalman running at 100%. I'm not very sensitive to noise, however, so this may factor in. I personally like it if my computer sounds like a helicopter about to take off.
Now, the good stuff, the temps. They are unbelievable. The ambient temperature in the room is about 70F, or ~21C. At stock speeds, the CPU idles at 24-26C. Just a few degrees above ambient, which is astonishing. I used CoreTemp and Speedfan to monitor the temps and they both reported identical results. On load, I was equally impressed. 100% load on both cores yielded 37-39C. It bounced off 40 a couple of times but never stayed there for more than a second or two. The ability of this thing to cool my CPU down floored me.
That was all at stock speeds, though, so who cares about them, right? Now, running at 3.24GHz with a Vcore of about 1.525, it idles at 31-34 and 100% load on both cores yields 48-50. These temperatures are unbelievable and I have to hand it to Zalman for making such a great cooler. The exhaust being directed RIGHT at the rear fan is a great feature as well. This fan also dropped my board temps 3 or 4 degrees.
Ultimately, I didn't go with the Ultra 120 or the Tuniq Tower because I had heard about it being almost necessary to lap them as soon as you bought them. I know they are great coolers once they are lapped, and will almost for sure outperform the Zalman, but the poor surface finish to me reeks of poor quality control. I was glad my Zalman was pretty much perfect right out of the box. I paid $60 at Fry's for it and now my computer is running cooler than ever!
First of all, the finish on the heatsink is glorious. The bottom was pristine with a mirror finish and I checked it with a razor blade and a light for concavity and it was flawless. Excellent build quality, I really have to say. I did scoff at people who claimed they cut themselves on the fins at first, but accidentally running my finger along the edge of one a bit too quickly humbled me a little, those things are sharp!
Anyway, mounting it on an AM2 socket was a breeze, aside from the metric ton of pressure I had to put on the heatsink to get it to latch. That's OK, though, now I KNOW it's not going anywhere and that it's probably making pretty darn good contact. I did have to remove my graphics card to get the right leverage on the lever to get it to snap down, but that took all of 1 minute. Not having to remove the motherboard made me very happy! I used AS5 just because it's almost surely better than the stuff Zalman provides.
Noise impressions - not loud at all. The NT is a PWM fan so it's controlled by the motherboard, and my case fans are definitely louder than it, even with the case fans running at medium and the Zalman running at 100%. I'm not very sensitive to noise, however, so this may factor in. I personally like it if my computer sounds like a helicopter about to take off.
Now, the good stuff, the temps. They are unbelievable. The ambient temperature in the room is about 70F, or ~21C. At stock speeds, the CPU idles at 24-26C. Just a few degrees above ambient, which is astonishing. I used CoreTemp and Speedfan to monitor the temps and they both reported identical results. On load, I was equally impressed. 100% load on both cores yielded 37-39C. It bounced off 40 a couple of times but never stayed there for more than a second or two. The ability of this thing to cool my CPU down floored me.
That was all at stock speeds, though, so who cares about them, right? Now, running at 3.24GHz with a Vcore of about 1.525, it idles at 31-34 and 100% load on both cores yields 48-50. These temperatures are unbelievable and I have to hand it to Zalman for making such a great cooler. The exhaust being directed RIGHT at the rear fan is a great feature as well. This fan also dropped my board temps 3 or 4 degrees.
Ultimately, I didn't go with the Ultra 120 or the Tuniq Tower because I had heard about it being almost necessary to lap them as soon as you bought them. I know they are great coolers once they are lapped, and will almost for sure outperform the Zalman, but the poor surface finish to me reeks of poor quality control. I was glad my Zalman was pretty much perfect right out of the box. I paid $60 at Fry's for it and now my computer is running cooler than ever!
