Zalman 9500 LED Review - So how good is it?

Noise wise, I have to say the fan isn't great. It's certainly quiet, much more so than Intel 's stock fans, but it's not "silent." There's little turbulence from the fins; it's all in the bearings. Turning down the supply with the FANMATE helps a lot, but on full the fan is just a beast. That being said, the knock on effect of the better cooling is that I don't have to run my case fans at full speed, which greatly reduces the overall noise.

Now on to the cooling:

Specifications:

Tests:

I tested my old stock Intel heatsink/fan (with a lapped base + Arctic Silver 5, and a duct from the side) against the 9500, without lapping (it really doesn't need it) and without the duct, but the vent wasn't covered up.

It's not much of a competition...

I recorded the average temperature throughout each test using ASUS PC-Probe, and used my trusty multi-meter and thermocouple to check the temps and work out how much the motherboard was out by.

My case fans were running at full speed, and I connected the 9500 directly to the motherboard, bypassing the FANMATE controller. None of the BIOS options were changed, so the board should have treated the fans exactly the same.

The ambient temperature was 19°c, which seems about right (Britain's a cool place). I worked out that on average the motherboard was reading the CPU temperature as 9°c above, which means that over all the Zalman 9500 is able to cool my PrescHOT to around 26°c idle and 34°c load; that's only a 15° rise above ambient! I'm also able to turn my case fans right down but still keep the same temperatures. This is brilliant!

Next: The verdict >>
 

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