ZALMAN CNPS9700 LED 110mm 2 Ball CPU Cooler





















I just recently purchased an item that I've been wanting for quite awhile. The Zalman CNPS 9700 CPU cooler and as you can see from the picture its a very unique Cooler. First off there is only a few reason you should buy a aftermarket cooler. The main reason is if you plan on Overclocking your CPU. Overclocking almost always will generate more heat then the Stock Heat sink can handle. Which often results in Frequent BSODs (Blue Screen Of Death) or sudden Shutdowns of you computer and in extreme situations even damage your CPU. In some cases the Stock Heat-sink can handle the heat but its unusual. Most people will by a an Aftermarket cooler if they are planning on overclocking. The second reason to buy an Aftermarket is if your having heat issues with the stock heat-sink or if the fan on stock heat-sink has kicked the bucket. Sometimes peoples stock heat-sink fan dies without the person knowing it and usual cause the computer restart a couple of minutes after boot-up or post. Most Motherboards today have sensors to tell you of such incidents and it will warn you during the boot process. The last and most common reason is it looks cool and its better for your hardware in the long run. When you keep your hardware cool it usual extends the life of the hardware. Which saves you money in the future from buying new hardware when one of them sudden dies. Unless your an Computer Enthusiast, there buying new hardware every couple of months.

Now on to the good stuff. The Zalmen 9700 is a very different CPU cooler then the normal ones you guys are use to seeing on everyday computers. Most Stock Coolers are made with aluminum or a combination of copper and aluminum. This one however is Pure Copper, not counting the Clip holder. Copper is better at absorbing heat then aluminum is, but the down side is that its more expansive to produce then aluminum is. Besides that it makes it the perfect choice to use for a hardware cooler. The other thing that makes this cooler very different from normal ones is that it stands up right instead of facing straight up towards the Computer case door.






































As you can see from the Pictures its very large. It was also very difficult to install because of that. My Ram cooler didn't help much ether. Thats the two Blue fans right next it. Overall it was mostly paniless to install, but the Copper Fins were very sharp in some places which resulted in me cutting my self Several times on them.

Heres another View so you can get another idea of how big it is.




















The Instructions came with two sets of installation instructions. One for AMD Motherboards and another for Intel based Motherboards. The AMD instructions were very simple and required almost little or no effort. The Intel ones however looked very confusing and complicated. I was luck that I had an AMD based Motherboard instead of an Intel.

Here is a link to how install the CPU cooler.
http://www.zalman.com/ENG/product/Product_Setup.asp?Idx=164

You can see the Clip on this photo. Notice how close it is to my Video card. It also required a great deal of pressure to push down to secure it to the board.



















Look here at how close it is to My Ram Cooler.



















I'm going against the Instructions by having it that close, but so far it doesn't seemed to be affecting it to much.  Here is whats written in the instructions about that.

*No interfering components (PSU, graphic card etc.) within 62mm from the center of the CPU

So I clearly Failed at that, but as I said before It doesn't seems to be affecting it to much.

It also included a  Fan Mate. A device that enables you to control the speed of the Fan on the CPU cooler.
At full speed the Fan sounds like a JET engine taking off. that's around 2700rpms. I however have it plugged it into a Fan controller in my Computer. This enables me too see the RPMs  and the temp of the CPU more easily. I have it around 2000rpms and it seems to have it a tolerable noise level. The Fan Mate is essentially the same thing as a fan controller but a very basic one.


Heres what my Old Heatsink looked like.



















As you can see my old Heat-sink Features Copper Heat pipes also. It however was a combination of aluminum and copper. It was a very effective Heat-sink never the less. It kept my CPU at and average idle Temp of 40-45C and a Average of 50C-55C for having a full load on it which is perfectly normal for a Dual core CPU.

The Zalman Cooler has my CPU at 30C-35C for Idle and a 40C-45C for full load that's a 10C-15C difference in temperature. THAT'S GREAT!!!

Here is one more Pic of what it looks like when its on. It also Sports a Blue LED fan. Its kind of hard to see it in this Pic.




















Overall its and excellent CPU Cooler. It showed a very noticeable drop in Temp from stock. It also wasn't to hard to install if you follow the instructions. So if your ever in the market for a new Cooler and you want something that looks cool and does the job right I recommend this. For about around 50- 60 bucks its hard to go wrong.

4 comments:

TGell said... / October 14, 2009 at 5:51 PM  

That is a pretty cool fan you got there. You said that the main reason anyone should get an aftermarket fan is because they are overclocking their CPU. What do you run your CPU at and how did you change the clock speed?

EGarcia said... / October 15, 2009 at 9:56 PM  

I haven't tried to Overclock my CPU yet, but I plan to. You will have to go into the BIOS to Overclock your CPU its usually have to push the Delete put during the POST to get there. There is many things to consider before you overclock your CPU like FSB speed, Multilayer and, CPU Voltage. if you wan to know more about it here is a good tutorial on it.
http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=122731

Glenn Jacob said... / February 15, 2013 at 10:40 PM  

Thanks for this blog!!
your blog is very informative.
CPU Cooler Heatsink

Mike Allison said... / February 20, 2014 at 4:35 AM  

Nice description provide about CPU Cooler Heatsink in this blog i like this.