Is this aftermarket CPU fan a good choice?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835118074

I had a zalman on my i7 920 for over 4 years and it cooled amazing. I just dont see anyone recommending them now days just want to make sure this is suitable for my needs as i will be overclocking( nothing too crazy)


If there is something better in the sub 100$ range that oyu guys would suggest let me know.

This is going in a corsair 900D and a huge motherboard so room/space is a non issue and I do not want to water cool at this time
Thanks in advance for the help!!!

cause you cant change the fan if it dies and there is much better coolers then that.

For Zalman they do make terrific tower coolers that you can change fans if need be, however they also have to go up against coolers such as coolermaster hyper 212 plus, hyper 212 EVO and others.

Which chip will matter, but that would be my recommendation if you look on some reviews so you can see for yourself, these will get you that overclock and handle the temps, but if you really push it, then you will have to opt for one of the monsters such as Noctua DH14, Prolimatech(any really) and a couple other makers for the very high end air, or Corsair H75 or above AIO type coolers.

big $ does not always mean big performance

Ok thanks for the advice, so do you think the hyper 212 or the 212 EVO are better coolers? I still have time to cancel my newegg order and get those.....

Its just they are like 30$ cheaper so I assumed that meant they were lower quality. hehe

bmwphysics said:

Ok thanks for the advice, so do you think the hyper 212 or the 212 EVO are better coolers? I still have time to cancel my newegg order and get those.....

Its just they are like 30$ cheaper so I assumed that meant they were lower quality. hehe

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Hyper 212 is a very good cooler.

I think the Zalman is that expensive because they like money, not because its a better product.

For Zalman something like CNPS 10x performa is a great heatsink, the one you linked is not at all a bad one, but Zalman has for many years been riding the coat-tails on specific coolers that worked very well for older chips say Athlon or P4 but since then there have been numerous changes in the industry to make better heatsinks that are smaller, less costly but still as good performing and some massive ones as well of course.

Zalamn does not by any means make bad heatsinks, there is better for the same cost etc. The one you linked as far as I know does have one thing going for it, its shape and size, it can sometimes fit in places others would not, but again, there is others that are simply better performing for the same price if not less cost that will outperform it. One of the better ones was the MAX or Copper one but they are very $$ for what they are.

Hyper 212 plus and 212 EVO are very hard to match for their price point, they are great heatsinks, I am using a 212 plus with dual fans (stock) I have had my Phenom II 955 up to 4.3Ghz cpu-NB at just under 2800 1.47v and it kept it below 58c fully loaded stress testing, so it is a great cooler for its price.

The main thing I do not like about many of Zalmans coolers is you cannot change the fans which will eventually wear out, why they do this I have no idea, there is very few other makers who do this, but the vast majority of Zalman coolers are like this, gpu cooler as well

Titan Dragonfly 4 is another worth mentioning just to say size is not the end all be all, it cools remarkably well for what it is.

Anyways cost is very rarely proportinable to performance. the top air coolers do not get double the performance of good bargain ones, Noctua DH14 and Megahalems are 2 massive coolers and even the 212+ which is maybe 1/2 their price at worst is not missing that much in performance in most cases, of course if you overclock to the moon this will matter but even then it still ends up being quite close in performance.

With modern CPU you will run into a frequency, voltage, or just general design wall with any decent cooler. Say for example the most modern chips (Haswell) they are known to get smoking hot once you overclock them, there is very few heatsinks that will do well to keep them chilly.

Bargain performance cooler would be the best way to word what Coolermasters 212 line is, that is what they are, $30-$40 is the sweet spot for most coolers, the $80+ ones generally are cooler looking and sometimes do as stated offer a higher overall capacity, but usually this is when you are pushing the chips way to hard to begin with

bmwphysics said:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835118074

I had a zalman on my i7 920 for over 4 years and it cooled amazing. I just dont see anyone recommending them now days just want to make sure this is suitable for my needs as i will be overclocking( nothing too crazy)


If there is something better in the sub 100$ range that oyu guys would suggest let me know.

This is going in a corsair 900D and a huge motherboard so room/space is a non issue and I do not want to water cool at this time
Thanks in advance for the help!!!

Click to expand...

I assume you are going to OC. Best air cooling for under $100 is the Nocuta nh-d14 ($80 at Amazon right now). Other top-tier options are Thermalright Silver arrow and Phanteks PH-TC14PE.
Best budget and bang/buck is Hyper 212+ or 212 Evo. They will only allow you to OC so high though - they just don't have the capacity to clock moderate or higher.
There are numerous in between.

ok I only caught some of this in my email and was going to add this, take a specific CPU say an i7 950 which are known to get quite hot once clocked up, take any decent cooler from Hyper 212 + all the way up to the top aircoolers DH14-TC14PE-Megahalems etc, there will not be a massive possible increase in clock speeds nor will there be a significant improvement in temperatures, any decent cooler has heatpipes, these only have so many variations, only so much wicking capability, most modern cpu coolers also tend to have copper for the heatpipes but aluminum for the fins.

Point is there really is not that much overall difference from a pure performance standpoint on the top aircoolers and a decent one, a real budget one, hell yes, a budget performance one, not really.

When I did my research into this ~1 year ago for mine the difference between the top dog aircoolers (DH14 is one of the better ones but is not the best) and the more moderately priced ones was not huge ~10c difference 5db or so louder and allowed on average only 150Mhz more clock speed this was with chips pushed almost to the limit of what they could be reasonably asked to be pushed to.

Anyways point is, is a $100 cooler really going to help drastically, no not really, the one exception to this does seem to be something like Noctua DH14 or if you swap fans on a different cooler, DH14 is designed with efficiency and noise in mine, so it is an excellent, quite large cooler compared to most, but is also VERY quiet considering the performance it gives you can swap the fans on it for something a little more powerful but it does not help much, again extremely well designed.

Hyper 212 EVO was also extremely well designed albeit louder, TC14PE is highly regarded as it should be, it is slightly better performing then DH14, not quite as nicely designed mounting system and is more $ to boot.

Take a good look at many reviews to see what will work for you. For me, $30 cooler or $100 cooler that would end up hitting roughly the same speed (4.3Ghz average to 4.4-4.45Ghz at best with same voltage, temps of ~55-58c for both coolers on average) I went with the more modestly priced cooler.

Its the chip that allows the speed, the cooling has a factor for sure, but all chips have an upper limit. Most modern Intel ones seem to be ~4.5-4.8 without cooking it with voltage, and I have seen this result with many various coolers, so its a luck of the draw, as long as it cools sufficiently that's what matters, the chip lottery is what matters more, well that and you said mild overclock, so why waste $$$ on a big fancy cooler you never will have a need to push?

Thanks for all the information guys, I ended up order 2 coolers the zalman and the meghalems which was almost 100$ going to run some prime 95 tests after overclocking and see if the huge price is really worth the cost in Celsius.

Ok just installed the Zalman cooler and OMG what a pain in the butt! That had to be the hardest fan install I have ever done. And the instructions were so vague and generalized.

I think I won't be buying anymore Zalman coolers after this, spent about an hour just putting the damn thing on not including mounting the motherboard backplate. My last Zalman cooler took all of 10 minutes to mount so this is weird.

I will start stress tests and OC'ing 2mora and then install the Noctua and see what kinda difference 60$ makes. I am guessing that it won't be more than 10c

10c is a lot. How did it go with the Noctua (though from the previous post I thought you bought a Megahalem)?

I'd say grab a cooler master v8. Sexy look as well as great benchmark a compared to any zalman

The v8 is massive, freaking huge! Why not go with a scythe. Hell even an older SilenX is pretty good. I had a Zalman, the big copper one, Worked great!
Even Spire has good ones, Thermalright.. I think Noctua is just to $&$*#) Much! Its crazy high prices!
Ive seen that the Cooler Master Hyper 212 plus is great cheaper cooler..
But if you really look around. Almost every HSF company has a product that looks alomost EXACTLY the same as other competitors.....

Yeah I stuck with the Zalman and so far it is holding strong @ 30-40c and like 45 load with a 4.6ghz OC

Granted its freezing in this basement haha