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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Scorpion - Wednesday, February 21, 2007 - link
Page 5 states:So for 30 minutes, you capture 450 data points. It's expected that the data will ramp up over the 30 minute interval and reach an approximately linear stability region towards the end.
I have a problem with your measurement evaluation and findings. I do not think this is a very conclusive or accurate measurement and evaluation criteria. This information could be useful, yes, but only as an additional evaluation criteria.
All tests need a good, quantifiable evaluation metric. The "goodness" of a test is only as good as that metric. And I conclude that what you've chosen is a poor metric. Your posterior evaluation is highly influenced by noise. The maximum could be the result of a large noise addition to the measurement.
A better choice would have been to analyze the data results from all the tests to determine a stability region in the latter part of the data measurements, for all tests. Treat the data in that region as a random variable and take the expectation over that region. That would give you a much better evaluation criteria. You could also compute the variance of the data in this region to determine how stable the performance is for each cooler. This could also be a useful metric, although I know that this may not mean much to your typical audience. Another interesting metric would be to evaluate the other region in the data, in order to measure how quickly temperature ramps up. Or put into other words, how quickly each fan responds to temperature changes.
I'm saddened to see a good and useful article brought down by it's poor evaluation criteria. It effectively reduces the confidence in your conclusions.
Wesley Fink - Friday, February 23, 2007 - link
We try to answer two questions in our cooling tests. First, most users beef up cooling to improve overclocking. We determine the highests stable overclock using a standard CPU/test bed by finding the overclock the cooler can maintain for 30 minutes of looping a demanding game. The highest OC is a very good measure of the effectivenes of the cooler and is compared to other coolers. We also measue and report the highest temperature in this load condition - and yes it does spike up and level off as you suggest. We haven't seen the huge spikes you might fear are there in our test data. Temps rise quickly and stabilize at the temp we report. This is a good indication of cooler efficiency.Second, some users beef up cooling to reduce noise. We also report the lowest noise measurements for the cooler we are testing.
Your suggestions would provide much useful information, and we may add additional testing in the future. However, for now, we are trying to cut through all the hype surrounding cooler testing and provide as much useful info to our readers as possible in a timely manner. We are comfortable that we answer the two questions above in our cooler reviews, and those are the main questions our readers are always asking us about cooler performance.
cyberkost - Tuesday, February 20, 2007 - link
I did not quite get the methodology of the noise level comparisons...Were the coolers required to provide "same cooling performance" (e.g., same CPU temperature some long time into running some stress test)? It does not seem that they were. I'm worried about Anandtech intending to adapt the noise-comparison technique described in this article. The proper technique (IMHO) would be:
1) install cooler
2) run a stress test
3) dial cooler RPM till a (judiciously) chosen (same for all coolers) CPU temperature is achieved (say 40C) in a stable manner
4) record the noice level and put it on the comparison chart
strikeback03 - Tuesday, February 20, 2007 - link
Reading the respective reviews, it would appear that at stock speeds (and possibly some others) that the Katana, for example, does not get as cool as the Tuniq even when the Katana is at max RPM and the Tuniq at minimum.rjm55 - Tuesday, February 20, 2007 - link
Can you please review the Austrian Noctua NH-U12. I've seen good and bad reviews and I want to see what you find.gloutch - Tuesday, February 20, 2007 - link
The performance of those headpipes coolers is reduced if not properly oriented.SO: What was the position of the Zalmann coolers during the test ????????????????????
Wesley Fink - Tuesday, February 20, 2007 - link
From page 4 - CPU Cooling Test Configuration:"All cooling tests are run with the components mounted in a standard mid-tower case. The idle and stress temperature tests are run with the case closed and standing as it would in most home setups. We do not use auxiliary fans in the test cooling case, except for the north bridge fan attached to the 680i for overclocking."
As an aside we have found the impact of heatpipe cooler orientation to be pretty small - we just don't leave that test criteria to chance. An article on the impact of heatpipe cooler orientation on performance could be interesting.
orion23 - Monday, February 19, 2007 - link
Hi!Thanks for this awesome review. Only 2 top coolers left to review:
Thermalright Ultra 120
Scythe Infinity!
It is great to see Anandtech starting to review other PC components such as CPU Coolers and RAM. Things can be very quiet around here unless a new CPU, GPU or MotherBoard comes along......
Hopefully this is only the beginning of a new Anandtech that will review other important PC components such as the PSU, CPU Coolers, (AIR / Water), Fan Controllers...
It wouldn't hurt to have more stuff to read around here!
DrMrLordX - Tuesday, February 20, 2007 - link
Actually, the SI-128 and Noctua NH-U12F probably deserve a review at some point as well. Maybe even the Scythe Mine? The Mine can supposedly outperform the Ninja when using high-cfm fans, but your guess is as good as mine when it comes to actually mounting a 120mm fan on the Mine that normally takes a 100mm fan.DrMrLordX - Tuesday, February 20, 2007 - link
Woops, I forgot the Big Typhoon and Big Typhoon VX.