Zalman CNPS8700 LED: Update of a Classic

Post by **MikeC** » Thu Oct 18, 2007 10:31 am

nightmorph · Post by **nightmorph** » Thu Oct 18, 2007 11:25 am

andyb · Post by **andyb** » Thu Oct 18, 2007 11:35 am

http://www.silentpcreview.com/article761-page1.html

"The 7000 was first introduced back in early 2003, some five years ago"

Woo Hoo, who would have thought that my time machine would have worked.

Anyway on-topic, Zalman need to do 3 things to fight the competition better, use quieter fans, make their heatsinks better (getting beaten comprehensively by the Minja makes it look poor), and dropping the price.

Andy

merlin · Post by **merlin** » Thu Oct 18, 2007 1:11 pm

andyb wrote:http://www.silentpcreview.com/article761-page1.html

"The 7000 was first introduced back in early 2003, some five years ago"

Woo Hoo, who would have thought that my time machine would have worked.

Anyway on-topic, Zalman need to do 3 things to fight the competition better, use quieter fans, make their heatsinks better (getting beaten comprehensively by the Minja makes it look poor), and dropping the price.

Andy

Definitely agree on all 3 points. I still use the 7000 in my aria because it's one of the few decent heatsinks that can fit, however zalman's fallen way behind these days. They need to come up with a better design for their heatsinks that can compete with the top end ones. The 9700/9500 just don't match up well against all the tower ones. And everything mid-size has been purely a variation on the 7000. Although they did try and fail with the 8000... Time to get on the drawing board and make a true 7000 successor zalman!

lucas82 · Post by **lucas82** » Thu Oct 18, 2007 2:08 pm

It looks like the thermaltake maxorb.

wwenze · Post by **wwenze** » Thu Oct 18, 2007 4:29 pm

I'd love for a direct comparison against CNPS-7k, which had ~0.3Â°C/W at it's lowest speed, at which it was quieter than 24dBA.

Things that didn't make sense to me:

Original CNPS-7k weighs >700g. This bigger cousin weighs >400g.
nvm I found the reason for that - there's a whole clump of metal in the center for CNPS-7k while for 8.7k it's all on heatpipes. Did the clump of metal transfer heat better than the heatpipes?

Why did such improvements (size + heatpipes) result in so little improvement in performance?

Why such an increase in size only resulted in area increasing from 3170 to 3300cm2? But then, it didn't increase much for cnps-7000 to cnps-7700 either, as with performance.

Why didn't Zalman improve on the small but powerful CNPS-7k (that is even shorter than their (flop) CNPS-8k) by simply adding heatpipes, but they decided to also increase its size so that it becomes such a big cooler almost in the same league (in terms of size) as other high-end cooler?

Post by **MikeC** » Thu Oct 18, 2007 5:08 pm

wwenze wrote:I'd love for a direct comparison against CNPS-7k, which had ~0.3Â°C/W at it's lowest speed, at which it was quieter than 24dBA.

That ~0.3Â°C/W isn't really a reliable comparative due to the simple fact that the original test CPU had a TDP of 62W while the current CPU has a TDP of 130W. Even if we take the measured AUX12V power of 78W, the difference in core heat is just too big for the comparison to be reliable.

We don't have a 7000 in the lab any more, but it's a bit of a moot point -- I think there's little question the 8700 is substantially more effective at cooling. As soon as the distance increases to more than... say an inch, heatpipes are more effective at transferring heat than solid copper.

The most reliable SPL reading of the 7000 was 22 dBA/1m, which is definitely quieter. The fan in the 8700 is nearly 110cm, like the 9700... which makes it closer to the 7700.

There are many questions we can ask about why Zalman didn't do this or that, but the bottom line is that we can judge what they did. The 8700 is certainly not a bad cooler. It's as good as anything that size right now, but it's overpriced compared to higher performance models, and yes, Zalman should have a major fan overhaul. This last point is one we've only been making for years. Probably since the very first Zalman cooler/fan we reviewed.

wwenze · Post by **wwenze** » Thu Oct 18, 2007 8:34 pm

MikeC wrote:That ~0.3Â°C/W isn't really a reliable comparative due to the simple fact that the original test CPU had a TDP of 62W while the current CPU has a TDP of 130W. Even if we take the measured AUX12V power of 78W, the difference in core heat is just too big for the comparison to be reliable.

That's why I'd love a direct comparison, knowing that.

Although it might not be very useful now as you said.

I've always guessed that the weakness of CNPS-7k was the inability to transfer heat effectively to the fins at high wattages, so putting it against a heatpiped-cousin with a 130W CPU should yield interesting results.

But still............................ why is the surface area still 3000+cm2 -.-||||

mattthemuppet · Post by **mattthemuppet** » Fri Oct 19, 2007 12:09 am

it's certainly an elegant looking piece of design. I guess one thing that may hurt it compared with the Minja and others is that it only uses 2 heatpipes, when most high end HS use 4 or more.

And really, they should wise up to crappy fans, it's not like people have been silent about it is it?

bendit · Post by **bendit** » Fri Oct 19, 2007 5:53 pm

Right now, Scythe is doing the best job up and down the line of delivering performance at reasonable prices. Zalman should be taking notes. The pricing of the Mini Ninja is the latest example.

Aris · Post by **Aris** » Mon Oct 22, 2007 5:20 pm

lucas82 wrote:It looks like the thermaltake maxorb.

you mean the TT looks like the zalman coolers. that would be because TT copies every other manufacturers products and calls it their own. Its also the reason i have boycot'd all TT products.

This is a great cooler for what it is. A low profile, top down cooler when you need something shorter than a mini ninja.

I wish you had compared it to what it should be replacing, a zalman 77000 instead of a 9700. It wasnt really a fair comparison IMO.

I also wish they would make a 92mm fan variant of this, to update/replace the 7000 model.

Post by **MikeC** » Mon Oct 22, 2007 8:54 pm

Aris wrote:I wish you had compared it to what it should be replacing, a zalman 77000 instead of a 9700. It wasnt really a fair comparison IMO.

The 9700 is in the same price ball park, while the 7700 is typically $35~40. They also have the same size fan. And the 7700 clearly is not going to be as good. Why bother?

merlyn · Post by **merlyn** » Thu Nov 15, 2007 12:43 pm

They do not have the same size fan. Just got one today and a 120mm does not fit. The 8700 is just that little bit smaller than the 7700. You can see it when they're next to each other.
Unless anyone knows where to get a 110 fan from it's either use a 92 or increase the height by 25mm.

"Zalman" = Korean for "Sh#te Fan"

SHare · Post by **SHare** » Thu Nov 15, 2007 3:02 pm

I hate zalman products. I've had 2 zalman coolers, both the fans bearings went within months and I can't get in touch with anyone in the EU to complain. They are robbing gets that make novelty 'silent' products as far as I am concerned.

=assassin= · Post by **=assassin=** » Tue Jan 22, 2008 1:31 pm

Does anyone have an idea how the 7500 Alcu might perform? I assume it'll be just as noisy lol, but if the temperature differences are too much then I might go with that as a cheap alternative, as it's a very similar design, just minus the heatpipes. For a similar price to the 7500ALCU I could get a Scythe Samurai-Z though... not sure whether that'd just be a better bet anyway, although the 775 attachments look a bit flimsy (I have that heatsink with an AMD PC, so go the 775 attachments out to look at them).

This would be for an E8400 when I get it

QuaiBoy · Post by **QuaiBoy** » Wed Jan 23, 2008 8:19 am

Being able to easily swap in a 80mm-120mm fan would instantly make these these coolers appealing to me again. Not including a fan at all would be even better. Count me as another 7700 owner (and a prior 7000 owner as well) not satisfied with my purchase. The HS is not bad but the fan is nasty. Out of the box it wasn't spectacular, but the the fan has become more and more unbalanced as time has gone on as well. Marked increase in vibration is the worst part. Luckily I'm running a A64 3500+ S939 on that machine. It's run rock-solid HOT for over a year running the 7700 at minimum speed on a Fanmate which I can't hear outside of the box.

I wouldn't purchase one again, of course, but I can't justify replacing them now either. There were some of the best deals on the market a year ago. How things have changed.

-Evan

grant2 · Post by **grant2** » Fri Apr 04, 2008 6:11 am

merlyn wrote:They do not have the same size fan. Just got one today and a 120mm does not fit. The 8700 is just that little bit smaller than the 7700. You can see it when they're next to each other.
Unless anyone knows where to get a 110 fan from it's either use a 92 or increase the height by 25mm.

Is there any hope to dremel the fins enough to squeeze it in?

This maybe an acceptable replacement otherwise: scythe 100mm low-speed

merlyn · Post by **merlyn** » Tue Apr 22, 2008 10:35 pm

grant2 wrote:Is there any hope to dremel the fins enough to squeeze it in?

This maybe an acceptable replacement otherwise: scythe 100mm low-speed

Ya good shout grant, I don't have a workshop atm but i'm moving in the summer so i'll report back then.

I haven't seen these available separately in the UK yet, might have to buy a HSF with one.

grant2 · Post by **grant2** » Tue Apr 22, 2008 10:39 pm

I actually put a Nexus 120mm fan in this HS. I dremeled the fan blades to fit.

Avalanche · Post by **Avalanche** » Wed Apr 23, 2008 8:44 am

Did you do an amazingly good job, or does it vibrate a lot?

grant2 · Post by **grant2** » Wed Apr 23, 2008 1:45 pm

i don't know about "amazingly good" but there is no vibration and it's virtually silent. I was careful to measure my marks on each blade to keep them as uniform as possible.

MC FLMJIG · Post by **MC FLMJIG** » Sun Jun 15, 2008 8:31 pm

grant2 wrote:i don't know about "amazingly good" but there is no vibration and it's virtually silent. I was careful to measure my marks on each blade to keep them as uniform as possible.

Do you have any pics or a thread on this? Would love to see.

grant2 · Post by **grant2** » Thu Jul 17, 2008 1:20 am

I'm afraid i can't get a good picture without taking the whole computer apart. But here's the fan in action:

So what's going on here: The case is designed with air compartments, but with the new heatsink i had to toss the old plastic divider and put in my own cardboard one. Because the heatsink is a bit taller than stock, there's no clearance for wires under the DVD, which is why the power cable snaking off one way and the SATA cable looping back to go through the top of the cage.

The interesting thing about the heatsink: It's basically two halves shaped like () ... at each of the 4 tips the fins are just a bit larger than the middle fins, so while cutting the fan down, they only needed to clear those 4 tips and it would be good to clear the entire heatsink.

Bun-Bun · Post by **Bun-Bun** » Wed May 13, 2009 10:22 am

Only place ive really seen this discussed so im posting here.

This was the only descent heatsink I could find that would fit in my case (Silverstone Sugo).

However I could not stand the resonating sound from the fan it came with... so I bought this http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php? ... ure=Scythe and did the typical zalman fan mod. I ended up useing a fanmate to turn it down to about 1500 rpm (thus could probably go with the 1500rpm version of this fan) and my temps are still about 1.5Â°C lower then with the stock fan at around 1300 rpm (tho performance was never an issue with this heatsink was just the fan noise). So for those wondering yes a 100mm fan will work in place of the 110mm if you dont feel comfortable dremeling your fan blades.

Heres the finished mod http://pics.livejournal.com/bun_bun/pic/0019bcpy

Some more pics if interested http://pics.livejournal.com/bun_bun/gallery/0001skwf