From Thermalright XP-90 to Zalman CNPS9500

[nycdude]

Hi all,

I am wondering if this is worth the trouble converting over. When I installed the XP-90, they had a special bracket that you had to connect to the MB.

Since I have been using this computer for a while, would this mean taking off the xp-90 mounting bracket on the MB to install this?? My guess is that this would mean unscrewing the motherboard out to install the new Zalman hardware.

Any thoughts...or am I making this too complicated.

 

[Painman]

All you do is remove the XP-90 bracket (2 screws) and replace the stock bracket and its 2 screws. Piece of cake.

If you want a quieter HS, why not just put a quieter fan onto the XP-90? Much cheaper to swap, the XP-90 does fine with lower power fans...

 

[nycdude]

Thanks Painman for the advice. I was hoping that the Zalman will lower my temps a little more. 😉 I recently swapped my Stealth for a Panaflo that put out a few more cfm's when I went from an oc venice to a opteron 165.

Quick question, isn't the stock/xp90 bracket anchored by something under the MB if I recalled. will I have probs aligning it back on if I go that route?

 

[Painman]

Originally posted by: nycdude
Thanks Painman for the advice. I was hoping that the Zalman will lower my temps a little more. 😉 I recently swapped my Stealth for a Panaflo that put out a few more cfm's when I went from an oc venice to a opteron 165.

Quick question, isn't the stock/xp90 bracket anchored by something under the MB if I recalled. will I have probs aligning it back on if I go that route?

Just orient the motherboard horizontally wherever you do the work, and you'll have no trouble. The backplates usually don't slip out of their spot - some are secured to the back of the board with adhesive, others have raised plastic around the screwholes that keep them in place when sandwiched between a motherboard and case tray/panel. They've never given me any grief.

 

[furballi]

Get a better case rather than wasting $ on a fancy cooler. The difference between quality CPU coolers is only 3C. That's noise for a CPU. The biggest variable that you can control is the intake air temperature. A side duct that will draw room temperature air DIRECTLY into the CPU cooler will provide optimum cooling performance. Pros do not waste $ on fancy CPU cooler. They put the PC in a room with temp <70F. Water cooling with a chiller would be the next step up.

Excessive voltage will kill a CPU. A few points drop in temp isn't going make any difference.

 

[Centoros]

I swapped out my stock cooler for that Zalman and it was very easy. The two mounting brackets on the bottom of the board are secured to the board. I found it alot easier to mount the top screw in first then the bottom. Here's what it looks like ..

http://photobucket.com/albums/f16/Lumin...ns/?action=view&current=Zalman9500.jpg

 

[nycdude]

Originally posted by: furballi
Get a better case rather than wasting $ on a fancy cooler. The difference between quality CPU coolers is only 3C. That's noise for a CPU. The biggest variable that you can control is the intake air temperature. A side duct that will draw room temperature air DIRECTLY into the CPU cooler will provide optimum cooling performance. Pros do not waste $ on fancy CPU cooler. They put the PC in a room with temp <70F. Water cooling with a chiller would be the next step up.

Excessive voltage will kill a CPU. A few points drop in temp isn't going make any difference.

Thanks. I was thinking that too but I went from a cheapo case to a Lian Li hoping that would help my temps. It helped but I guessed I wanted lower. The only other thing to do is water something other if I really wanted cooler.

 

[zagood]

Actually there's about a 8c difference between the XP-90(Al) and the Zalman 9500. The head to head matchups I can find with the same rig setup are 9500 vs. XP-90Cu, the Cu version is about 2c cooler than the Al version, and they show a 6c difference between them. jmke's roundup is a good example.

http://www.madshrimps.be/?action=getarticle&number=12&artpage=1682&articID=406

Note that the two different charts are different clock speeds, so you can't take the XP-90 scores into account, only the XP-90C.

The 9500 is my personal favorite cooler, but if you're willing to spend that much anyway also look at the Scythe Ninja. With a good fan they're about the same cooling and noise level as the 9500 at 7v, but at 12v the Ninja is much quieter.

-z