Zalman CNPS9700LED Ultra Quiet Cpu Cooler Reviews

• Wicked Cool

  
  By A17SPP9J3L1WEW on 2007-12-17
  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.
  
  

• Very good CPU Cooler for my Intel deskt op

  
  By A3L26973PTC9XY on 2007-10-17
  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.
  
  
  

• Very cool, very quiet

  
  By ANCTEVATRGO0K on 2008-08-25
  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.
  
  

• Great CPU Fan

  
  By A28I6COZWQ2GZR on 2007-09-21
  This is a great fan. It works great and runs pretty quiet. I like to over clock my CPUs and this fan really cooler the CPU down. At idle I was at 46C to 49C, and load I get about 55c to 58C on a Volcano 11+. When I installed my new fan, I get about 35C idle and 45C load. Great CPU air cooler, for you overclockers out there.
  
  

• Works very well for an air-based cooler

  
  By AZK6Q4PZWHFOG on 2007-12-08
  I had a meltdown with my Cool-It Freezone-the new MTEC control center I waited two months for as it was backordred shorted out the whole cooler and left my PC with no cooling at all a few hours after installing it (I talked to the guys over there and they said I could get a warranty replacement no problem). My PSU wouldn't even allow me to turn the PC on because it was detecting the pump short until I finally located the short and disconnected the pump. Unfortunately, then the CPU was not being cooled at all and it would shut down my computer just after booting Vista as the core temp. reached the 100C threshold set in the system BIOS. I got this overnighted (thanks to Amazon Prime only $3.99 shipping) and it works almost as well as the Freezone, keeping the temps in my PC down nice and low on a QX6800, although I have an Antec 900 case with several large fans and great airflow. You have to remove your motherboard to install the backplate-kind of a pain but pretty much a necessity with higher-end CPU coolers these days. I would have had to remove the old Freezone motherboard anchors from the back of the motherboard even if I didn't want to use the backplate anyway. Other than that it installs very easily if you know what you're doing/can read directions. Once I get the new Freezone, this unit will serve as a high quality back-up just in case I have another problem.
  
  
• super cool
  By A1LEYE5S5I59RE on 2007-12-26
  My system runs a intel 6850 dual core. With standard cooler it runs at 58 celsius, with this monster the temp settles at 36 celsius
  processor overclocked to 3.6 ghz still keeps temp at a comfortable 56 celsius!!!
  Have a nvidea motherboard and everything just fits very snugly.
  Will use this cooler also for the next system I am planning to build
  
  
  
  
• The real chill
  By A2AN88QIRHNAZY on 2008-03-31
  Nice cooler, my quad core CPU is icy cold. Cooler is big so make sure it will fit in your case. If you have a case that uses duct work, you will be asked to remove the duct work so the cooler will fit. The only thing I would personally change is I would remove the blue LED, but that is so minute a deal.
  
  
• It may be more cooler than you need, which is exactly what you want.
  By AAGFBKIBVAGJO on 2008-04-15
  If anything, this is probably more cooling than you need and that's exactly what you want. I've yet to see CPU temp exceed 34 C (12 degrees over ambient) on my E3110 overclocked to 3.75GHz.
  
  Exceptional cooler. Only caveats are weight and size. Do some research and make sure it will fit in your case. As to weight, it exceeds Intel's weight limits and says specifically that the PC should not be moved with the cooler installed. This is not a cooler for a LAN party machine.
  
  GIGABYTE GA-P35-DS3L
  G.SKILL 2GB (2 x 1GB)
  Intel Xeon E3110 Wolfdale 3.0GHz 6MB L2
  ZALMAN CNPS9700 LED 110mm
  Antec Nine Hundred
  PC Power & Cooling 750 Silencer
  
  
• Great cooler
  By AAIE7AITZM82W on 2008-04-25
  I have purchased it couple of weeks ago and just installed into my computer. along with Zalman ZM-MFC1 fan controller.
  
  Cooling power is great, I am constantly running it on lower speed (1200rpm) - temperature my processor is normally about 42C and goes up to 60C max when I run some CPU-intensive applications. Of course, I can always increase fan speed and lower this temperature, but didn't have to do that so far.
  
  This fan is pretty BIG (90(L) x 124(W) x 142(H) mm), make sure you have enough room inside of your computer to install it. On my ASUS P5P800 motherboard, CPU socket is located pretty close to the side, and, as it turned out, this fan didn't exactly fit (2-3 millimeters) into position because of a power supply. I had to do a slight clip modification in order to install it, which worked well in my case, but may not work for you.
  
  
• Very quiet, keeps CPU running cool..
  By A5SZ6BM5XJTJC on 2007-10-01
  I can do without the blue led, but I'm very glad I purchased this item.
  
  Was worried about the size, but it fit just fine. I have a QX6850 Quadcore and a 8800GTX 768MB graphics card. There isn't a lot of space in my case, however the fan keeps the CPU running cool. Each core has peaked at 54 celsius when working hard, case is running at 32 celsius.
  
  Runs very quiet (which I'm not used to), and well built.
  
  
• Nice n' Cool!
  By AVP74R7FM2R2Y on 2008-06-16
  This is was easy to install and kept my Q6600 @ 3.2 Ghz cool 36C idle, 62c load.
  
  
• Do u wan to stay cool???
  By A1PO3J4YJA3JY0 on 2008-02-17
  if u r dispread for a Heatsink and a powerfull fan... look no other, this is what u are seeking for...
  
  
• Cool Yes! Quiet No!
  By A3CQWL4EJIHGAW on 2008-05-05
  Bought this for my AMD 64 black edition. It may be keeping it cool but it's not so quiet. Love the copper and the light show and yes this baby is BIG!! So don't go moving it around town.
  
  
• Best cooler!
  By A3J82UV32GVAJ8 on 2008-06-25
  This cooler is awesome, it keeps my E8400 at 30-39C when idling. This cooler is HUGE so you need a big case with lots of work space, The installation was kinda hard for me because my case is pretty small but I managed to fit it in.
  
  
• Outstanding cooling
  By ATFYS9XCMJYQU on 2008-07-20
  Easy to install, works like a charm. Core temperature drop of 15C on a Q6600. Very nice and a good option instead of liquid cooling for most applications. I've been building systems for a few years and this is the best air cooler that I have run across.
  
  The direction sheet leaves a lot to be desired, but installation is pretty basic and logic is all that is really needed.
  
  It is big, so make sure that you have enough room in your case for it.
  
  
• A step up from stock cooling
  By A5ZFYJ7M03TBY on 2008-07-26
  I purchased the Zalman 9700LED to replace the stock fan that came with my Q6600 quad-core proc. Arctic Silver 5 was applied.
  
  Current configuration:
  
  Intel Q6600 2.4GHz Quad-core (overclocked to 3.0GHz)
  4GB Corsair 6400 DDR2
  Cooler Master Cosmos 1000 case
  PNY Verto 8800GT 512MB
  Vista Home Premium 64
  
  At 2.4GHz stock processor levels, the Zalman performed really well. My PC sits in a room that stays around 26-28C. Temps at 2.4GHz were around 30C idle, 40c load.
  
  Since overclocking to 3.0GHz, my temps are stable at 36-40C idle, 46-48c load. I have yet to see any temp above 49 in RealTemp or CoreTemp.
  
  I'm sure if my ambient room temps were consistently lower, I'd be seeing low 30s - but given the processor involved, as well as the basic overclock, I'm pretty happy with the temps.
  
  Cons:
  
  - Installation. Granted, you're not using idiotic push-pins, but to install this fan, you're going to be taking your mobo out of the case for bracket assembly. The pressure bracket that attaches the heatsink to the CPU takes a leap of faith as well... it scared the hell out of me, as finding the right amount of pressure to secure the heatsink from moving around (and it will) was a painstaking process.
  
  - wired fan speed controller. Mine shorted out after perhaps a week of use. Fan is now wired directly to mobo cpu fan port.
  
  All in all, the Zalman 9700 is a decent midrange upgrade for casual to intermediate overclockers.
  
  
  
• Great Product
  By A3BM0ZPXP1XQ3X on 2008-07-27
  I have a Intel Pentium D 830 on a P5ND2-SLI Deluxe and my CPU was running at 70C with the motherboard at around 39C. The Zalman cooler was a tight fit on my board, but it dropped my temps down to 41C for my CPU with my motherboard at 39C. Even when I am using multiple CPU intensive programs the temp does not go past 52C.
  
  Great product. The installation was not the best, but that was only because you have to take out your motherboard to do so. Definitely worth it!
  
  
• Excellent cooling!
  By A1RLO809H0LCI9 on 2008-08-17
  This is a great fan if the stock solution just isn't cutting it for you. I've seen reduction of 10-15C at idle. I love it! There is also a manual control so you can adjust the speed of the fan yourself. One tiny issue is there is no included hardware/mounts to place the controller in a convinent place to access it.
  
  While I love this fan, please note if you have a 45nm Quadcore, most system monitoring tools will report your CPU as 10 degrees C hotter than its actually running. This is because the thermal sensor is different. So you might not need extra cooling.
  
  Pros:
  Really keeps your cpu cool.
  Included thermal grease brushes on, making application easier.
  Very quiet.
  
  
  Cons:
  Installation takes a little bit of dexterity and patience.
  No included hardware to mount the fan controller.
  
  
• Zalman CNPS9700LED, the best Core 2 Duo cooling fan.
  By A20OSNQJC1VJCL on 2008-09-01
  The Zalman CNPS9700LED is simply the best Socket 775 fan;
  
  - The coolest looking.
  - Best cooling performance over all other competitors, i had my Core 2 Duo E6750 temp @ 66C before installation, after i installed this beast i had my cpu temp @ 44C on lowest fan speed.
  - So quiet.
  
  
  
• Cooler, quieter, and more full featured
  By AHW31R6KBJWUZ on 2008-09-07
  I could not recommend this product more highly. It is an upgrade over a standard 'retail' heatsink & fan assembly in every way. Not only will it let your cpu run cooler, it also is much quieter and comes with a good quality thermal compound and fan controller included. I always avoided buying these higher end heatsink and fan assemblies in the past to save a few dollars, but after seeing first hand how they perform, I've changed my opinion completely. Try it for yourself and I think you will be very impressed. On the low fan setting this unit is perfect for building a silent PC, but even set on high the fan is still much quieter then retail units from the manufacturer.
  
  

• Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Quad-Core Processor, 2.40 GHz, 8M L2 Cache, LGA 775
• Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound, 3.5grams
• Antec Nine Hundred Steel ATX Ultimate Gamer PC Case (Black)
• Lite-On SATA 20x Super All Write LightScribe Internal DVD/Dual Layer RW Drive (LH20A1L06)
• EVGA 132-CK-NF78-A1 nForce 780i SLI 3xPCI-Express x16 PCI-Express 2.0 Socket 775 A1 Version Motherboard