Maximum PC

Has anyone played around with the new Zalman 9900. MPC is all lux struck, but I'm looking for other first-hand insight.

Nope, but might have to finally give air-cooling another shot after looking at that thing.

On that first page, look at it's base! It seems polished, but not flat. Very odd if that's the way they come to us non-reviewers. [quote=]Nice and shiny, is what the copper base is. This is a nearly perfect finish. Very lovely, the better the finish the more efficient the heat can be transferred, due to less resistance, which is futile as we all know. Anyone else missing Star Trek ?[/quote]That's a horrible statement though. Physics have long stated surface area is what helps transfer heat. Look at any car's radiator and notice the fins are wavy and not flat. More surface area in a given space.

Any gains are probably from it being flat, as one non-stock phot shows it not having curved edges.

On the last page, I'd call those temps a failure. Seems like they're praising it. Probably from just looking at temps and not a delta. Assuming a lot of odd reviewing in that link, it doesn't seem very good. With that, they probably got one part right A $45 block has me at half their reported temps. And you know I like blocks!

Blocks rock!! But can never seem to sell clients on liquid the first go around. It always seem to come down to TRUE, Tuniq, Zalman, DuoOrb, Noctua or whatever fan MPC has plastered in the mag and singing about that particular month.

LOL, it's such a hard sell based on the bad rap water gets. I've only ran the TRUE, but would be willing to shell out some bucks just to see what you get with this Zalman.

Tough choice for me. The TRUE is really pretty damned good and already had me thinking of ditching the loop. It just can't cool all of my stuff at once. The way it looks, that Zalman can't trump the TRUE. And at that price, it really has me scratching my head to put it in my basket.

It's just that water has always been so hard to sell, and it takes me 3 pages of a thread to finally convince someone to at least try. By that time, they could be doing whatever with an aircooler and be on their way. I like what I like, but advising folks is getting harder and harder the more aircoolers they pump out to the market.

But in that review, 60C is stupid for $75 before tax and shipping. They're kissing $100 and it cools one thing. The typical air cooling guy will also want a fan on their VGA too. And then they'll want to work on the case with fans that range from $15 to $25 each. Just always sounds silly to me when $300 up front does it all at much better results.

The only promising thing about this CNPS 9900 is that there's enough space between the fin arrays that you *could* implant your own fan, something that was very DIY with most other Zalman designs.

The only real review I've read of it weren't exactly singing praises about it either.

http://www.silentpcreview.com/Zalman_CNPS9900

I will be reviewing one in the next few weeks, we'll see how it performs. It has a big reputation to live up to.

I love the way that thing looks with the shroud off of it. But the numbers just don't add up to $70. Hell, not even $45 for needing the fan on high to get good performance from it.

The 9900 is nothing special. The Zalman 9700 & Du0rb didn't deserve the title best of the best either. I hate to say it but MPC is not the best source when it comes to CPU cooler reviews. There's no doubt about it. Nobody's perfect but I've seen the reviews and the best of the best has been wrong 3 times in a row now. Its been going on for years.

I remember when they reviewed the Thermalright Ultra eXtreme 120 & tried to give it a bad rep because it didn't come with a fan. What a joke Fortunately I already purchased mine and found the review alarming. I got a pair of high CFM fans to go with mine and MPC lost some credit. Its great to seethe old Thermalright Ultra eXtreme 120 on top of the chart. Its amazing when you know how to pick out & use a decent fan or two.

The Thermalright Ultra-120 Extreme is a seasoned champ & has been for a while. There's tons of other choices too. Like the Noctua NH-U12P SE and even the Thermalright SI-128 SE. My $35 Zerotherm Nirvana 120 is great & it cost around $35 after rebate. Its old too. The $26.99 after $10.00 Mail-In Rebate XIGMATEK HDT-S1283 120mm Rifle CPU Cooler is great too. Mine will arrive soon. Its amazing what that small price tag will buy. Being able to replace the 120mm fans without voiding warranties is a great feature.

I wouldn't call that promising. They could have made it easy by using a normal 120mm fan but they decided against it intentionally. The 9900's predecessor looks easier. You just remove two screws on the 9700.

See what happened in mod2. Its not ideal but you have to do something similar on the 9900. Zalman put more obstacles in the way on the 9900 so its probably going to be worse.

Its a reputation but its not big by any means. There's always been better air coolers out there. Please verify these claims and let us know the results.
They'll be selling replacement covers soon or making special editions


*Here's another review. Check out the chart
Their testing methodology looks different. FrostyTech Mk.II Synthetic Thermal Test Platforms