Zalman cnps 9900

[joshjaks]

So my wife was asking me about Christmas Ideas, and I've been enjoying after market coolers. I loved the look of that zalman from the first moment I saw it, and now it's not only on sale, but could end up being my Christmas gift. I already have a seidon 120m, but if I thought this guy was in the same ballpark, I think I would go for it. Just looks too cool! I read some pretty amazing reviews and benchmarks that put this right around the performance of the Noctua D-14, some better and some only slightly worse. I thought I'd get some extra opinions. Worth $40 bucks after a rebate? Is it really a high end air cooler? How will it compare to a CM seidon 120m?

[SamCR3]

I have one that I don't use anymore. It's a good cooler, not as good as the Noctua though.

[Doctor_Death]

Read some of our air cooler reviews, the Noctua D-14, Deepcool Assassin, and the Phanteks PH-TC14PE are some of the best coolers we have ever tested. I believe I have all 3 of them packed away in a box.

[joshjaks]

Ah, I guess I'm mostly curious how it sizes up to a cooler master hyper 212 evo. I like those recommendations, a lot, but I have tall heatspreaders on my ram. =( The other reason, and I know this is kind of a stupid reason, but when I first started shopping for cpu coolers, I was wanting this one cause it was just so cool. I just want to make sure it's a little better than the evo so I can have a good air unit to personally compare to. This is absolutely unnecessary because my next step is to get a custom H20 configuration, but my wife really wants to get me something for christmas, lol. I've just been enjoying slapping coolers on my processors and seeing how they tick.

Is it wrong to want something so bad just because it looks so cool? lol

[SamCR3]

Nothing wrong with wanting something because it looks cool. The CNPS 9900Max is superior to the 212 Evo and you won't have issues with tall heat spreaders because of it's orb shape. I have the red LED version and it is sharp looking and good (not great) performing. I've thought about selling mine but I like to have an extra aircooler around just in case I need one even though all my systems have either custom or all in one water cooling.

[joshjaks]

Nothing wrong with wanting something because it looks cool. The CNPS 9900Max is superior to the 212 Evo and you won't have issues with tall heat spreaders because of it's orb shape. I have the red LED version and it is sharp looking and good (not great) performing. I've thought about selling mine but I like to have an extra aircooler around just in case I need one even though all my systems have either custom or all in one water cooling.

That's exactly how I fealt about it. Nothing else really I need for christmas and I have a feeling my wife already got Starcraft II on black friday. I saw the sale and would like to have a decent air cooler around for a spare just to do comparing if nothing else. I will say that if i wasn't using that zalman, it would be sitting on my desk lol. Jury rig a usb cable to a fan connector and use it as a decoration. I'm not really joking either.

I also like the size. All my ram currently has high heat spreaders which I've always liked. With the 780i and the 990fx board, I doubt I'll run into ram slots. In fact the only one I see that happening for is the newer x79 boards, but that's due to ram on both sides of the socket, and even then it might barely clear. Still, the more I research the more I realize, I need to get into custom cooling. I think I'll be going with a second video card for my sli and extra monitors first, but then custom cooling is third on the list.

Btw Doc, where's that tube of IC-diamond 24 you told me about! lol Just remeber, I'm using AS5 because it's all I got for now. How can you allow this travesty to continue!?! Just kidding. Seriously though, if you need my address again or just ran out, just let me know cause I might just order some on amazon if the latter is the case.

[Doctor_Death]

Just because something looks cool, does not mean it's the best option for cooling your chip, which is more important than looking good.
If you plan on overclocking your chip, you need a cooler that gives you the best possible cooling performance.

As far as the Cooler Master AIO that you current have, are you running a single fan, or two fans in a push pull configuration ?

[joshjaks]

I'm running dual cougar vortex atm. You can see some temps on the build log. I don't plan on replacing the 120m, I just want to see the direct comparison of an air cooler to an aio. I haven't really found any. Plus, I would then replace the CM hyper 212+ in my old rig and have a really good budget air cooler for future comparisons. Right now, I'm not 100% sure on how good a 120mm radiator is to some of the heavier air coolers. This would give me a slightly better idea.