The Zalman Twins: 9500 & 9700 Air Tunnels
by Wesley Fink on February 19, 2007 12:40 AM EST- Posted in
- Cases/Cooling/PSUs
Conclusion
Zalman pioneered many of the concepts we now take for granted in controlling noise in a computer. The use of large, low-speed fans to move lots of air with low noise was an early innovation of Zalman, and it is a technique now used in almost all the top heatpipe tower coolers. As demands for more cooling have increased the size of fans on even bargain CPU coolers has increased. Even manufacturer retail HSF fans are now often 80mm. The days of small, whining CPU cooler fans have thankfully mostly disappeared, although we still too often see these small, noisy fans on chipsets these days.The Zalman 9700 is a slightly better cooler than the 9500, but the performance differences are very small - the 9500 tops out in OC at 3.81 GHz where the 9700 reaches 3.83 GHz. Also the 9500 is a bit quieter across the board than the 9700 so you have to question whether the marginal 20 MHz improvement in OC is worth the extra noise from the 9700. Neither result, however, is even close to tops among our tested coolers. Both are pretty average among the coolers tested thus far.
The point of this is that while the Zalman 9500 and 9700 do exactly what they claim, the rest of the world has caught up, and in some cases passed Zalman. Neither Zalman cooler stands out in any way. They are quiet, but they are not quieter than other heatpipe towers we have tested. At high speed, which is needed for effective overclocking, they are often even noisier than the competition. The Thermal Grease, air tunnel, and other current Zalman innovations do not pay off in stellar overclocking, either, compared to the best current CPU coolers. The performance of both coolers is middling compared to what we have seen from competing coolers.
This is not a bad thing among a very high performing group of coolers. However the prices of these two Zalman coolers are anything but average. At $60 and $75 the 9500/9700 are more expensive than the $50 for the Tuniq Tower 120, which is both quieter than either Zalman, and the Tuniq outperforms both in overclocking. The performance of both Zalman coolers is very close to the Thermalright MST-6775 or the Scythe Katana, which are both decent small, light-weight heatpipe towers. The problem here is that both the Thermalright and the Scythe cost about $25 to $30 which is less than half the price of either the Zalman 9500 or the 9700. This is before you consider weight, since the Scythe weighs just 300g and the Thermalright also meets the manufacturer recommendations for weight. This makes both the MST-6775 and Katana much lighter and cheaper than the Zalman 9500 and 9700.
Zalman products have always been easy to admire, and our tests have not changed this perception. However, it is difficult to recommend either the Zalman 9500 or 9700 as a good value among CPU coolers. The top performing air cooler, the Tuniq Tower 120, costs less, overclocks better, and is quieter than either Zalman in a real world system. The Cooler Master Hyper 6+ also overclocks better and controls noise well at about half the price, while the Thermalright and Scythe perform about the same at less than half the price and half the weight.
If cost is not a concern then both Zalman coolers do what they claim and will perform well in your system. The highly advertised innovations like "air tunnel" and thermal grease may also work fine, but they didn't raise the performance or noise of the Zalman coolers above average in our tests. The Fan Mate is also useful, but certainly not worth an extra $20+ in total cost. There is also the Zalman advantage of a simple, well-engineered and well-explained installation. The Zalman coolers are very easy to install on almost any system, which is an important consideration in anyone's list.
If you are looking for value - the best performance and noise control for your dollar - then there are much better choices in the market than the Zalman 9500 and 9700. The top Tuniq Tower 120 and Cooler Master Hyper 6+ perform better, are just as silent, and cost less. The Thermalright MST-6775 and Scythe Katana perform about the same, but are much lighter and less than half the price of either Zalman. It gets even worse looking at the high end of coolers tested so far. The innovative TEC/air $89 Vigor Monsoon II Lite is only $14 more than the 9700, and it performs significantly better. Zalman may have started the quiet, high-performance cooling rage, but the 9500 and 9700 are not leaders by any measurement.
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Avalon - Monday, February 19, 2007 - link
Keep up the good work. I'm enjoying watching the list of coolers you guys review grow and grow, and I think it's great that you'll be doing the Scythe Infinity and Ninja soon. I know I've mentioned this before, but I still want to see the Coolermaster Hyper TX if you guys can get your hands on one. Reason being is it looks as though it provides excellent PWM area cooling...which brings me to my next question...Have you guys considered throwing in PWM area temperatures? Some coolers are great at cooling the CPU, but awful at providing air anywhere else...and PWM cooling can help with stability.
Wesley Fink - Monday, February 19, 2007 - link
We agree that PWM is an important consideration, and it is something we will likely visit in a future article. Most of the top motherboards these days use passive sinks on the power transisitors and northbridges, but they also come with cooling fans for use with water cooling and HSFs that do not provide good cooling for board components. The 680i has such a fan and we use it in our testing to try to remove the variable PWM air flow and temps as a performance factor. Of course, that avoids the question by removing the variable, rather than answering it. We will try to address this in some future article, but for now we have a lot more coolers waiting for tests on our standard test bed.acivick - Monday, February 19, 2007 - link
I didn't see it listed anywhere in the review, but I'm assuming that the included thermal compound was used, at least for the 9500/9700. If the same compound was not used for all coolers, they should be retested, as it's not a valid test. Using the same compound on each would make it more of an even playing field and would thus be testing the performance of the cooler only.For instance, MX-1 is supposed to be much better than the stuff Zalman provided, giving a 3-5C decrease in overall temperatures.
Wesley Fink - Monday, February 19, 2007 - link
We use the thermal compound that comes with the cooler in most cases. If it is just a little packet of cheap thermal compound we use our standard, which is a silver colored tube thermal compound of pretty decent performance - not something exotic like MX-1.In the case of the Zalman 9500 and 9700 we used the Zalman Thermal Grease. Before replying to this question I tested the Tuniq Tower 120 with the Zalman Thermal Grease. Results were all but identical to the tests we ran using our bulk silver colored compound.
Over the years I've used many thermal compounds, and if you use a quality product and apply it properly the results have been similar. I hear what you are saying about a 3-5C difference with MX-1, but I certainly have not seen those kinds of gains with any thermal grease. I can also point you to a serious review that shows toothpaste and Vegemite with superior performance to Arctic Silver 5. At some point in the future we might take a closer look at the impact of thermal compounds on performance, but for now I am confident our current test methods are not introducing new variables with sloppy choices of thermal compound. We are prudent in our choices, but not maniacal.
JarredWalton - Monday, February 19, 2007 - link
Except a lot of people use whatever comes with the HSF. Wes would have to explain what thermal compound he's using, but I would assume he's sticking with the included stuff for each HSF where possible. If nothing is included... well, I don't know what he does there. :) Basically, though, I don't think retesting is in order unless he's using high-grade stuff on HSFs that omit the inclusion of a compound.VooDooAddict - Monday, February 19, 2007 - link
I agree that he should make it clear though what he's using.Using the shipped compound with these units would be preferable from complete product a review standpoint. As it stands there's no mention of his cleaning and reapplying new compound either. From a simplicity standpoint of reviewing and a better comparison of coolers, it would be easier to just use one compound for all the coolers to reduce cleaning time and variables.
ozzimark - Monday, February 19, 2007 - link
umm, my 9500 looks NOTHING like that base :-Xhttp://www.eclipseoc.com/image/cooling/zalman%20cn...">click for pic!
dev0lution - Monday, February 19, 2007 - link
Good info. I was leaning towards getting the 9500 since I don't think my 7700-alCu will fit on the eVga 680i board I haven't got around to installing. I might consider getting one of the alternatives now, seeing as how it doesn't look like the zalman's are worth the price premium.Fishie - Monday, February 19, 2007 - link
The Tuniq is 54dBs while the 9700 is 57dBs. Twice as loud? Wouldn't twice as loud be 108dBs? Not to mention the 9700 is quieter than the Tuniq at 24" away.
Wesley Fink - Monday, February 19, 2007 - link
3db is twice the sound energy, since the db scale is logarithmic. At one time twice the energy was considered twice as loud, but recent research shows 6db to 10db increase to be perceived by the human ear as twice as loud - depending on whose study you read. I have stated this in past reviews. To be more precise I changed the wording in the review to twice the sound energy.