And as always... Zalman fans are crap

LOL

I wouldn't go that far. They are just priced a bit too much for what they offer. They are usually very nice looking and decent performers. THERMY is my fav.

Thanks.

First review I've seen where the 9700 fails to comfortably beat the 9500 in cooling/noise. Inconsistant performer...

What's wrong with their fans? We all know it's just another, typical story. But why so many times?

OK. So let's say - somebody designs a heatsink. Somebody's responsible for purchasing the materials, components, etc. Somebody makes a decision - this is good, this is not good, we choose this or that. Then there's this guy who controls quality of, say, the fans. They check them for CFM, dB, reliability, etc. So they know what fans they buy from their suppliers. So they know how they behave and how loud they are. I'm sure they compare them against other fans, just as they sure have all heatsinks from all over the world to compare with their designs. They know. They know they'll be tested against other big fish - Scythe, Tr, Tt, younameit. Or do they?

How much is a fan when you buy, say, half a milion of them? Or a million. $1? $3? Dunno, but I'm sure it's a pittance. How much is a *good* fan? 20 cents more? 50 cents more? See what I mean?

Are you sure about the 110 mm fan thing? What is the diameter of the blades of a standard 120 mm fan?

For Zalman this should be a serious issue; let's take an example of two heatsinks in roughly the same price bracket (here in UK), Scythe Mine and Zalman 9500. Now not only do I *know* that I will have to swap the fan on the Zalman, I also know (thanks to SPCR) that the stock fan on the Mine is excellent, so I would obviously choose the Mine. And people who prioritise quietness are quite clearly the same market that Scythe and Zalman are going for, just Scythe is doing it better (let's hope they bring out Mini Ninja). I think it may be because the form factor of the 9500 and other Zalman heatsinks mean you cannot just drop in a generic fan like with most Scythe heatsinks. This will raise the unit cost of the fan. IMO Zalman should stop producing heatsinks with integrated fans (you'll notice almost all of their designs have them) and just do designs where people can put whatever fan they like on (in standard sizes, ie 120x25mm).

Quiet maybe?



"Ultra quiet" my ass. 40dB at 12V? YES, their fans ARE crap.

I really lol'ed at the disclaimer given my previous comments in the enermax PSU review thread...



All it means is it's a high RPM fan, it does NOT mean it's a crap fan.

It just isn't "Ultra quiet"

Any chance you could review the Zalman thermal paste that comes with the 9700? I've read reviews elsewhere but the results are inconsistent.

Thermal paste is not an item we've ever paid any attn to except to use the same stuff for reviews. I've been involved in too many discussions about TIM. Call me jaded & jaundiced, but I have never seen any proof that when properly used, different types can have more than a couple degrees influence in any direction. To me, that's just not significant enough. I'd rather put my (and SPCR's) energies in other directions... like getting Zalman to pay attn to the acoustic quality of their fans.

Nice review Mike - It seems that all of the SPCR end-user reviews were correct as you/SPCR have now proved. The Heatsink is good, the fan is bad (by SPCR standards).

I like the new layout, it looks a little more polished/professional than before, and I cant complain about the price comparisons that SPCR is getting paid for as it doesnt get in my way like other sites.


Andy

The classic (and hilarious) reference for this stance:

http://www.dansdata.com/goop.htm

yeah, that's a great one

qviri
Are you sure about the 110 mm fan thing? What is the diameter of the blades of a standard 120 mm fan?
110 mm .

Just a little glitch:

"the Scythe Ninja and the Thermalright Ultra-120, both come fanless"

No longer true, the Ninja Plus Rev B comes with a fan (SFF21E), thus it's likely to be the cheapest solution among the three compared.

On the other hand, you're still comparing data from the old Ninja which is known to perform better than the current selling revision.

Why would the old version perform better? They have exactly the same design and the new version actually has a little more surface area because it doesn't have cut out corners like the old one.

The heatsink testbed is LGA775 based.

Hehe, I love that article!

What?!?
I think you got a defected one.
My Zalman 9700, at lowest speed set is very quiet. It;s the quietest fan from Zalman product. Could it be because of a different revision?!?

[edit]
I just listen to the sound sample... and NO WAY it makes such noise, not even at Max speed.
[/edit]

Also, did nobody tried without plug-in the fan. I did, and it works great for my AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+ S939 even on load (LOAD: 47C without fan). But I prefer to take a change, and keep the fan on at lowest speed.

I have two Zalman "flower" HSFs and one VF-700, between those and every other Zalman HSF I've seen/heard in someone else's sytems, I can unequivocally say that Zalman fans are subpar at best. For someone who is a complete newb with QuietPC-ing, they will no doubt be great for the first 3-12 month (like they once were for me), but that has as much to do with the variable fan speed from the Fanmates than anything else. Once you start buying quiet case fans and swapping PSU fans for quieter models, you soon begin to realize that the buzzy Zalmans aren't that great after all.

All of my Zalman heatsinks now have either Scythe or YateLoon fans on them and I couldn't be happier. I got the highest praise from my brother when he asked if he could use the internet real quick when he was here for a visit, and he came back out and said "Dude, I can't even hear your computer when it's on!!" Which was great for me, considering it's my gaming machine and is by far the noisiest of my two systems. Then I turned on my HTPC, which is much quieter, and he said, "I don't hear anything." So I took the top panel off and his mouth gaped because he still couldn't hear anything until he put his ear right next to the HDD.

I kinda accidentally bought this without checking SPCR when building my new system , Its definitely not as noisy as the recording , i set mine to lowest speed and its barely audiable in my P182