Zalman CNPS9500 review

oakdad · Post by **oakdad** » Mon Aug 22, 2005 9:54 am

I personally would love to see the review for this CPU cooler cover the 92mm Nexus fan swap on it.

Mystr_Byrnz · Post by **Mystr_Byrnz** » Mon Aug 22, 2005 1:20 pm

So I goto Fry's today just to see if these are in stock yet, and of course they aren't, so I asked a guy behind the tech counter if he had any clue of a release date. He said before Christmas, yea. . .

Anyway. He starts talking about how excited he is about the titanium model of this thing that's going to be released, and how it's the closest thing to vapor cooling he's heard about and how temps never go past 25c.

Has anyone else heard of a titanium version of this cooler? I've not even seen that news on Zalman's website. He said it'll be around $200, so I think that's a little out of my price range for a heatsink, even if it does exist.

wim · Post by **wim** » Mon Aug 22, 2005 9:23 pm

for a metal, titanium is an excellent insulator (it has thermal conductivity about one-tenth that of aluminium)

i would rather see a diamond version

wim · Post by **wim** » Mon Aug 22, 2005 9:32 pm

fyi: some thermal conductivities (in watts-per-meter-kelvin)

aluminium 236
copper 403
diamond 1000–2600

titianium 22

source

ushac · Post by **ushac** » Mon Aug 22, 2005 11:12 pm

Ok, a bit off topic here but... That thermal conductivity of diamond is veeery nice! Looking at the page you linked to it's suggested that ordinary graphite can also transfer heat very very well, at least along it's layers. Wonder if that couldn't be used in heatsinks? Maybe it's too fragile or something...

Having though that, I googled for thermal conductivity of carbon nanotubes. It seems it's performance varies greatly with temperature. Something like 37000 W/m-K

, but only at 100K (-173C, -280F). At 400K (127C, 260F) it's down to "just" 3000 W/m-K.

Makes you wonder...

source

Anyway, back to topic. I guess it's ruled out that a titanium version is coming. But how about lighter/cheaper al-cu versions like they have for their other flower coolers? Did they also debute with only a pure copper version?

/ushac

sensei · Post by **sensei** » Tue Aug 23, 2005 12:09 am

I want one.

I already have a 92mm Nexus modded into my 7000. Should be an easy swap.

The ducting potential with this HS is just mindboggling.

As for the "Diamond" version... Anyone know if the Hope diamond is up for sale?

jabba · Post by **jabba** » Tue Aug 23, 2005 2:04 am

Two words: Artic Diamond

What that Fry's guy said sounds typical of someone who works there

.

Mystr_Byrnz · Post by **Mystr_Byrnz** » Tue Aug 23, 2005 5:55 am

hehe. yeah. sure does huh.

mathias · Post by **mathias** » Tue Aug 23, 2005 8:58 am

wim wrote: for a metal, titanium is an excellent insulator (it has thermal conductivity about one-tenth that of aluminium)

Wow, I wish I had a house made out of titanium.

wim wrote:fyi: some thermal conductivities (in watts-per-meter-kelvin)

aluminium 236
copper 403
diamond 1000–2600
titianium 22

source

Berylium, at 218 sounds pretty good, considering it's one third lighter than aluminum. And sodium, at 142 might be alright for two thirds lighter than aluminum(but it's effectiveness drops a lot at higher temperatures) .

wim · Post by **wim** » Tue Aug 23, 2005 11:04 pm

lol again, have you ever got your hands on a lump of sodium? it is reactive as hell, it blows up if it touches any moisture
beryllium is pretty dangerous stuff too
don't you guys have to do chemistry in school!

cotdt · Post by **cotdt** » Tue Aug 23, 2005 11:14 pm

i want to use carbon nanotubes!

mathias · Post by **mathias** » Wed Aug 24, 2005 12:47 pm

wim wrote:lol again, have you ever got your hands on a lump of sodium? it is reactive as hell, it blows up if it touches any moisture
beryllium is pretty dangerous stuff too
don't you guys have to do chemistry in school!

Yeah, but they said aluminum was supposed to be very reactive too. I guess that's why it's annodized, and maybe something lixe that could be done to the other metals too. Or alloyed with alluminum and/or silver plated. What I remember most of all is the dire warnings about not looking at magnesium burning, so I didn't consider magnesium.

ushac · Post by **ushac** » Wed Aug 24, 2005 2:40 pm

Well, aluminium sure isn't good for your health but it's nowhere near as reactive as sodium which creates hot hydrogen when reacting with water. Bad Thing<tm>. Beryllium oxide is already used in stuff like high power radio transmitters because it transports heat effectively while still being a very good insulator. Rare characteristics indeed, and just like many wonder materials it's also highly carcinogenic...

I wonder if arctic diamond isn't that bad an idea. Lower quality diamond can relatively easily be created synthetically. So diamond powder won't need expensive mining. Thiel audio have even managed to make a diamond speaker membrane!

/ushac

mathias · Post by **mathias** » Wed Aug 24, 2005 7:48 pm

ushac wrote: I wonder if arctic diamond isn't that bad an idea. Lower quality diamond can relatively easily be created synthetically. So diamond powder won't need expensive mining.

Using diamonds sounds like a great idea. But I don't think TIM is what it would be best suited for, small diamond pieces might be too big to fill in the microscopic gaps, and thermal paste gets thrown away when remounting.

Instead, how about putting the diamonds in the aluminum or copper? Putting it in the base would probably work best. It would take more diamonds, but it could cost more than diamond-TIM because it wouldn't get thrown away.

Or it could be put into the heatspreader of the CPU.

ushac · Post by **ushac** » Thu Aug 25, 2005 8:31 am

Hmphr... quitepc.co.uk now lists it as "Expected 2 September".

Judging by the number of review samples out there, I thought the delays were over...

/ushac

cotdt · Post by **cotdt** » Thu Aug 25, 2005 9:38 am

Well diamond or no diamond, this Zalman 9500 is still a bit too loud for SPCR people if it is even louder than the 7000, and even if it performs as good as a 120.1 watercooler, its acoustic performance doesn't even come close. Have anyone ever heard the silence of a passive watercooler or the near-silence of two 5V Nexus fans cooling your entire system through the radiator?

We still need aircoolers that make it easy to build sub 19dBA computers. Namely, 17-18 dBA CPU and GPU coolers that cool well.

ryboto · Post by **ryboto** » Thu Aug 25, 2005 11:27 am

cotdt wrote:Well diamond or no diamond, this Zalman 9500 is still a bit too loud for SPCR people if it is even louder than the 7000, and even if it performs as good as a 120.1 watercooler, its acoustic performance doesn't even come close. Have anyone ever heard the silence of a passive watercooler or the near-silence of two 5V Nexus fans cooling your entire system through the radiator?

We still need aircoolers that make it easy to build sub 19dBA computers. Namely, 17-18 dBA CPU and GPU coolers that cool well.

you've had experience with this cooler???? where'd you get it?? otherwise, i'm not sure how you can tell that it's "still a bit too loud for SPCR people"...my 7000's fan was silent with the fanmate 2 set to low, as long as my case was closed. if you did mod this thing with a nexus, which isn't overly difficult, it's design would allow it to be virtually silent...at least i'd assume..

cotdt · Post by **cotdt** » Thu Aug 25, 2005 1:51 pm

ryboto wrote:
cotdt wrote:Well diamond or no diamond, this Zalman 9500 is still a bit too loud for SPCR people if it is even louder than the 7000, and even if it performs as good as a 120.1 watercooler, its acoustic performance doesn't even come close. Have anyone ever heard the silence of a passive watercooler or the near-silence of two 5V Nexus fans cooling your entire system through the radiator?

We still need aircoolers that make it easy to build sub 19dBA computers. Namely, 17-18 dBA CPU and GPU coolers that cool well.
you've had experience with this cooler???? where'd you get it?? otherwise, i'm not sure how you can tell that it's "still a bit too loud for SPCR people"...my 7000's fan was silent with the fanmate 2 set to low, as long as my case was closed. if you did mod this thing with a nexus, which isn't overly difficult, it's design would allow it to be virtually silent...at least i'd assume..

I used to have the 7000 and 7700 and they were too loud for my taste, and reports claim that this 9500 is a bit louder than the 7000, which is unacceptable. It definately needs to be modded at the very least.

Ackelind · Post by **Ackelind** » Thu Aug 25, 2005 3:56 pm

A friend of mine has a 7000AlCu and it makes a strange humming noise. If this is even louder even at the lowest setting, it is unacceptable by SPCR means. I didn't think I was such a hardcore silencer, but now with my new build, I found out that even the P180 stock fans (25mm ones) are too loud at their lowest setting!

I guess there is no stop for the silencing bug..

Cooler Master · Post by **Cooler Master** » Thu Aug 25, 2005 3:58 pm

Hi all

My first post to SPCR - hopefully many more soon.

I too am excited by the prospect of this new cooler, having just bought a 7700AlCU for my Prescott 540. I have no doubt Zalman will release an AlCU version soon...and Titanium sounds interesting too

As for modding, that's par for the course with Zalman. I modded my 7700 (photos coming soon in a separate thread) with a silent CoolerMaster 120mm LED fan. It runs quieter and cooler at 12V than the stock Zalman fan at 5V. Of course the CM fan has a max RPM of 1200, and the Zalman at 5V is 1350, but at 5V the Zalman fan had a very audible "growl" (as Mike C described in his review). That's because it's a double ball bearing fan, and the CM is sleeve bearing.

Whereas in most systems the growl would be inaudible over other "noisier" components, in my near-silent system with an open-grilled Centurion 530 case, it was unacceptable. Can't complain with the CM mod - and it looks way cool lit up neon blue

I imagine it would be easy to mod the 9500. Pity CM don't make 92mm LED fans, but a 92mm Nexus or slow-speed Panaflo should do the trick. I'd love to see the 9500's fanless ducted performance compared to a 7700...

Bring on quad-core CPUs worthy of this cooler!

Cheers,
CM

cotdt · Post by **cotdt** » Thu Aug 25, 2005 4:04 pm

Cooler Master wrote:Hi all

My first post to SPCR - hopefully many more soon.

I too am excited by the prospect of this new cooler, having just bought a 7700AlCU for my Prescott 540. I have no doubt Zalman will release an AlCU version soon...and Titanium sounds interesting too

As for modding, that's par for the course with Zalman. I modded my 7700 (photos coming soon in a separate thread) with a silent CoolerMaster 120mm LED fan. It runs quieter and cooler at 12V than the stock Zalman fan at 5V. Of course the CM fan has a max RPM of 1200, and the Zalman at 5V is 1350, but at 5V the Zalman fan had a very audible "growl" (as Mike C described in his review). That's because it's a double ball bearing fan, and the CM is sleeve bearing.

Whereas in most systems the growl would be inaudible over other "noisier" components, in my near-silent system with an open-grilled Centurion 530 case, it was unacceptable. Can't complain with the CM mod - and it looks way cool lit up neon blue

I imagine it would be easy to mod the 9500. Pity CM don't make 92mm LED fans, but a 92mm Nexus or slow-speed Panaflo should do the trick. I'd love to see the 9500's fanless ducted performance compared to a 7700...

Bring on quad-core CPUs worthy of this cooler!

Cheers,
CM

Hello CoolerMaster, I really like your products, especially the Hyper48, which I can get to very quiet. I can get it so quiet that sound measuring equipment couldn't pick it up from one meter. A version with more heatpipes and surface area would be even better.

Cooler Master · Post by **Cooler Master** » Thu Aug 25, 2005 4:19 pm

Hi cotdt

Thanks for the reply, but I have to mention that I *don't* actually work for CoolerMaster - I just thought that'd be a 'cool' user name for SPCR

That said I do love CM products (as you can tell from my post) - especially their cases, fans and PSUs. Haven't used any of their coolers (other than the naff Cool Viva for my VGA card, which I promptly replaced with the Zalman VF700).

Centurion 530 is probably the nicest case I've owned. For the price it edges out my previous (more expensive) Cavalier 1 in almost every respect. But this is going off topic so I'll stop right there.

Cheers,
CM

cotdt · Post by **cotdt** » Thu Aug 25, 2005 4:56 pm

Ahhh so you don't work for CM, sorry I got confused. Welcome to SPCR.

I like Cooler Master's idea of running the Zalman 9500Cu "passive" with a nearby 120mm Nexus fan, with ducts to direct air. How would this compare to the Sythe Ninja "passive"?

StarfishChris · Post by **StarfishChris** » Thu Aug 25, 2005 5:57 pm

The Zalman isn't designed for passive airflow, but with ducts it would probably perform equally as well. However, I think the motherboard cooling capacity would be diminished as there is no fan blowing air through the sides of the heatsink. I don't know how much of a problem that is, but you'll probably find that (depending on the position of the heatsink) the duct doesn't remove much from the temperature due to the upright cylindrical design, so that situation need not arise. A case of YMMV?

Cooler Master · Post by **Cooler Master** » Thu Aug 25, 2005 6:26 pm

You're probably right, since the 7700 design actively cools the mobo components around the CPU block as well. My mobo temps have gone down by 10C+ since switching from an Arctic Cooling Freezer 7/Coolermaster Cavalier case to a 7700AlCU in a Centurion 530. No doubt the Centurion has better airflow than the Cavalier, but the 7700 cools down the NB and RAM which helps reduce mobo temps as well.

I imagine one of the benefits of the 9500 design is cooling surrounding components, although with its upright fan and directional airflow, I'm not sure it'll be as effective in doing that as the 7700. Then again, you don't buy a CPU cooler for cooling your mobo, but it's a nice side-benefit of the 7700 design.

CM

frostedflakes · Post by **frostedflakes** » Thu Aug 25, 2005 6:47 pm

Sorry to drag this thread back off-topic, but after somebody brought up diamond, I just had to post this.

http://www.advanceddiamond.com/

They make sythentic diamond/copper alloys that boast two to three times the thermal conductivity of copper.

mathias · Post by **mathias** » Thu Aug 25, 2005 8:02 pm

frostedflakes wrote:http://www.advanceddiamond.com/

They make sythentic diamond/copper alloys that boast two to three times the thermal conductivity of copper.

They don't refer to it as an alloy, it could also be a bunch of diamonds mixed in with molten copper.

frostedflakes · Post by **frostedflakes** » Thu Aug 25, 2005 8:07 pm

Sorry, I posted without thinking. I guess alloy is not really the correct term. But you guys know what I mean.

cotdt · Post by **cotdt** » Thu Aug 25, 2005 8:18 pm

The HeaThru Advantage:

* High thermal conductivity (2-3x copper!)
* Tunable thermal expansion rate (silicon/GaAs compatible)
* Metallization; HeaThru can be metallized for direct bonding with heat pipes, heat sinks or even the chip die
* Ni/Ag/Au Plating: HeaThru can be plated with just about any metal
* Very flat and smooth surfaces
* Very hard and durable
* Tunable range of electrical conductivities and thermal properties
* Low density and lightweight
* Low cost!

Low cost, eh? Then why don't they make heatsinks outta this technology? This stuff has got a lot of potential. I would like to see a Scythe Ninja Diamond Edition for $40. With better thermal conductivity, they could make heatsinks much bigger and lighter at the same time.

frostedflakes · Post by **frostedflakes** » Thu Aug 25, 2005 8:38 pm

Advanced Diamond Solutions Inc. has perfected a proprietary process for producing a high-quality diamond-copper composite material that retains a lot of the thermal properties of diamond, but at an order of magnitude cost reduction over conventional diamond manufacturing processes such as chemical vapor deposition (CVD). By using conventional diamond synthesis technology, Advanced Diamond is able to create a low-cost sintered diamond composite, with the ability to tailor the exact diamond and filler content to dovetail with the thermal specifications of the device it is to be attached to. In addition, Advanced Diamond can create very large geometries not physically possible with CVD, currently up to over 3 mm in thickness, 50 mm diameter wafers with 90 mm diameter wafers available in the near future.

Low cost in comparison to traditional methods of manufacturing diamond, such as CVD? Sure (1/20th the cost according to the HeaThru PDF on their product page). Low cost in comparison to copper/aluminum? Probably not.

Also, on their product page, they list a new product, DiAl (a diamond/aluminum composite). Sounds like it'd be easier to work with, as it can be molded to specific shapes/sizes, unlike DiaCu, which is manufactured in wafers. Maybe it's cheaper as well? But thermal conductivity is surely worse than the DiaCu products.

Zalman CNPS9500 review

Easy Fan Mod

Re: Easy Fan Mod