Silent Showdown!

Silence. That is what most people want from their computers today. I have decided to find the best performing silent cooler. I searched around the web for the two top silent coolers, I decided to order a Zalman CNPS 7700 Alcu and a Thermaltake Silent Tower. Since both of these are said to be "Silent" I thought I would test them to see if they can be silent yet perform well.


Competitor Number 1:


Zalman CNPS 7700 Alcu

Price paid - $40.00


-The History-


Zalman is a company known for their copper, round, heatsinks. They are a very big competitor in todays pc cooling market, Especially with their latest cooler, the CNPS 9500, they are sure to compete with the other major brands. Now lets see how their Aluminum/Copper mix does.


-First Glance-


The packaging of this cooler looks alot like a "no-brand" heatsink, but as the saying says, "Dont judge a book by its cover", lets look whats inside.



Inside you will find the heatsink, a fan controller, and the mounting screws/brackets. You can mount this heatsink on the 775 and 478 sockets and the 939, 754, and 940 sockets. There is also a tube of Generic Zalman thermal paste.


This cooler is huge... Alot bigger than I expected. It is made up of copper and aluminum fins. The copper fins are in the middle of the fins and the aluminum fins are on the sides. In the center there is a 120mm fan, this thing looks huge! The base of the heatsink is lapped fairly well. Every fin on the cooler has the Zalman logo on it, which is pretty cool.



-Installation-


We will be installing this heatsink on a socket 478 motherboard, Specifically the Abit Ic7-G Max II. To install it, you use the stock Intel heatsink retention bracket and clip supports that come with the heatsink. Installing this heatsink was a breeze, took about 10 min total (30 min if you count the time it took me to find the stock Intel retention bracket).



Competitor Number 2:


Thermaltake Silent Tower

Price Paid - 40$


-The History-


One of the most known companies in the computer modding and cooling industry, Thermaltake. This company was officially launched in 2002. They are known for their huge cpu coolers and their wide selection of cases. There latest cpu cooler, the Big Typhoon, has proven to be the best cooler around. We will be reviewing it next week.

-First Glance-


Big. Just like most of Thermaltake's coolers. This thing is massive, not the cooler for a computer that you move around alot. Not only is this cooler big, its tall, But Thermaltake's mounting system works so that no damage is done to the motherboard or cpu.

The Silent Tower has 59 fins mounted on 6 heatpipes, these fins are surrounded by a Blue Aluminum cover. To go alogn with the blue, a white fan is included, Blue and White give the heatsink a "cool" look.

The base was lapped very poorly, so we lapped it a little bit more to have a fair contest.

-Installation-


Again, this heatsink is very big and very tall which results with very hard installation. Installing this heatsink is a pain, Especially if it is your first time installing a Tower Heatsink. To install this heatsink you need to remove the stock Intel retention bracket and put long bolts in its spot. Then you put the heatsink on and with a plate you secure the tower in place. One problem with this cooler is that if your socket is the kind that lays horizontally the fans point to the power supply and the video card which is not good.




The Showdown!


Finally, comparing the heatsinks. To compare them we use the following system:

Intel Pentium 4 2.60 Northwood
Abit Ic7-G Max II
1gb Kbyte pc3200
Gainward NVIDIA 5600xt

All testing was done on the desk, case-less. We used Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Paste on all of the testing. The room temperature was 20C (68F) through out all of the testing. And to regulate the fan speed we used the fan controller that came with the Zalman CNPS 7700 ALcu.


Zalman CNPS - Idle (fan speed low) - 37C (fan speed high) 35C
Load (fan speed low) - 49C (fan speed high) 45C
Thermaltake V1000A - Idle (fan speed low) - 37C (fan speed high) 36C
Load (fan speed low) - 49C (fan speed high) 45C


As you can see, the cpu runs alot cooler with the aftermarket coolers. But there isnt a big difference between the two Silent Coolers. The only area we see a difference in is the Idle temperature when the fan speed is on high, in which case the Zalman wins by 1C.


Conclusion


Looking at the temps they are both the same, but when you also look at the ease of installation, damage risk, and compatibility, the Zalman wins. It is alot easier to install, it is lighter and not as tall, and since the fan blows form the top there is not compatibility issues with the fan blowing the wrong direction. What the Thermaltake has over the Zalman is the loudness, at lower speeds it works quieter and jsut as efficient as the Zalman.


Zalman CNPS 7700 Alcu


Installation - 8.5/10
Performance - 8/10
Loudness - 9/10
Compatibility - 10/10
Looks - 9/10
Price - 8/10


Thermaltake Silent Tower


Installation - 6/10
Performance - 8/10
Loudness - 9.5/10
Compatibility - 8.5/10
Looks - 9/10
Price - 8/10



-Comrad