X-bit labs

Old New Coolers from Zalman, Tuniq, Noctua and Thermaltake for the Overclocked Yorkfield Processor

Category: Coolers

by Sergey Lepilov

[ 04/29/2008 | 06:44 PM ]

I am sure that the happy owners of some older cooling solutions will be curious to find out what their possessions are capable of on the new quad-core processor. This article is going to check things out for you!

Table of contents:

• Zalman CNPS7500-Cu LED
  
• Package and Accessories
  
• Design and Functionality
  
• Installation Tips
  
• Tuniq Tower 120-LFB
  
• Package and Accessories
  
• Design and Functionality
  
• Installation Tips
  
• Noctua NH-U12P
  
• Package and Accessories
  
• Design and Functionality
  
• Installation Tips
  
• Thermaltake Big Typhoon 120 VX
  
• Package and Accessories
  
• Design and Functionality
  
• Installation Tips
  
• Technical Specifications and MSRP
  
• Testbed and Methods
  
• Cooling Efficiency and Acoustic Performance
  
• Cooling Efficiency Tests
  
• Acoustic Tests
  
• Conclusion
  

The companies manufacturing and selling cooling solutions under their brand names use dramatically different approach to developing and advancing their product line-ups. For example, the Japanese Scythe company has been launching new cooling solutions with remarkable consistency for both: overclocking fans (Zipang, Orochi) as well as less demanding mainstream users (Shuriken). Gigabyte and Xigmatek release new cooling solutions a little bit rarer. Unfortunately, we are witnessing a long-lasting slow-down in the Zalman camp, although this company used to be pretty aggressive in the cooling market for a long time. And as for CoolerMaster, they have been teasing overclockers with “multi-cylinder” coolers for quite some time, now.

However, there are indeed companies who update their already existing models slightly and release them to the market under new model names. A great example here would be ASUS Silent Knight II cooler that acquired a proud Roman “II” in the model name, though in reality differs only by a fan with pulse-width modulation (PWM) and “formal” support of the new processors. Here we can also add four new cooling solutions that we are going to discuss today. They are Zalman CNPS7500-Cu LED, Tuniq Tower 120-LFB, Noctua NH-U12P, and Thermaltake Big Typhoon 120 VX. So, how are the old-new coolers different from their predecessors and how efficient are they on a new quad-core processor compared against one of the best contemporary cooling solutions? We are going to answer these and a few other question sin our today’s article.

Zalman CNPS7500-Cu LED

It is pretty hard to come across a CPU air cooler these days that will use no heat-pipes (we do not take into account cheap aluminum heatsinks here). However, we did find a cooler like that among the products of the Korean Zalman Company. We found two of them, actually: an all-copper Zalman CNPS7500-Cu LED and an aluminum cooler with a copper insert called Zalman CNPS7500-AlCu LED. Since the only difference between these two models is in the heatsink material, we are going to talk in detail only about he all-copper cooler.

Package and Accessories

A small box is made of thick cardboard. There is a transparent plastic casing inside holding the cooler:

The box contains detailed info on the cooler, its specifications and supported processors. Above the cooler you can find the accessories:

The accessories bundle includes everything necessary to install this cooler onto any contemporary platform and even on a pretty outdated Socket 478.