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Reviews Around The Web
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Choose Web Reviews from this Maker:
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Wednesday, November 21, 2007
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Zalman has gone back to the drawing board and delivered a new sibling into their CNPS (Computer Noise Prevention System) line of products. This new little sister is low profile like their original products, so it will fit in more cases without worrying about clearance space and utilizes the heatpipe technology implemented in their newer line.
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Friday, November 16, 2007
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Installation was child's play, at least for my socket 939 CPU. You simply interlock the mounting clip pieces around the base plate and clip the heat sink onto the stock motherboard retention frame. You do need to check the clearance on your motherboard capacitors and any heat sinks sprinkled around the motherboard. On the DFI LanParty UT nF4 Ultra-D, one of the heat pipes barely cleared a mosfet heat sink. Low profile coolers do have their drawbacks, and the CNPS8000 is no exception. Users with Intel CPUs must replace the retention frame. Installing the VF900 is just as straightforward as the CNPS8000. You lay it on a flat surface, put some thermal paste on the GPU and line all the little pieces up the way its shown in the exploded installation view in the user manual. The user manual is very well written and has plenty of step-by-step explanations and illustrations so that even the biggest noobs won't have a problem.
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Monday, November 12, 2007
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With the introduction of the Z-Machine GT1000 chassis, Zalman has produced a worthy successor to their earlier Fatal1ty offering. I liked the Fatal1ty a lot; I like the Z-Machine a lot more. The GT1000 is better looking, easier to work in, has more hard drive space and comes in two color options. Cooling performance is just as good, if not better, than the original and the drive mounting solutions are both simple and elegantly executed.
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The major selling points of the CNPS8700 NT are its noise levels and its size, making it the ultimate HTPC companion. With these two features at Zalman?s focus, will the performance take a hit or stay true to the Zalman name? Continue as we find out.
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Thursday, November 8, 2007
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Zalman was one of the first to incorporate an open face fan and heatsink configuration, and the CNPS8700 shows that this company hasn't been resting on its laurels, but improving on an already proven fan favorite. This low-profile heatsink uses Zalman's popular "flower" style cooler that incorporates a speed-controlled blue LED fan as well as twin heat pipes that are inner woven through the middle of the copper fins.
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Tuesday, November 6, 2007
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Heatsinks have been around since the inception of the CPU, and manufacturers have feverishly been trying to develop creative ways to cool the latest and greatest processors that produce an abundant amount of heat. We've seen every type of fin array imaginable, but Zalman's flower style design seems to stand out from the rest. Not only were they one of the first to use copper fins on their heatsinks, but they were also one of the first to experiment with different fin array configurations to enhance their heatsinks' performance. Today, we have Zalman's CNPS7500-CU LED CPU cooler on our test bench. This massive 848 gram beast has a low profile design and a flare for craftsmanship that many enthusiasts have come to expect from Zalman.
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Once again, Zalman has created an excellent product that does exactly what it is supposed to do and more. The VF-1000LED is a video card cooler that provides excellent cooling in silence. It is quite beautiful, if you like copper, with its large expanse of fins and heatpipes. At fan levels low enough to be inaudible, it dropped my load temps more than 30C under the stock cooler.
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Monday, November 5, 2007
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Installation was child's play, at least for my socket 939 CPU. You simply interlock the mounting clip pieces around the base plate and clip the heat sink onto the stock motherboard retention frame. You do need to check the clearance on your motherboard capacitors and any heat sinks sprinkled around the motherboard. On the DFI LanParty UT nF4 Ultra-D, one of the heat pipes barely cleared a mosfet heat sink. Low profile coolers do have their drawbacks, and the CNPS8000 is no exception. Users with Intel CPUs must replace the retention frame. Installing the VF900 is just as straightforward as the CNPS8000. You lay it on a flat surface, put some thermal paste on the GPU and line all the little pieces up the way its shown in the exploded installation view in the user manual. The user manual is very well written and has plenty of step-by-step explanations and illustrations so that even the biggest noobs won't have a problem.
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The CNPS8700 LED, which was introduced at CeBIT 2007 in Hanover, Germany, is an all copper heatpipe and heatsink CPU cooler with a lower profile and larger, 110 mm fan as compared to the CNPS7000. The CNPS7500-Cu offers improved performance over the CNPS7700. It is also made of 100% copper and has an 110 mm silent fan just like the CNPS8700. Both coolers sport the Flower Heatsink Design, which is comprised of a plethora of copper fins atop a copper base, with a clear fan with LED lights set in the center of the fins. The only major difference between the two is that the CNPS8700 LED also has heatpipes incorporated into the design. Which one cools better? Are they as quiet as Zalman claims? These thought-provoking questions are just what this review will attempt to answer.
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Friday, November 2, 2007
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There are times I'd like to be able to turn the fans up to the max for short periods of time, like when overclocking. And to be honest, there are times I miss the look of those analog knobs on the front of my rig. Call me old skool, call me old man, I'm sorry, I like dials and knobs.
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Thursday, October 25, 2007
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It seems everyone in the technology industry is branching out into new areas nowadays; in fact it is hard to think of one major company who specialises in a single product type. Zalman have been known for some time now as specialists in PC cooling but have more recently been releasing PSUs and cases. Some of you might not know they also are delving into headsets and today we will be looking at two of these products. The first is a USB 5.1 headset which does not require a 5.1 soundcard in the PC, or a soundcard in the system at all for that matter. Secondly we have a stereo headset which is aimed at MP3 player owners who need that little extra bit of quality over the bundled earphones.
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Tuesday, October 23, 2007
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Zalman created a solid foundation for their company when they introduced the sunflower design heatsink to the American market, and since then they have provided us with a number of items that have kept our computer running far quieter than before. Going back to their start and knowing what works, Zalman has introduced the new CNPS8700 LED heatsink. This variable intensity blue LED heatsink was put through a number of tests in our shop and came away with some very surprising numbers, so come on along and check them out.
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Zalman is an industry pioneer when it comes down to cooling heated computer electronics, affecting the total system temperature and noise level in a design-friendly solution has been their marketing strategy for few years now. Their latest product is the Zalman VF1000 LED, a dual slot heatsink/fan video card cooling device with high compatibility in mind, a perfect challenge for 2007's most popular video card the NVIDIA's 8800 GTS. Curious? Read on.
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Monday, October 22, 2007
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Zalman continues their reputation for quality products with the new Reserator XT. The Reserator line finally gets active cooling to compliment its passive cooling with positive results. The Reserator XT is built to be as quiet as possible, but those who don't mind the extra noise are still able to manually increase the fan and pump speed to squeeze a little more performance out of it. Zalman continues to bring top quality water cooling to inexperienced and experienced users, and the Reserator XT is no exception.
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Thursday, October 18, 2007
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The GT1000 comes in two different colors: titanium and black. The case features two 92mm intake fans in the front and one 120mm rear exhaust fan. The titanium model features blue LED fans, and the black one sports red LED fans. We have the black model on our bench today, and a quick glance reveals that this case has a lot of potential. Head on over to the site and take a look...
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