With the change from the Vizo Igloo over to the Zalman CNPS 9700 LED, I didn't change the fan setting on the motherboard right away from FULL on smart fan. When I first powered up the computer with the Zalman heat sink, I was thinking that the noise was too much However, the temps were a nice 27C.

With great temps come great noise; even in my computer filled office. So I switched things back to smart fan, and the noise level dropped considerably. Temperature gone up from 27C to 30C, which really is not that bad of a trade-off for a quieter system.

After about an hour I captured another screen shot showing that my processor is running around 43 degrees.

Running the system at full load for four hours the CNPS 9700 LED has kept the temperatures around 43 degrees.

Now we have been going for 24 hour with the basic processor and RAM torture testing and we still have the temperatures close to the same as when we started. At this time we see it at 42 degrees.

The start of the 7th day testing, I started with the system at 0% load at a cool 31C.

After about four hours doing the stress testing once again, I am at 44 degrees with the processors at full load.

These scores on the chart are temps at full load on both processors at stock speeds.

The Zalman cooler's full loads temps being in the low 40 degree range make this a great heat sink for over clocking the system. It gives you more room for cooling with the ability to slow down or speed up the fan. I think the mounting bracket is better than the push pins type. The only thing to note with the pins is to push them all the way in.

The fins could use a small contact on the outer ring to protect the fan. When making adjustments I managed to bump my SATA cable into the heat sink. That caused it to stop the fan from turning, which isn't a good thing. I do think out of all of the heat sinks that have come through this system, this one is the most visually appealing.

Thanks to Zalman for sending over this sample!