CNPS9500 & Scythe - would 9500 win with a 120mm fan?

[jonjan]

I've spent a lot of hours looking at reviews and forums on what air cooler handles the most heat, at less than 20dB.

the reviews repeatedly say that the CNPS 9500, Scythe Ninja Plus, Thermaltake big typhoon all have very close efficiencies at cooling (and 20dB or less).

One obvious big difference is the 9500 has a 92mm fan, while the Ninja and Big Typhoon have 120mm.

What about removing the 92mm fan and using a 120mm? If the 9500 and Ninja both had the same exact 120mm fan at the same exact rpm, which would cool better?

The fan can be mounted on the side that is normally the back, so it can be more flush against the fins...

because the usual-front has the partially-hollow area for the 92mm fan

Please, only reply if you've experienced comparisons of heatsinks/fans. If you have a heatsink/fan that works great, i'm glad for u ...but if u haven't experienced other ones then it's hard to make an educated estimate of comparisons. Please let's focus on experiences and estimates, rather than opinions and guesses


p.s. anyone have any experience with the Scythe Shogun?http://www.scythe-eu.com/products/cpu/shogun/shogun.php
the madshrimps review showed that it cooled better than the Ninja

 

[jonjan]

this review has the 9500 and the Ninja as similar performance...
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/coolers/display/tuniq-tower120_8.html Are there other reviews showing a bigger difference?

a 120mm fan can just be placed against the 9500. it just needs to not hit the fan fins with the 9500 fins

I just got the 9500 :? but if the reviews and forums are correct, it will be at least o.k. at cooling. A lot of people with it say it's the best.
If it doesn't cool well, I'll look at the Scythe's and the Tuniq Tower. Scythe also has a Ninja with the fan in the middle of the heatsink, like the Tower.

Tuniq's site http://www.tuniq.com.tw/Cooler%20Info/Tower-120.htm says 20dB is the quietest setting (1000rpm), so the results of the comparison could have used the Tuniq's fastest speed (@ 34dB). I'm personally wanting less than 20dB, and I'm planning to use a 14 or 11dB Silenx 120mm.

Before now, i've only had stock heatsinks. Have you owned many heatsinks?

 

[jonjan]

Hi, thanks

the link did not work, it just enlarged the image...
what did their comparisons in the enclosed case show?

I am not wanting to compare the 9500 with 120mm HSF....
I'm wanting to compare the 9500 body, with the Ninja body, each with the same exact fan/rpm

 

[jonjan]

what is pwnt? (I'm new to some of the forum lingo)

another idea I was thinking of, is to stack multiple HS's.
The Thermaltake Silent Tower CL-P0024 looks like a good candidate to solder one on top of another. Lay the mobo down of course, and you can't use a regular case, but it might help with silent/near-silent cooling of fast processors.

 

[function9]

WTF? Seriously, why would you bother wasting the time, money and materials to do something like that when the results are probably far from guaranteed when you could go buy something like the Ninja or BT, etc. and know you'll be getting good results.

I think this should be an indication of the performance of the 9500 vs the Ninja. Do you know of anyone on any forums that is running the 9500 passively? I can't recall seeing anyone doing it. But I've seen the Ninja run passive on AMD cpus up to a 4600+ and even an overclocked Prescott (Silent PC review I believe did a review of the p180 with a Prescott platform using the Ninja). I have run the Ninja passive on a 4400+ and now a 3200 temps differ about 2C between running it passive and with a fan on there.Or at the very least running a Nexus 120mm fan at 5v-7v, which is a hell of a lot quieter than a Zalman fan.

A lot of people with it say it's the best.

These are probably the same people that think the stock hsf was "pretty good" and chances are they're still running the stock cooler on their video card. :roll:

Don't get me wrong Zalman does make a decent mainstream product (or as mainstream as you can be in after market cooling). But if you want the best there are definitely more capable options.

 

[jonjan]

Do you know of anyone on any forums that is running the 9500 passively? I can't recall seeing anyone doing it. But I've seen the Ninja run passive on AMD cpus up to a 4600+ and even an overclocked Prescott .... I have run the Ninja passive on a 4400+ and now a 3200 temps differ about 2C between running it passive and with a fan on there.

Good point. And you have experience running it passive too.

Hmm, tho the optimal design for a fanless HS, may be different than for a fanned HS. A fanless has wider spaces between fins, and a fan-ed HS has smaller spaces, thus the fanned HS has more fins (for the same amount of room) and more heat dissipation area. (but does the Ninja have more surface area? it sure looks possible. Not 'size' but surface area).
Another point is the 9500's copper fins will transfer heat better than Ninja's aluminum fins.
And on the reverse side, the Ninja has 12 heatpipes rising, while the 9500 has 6.

the xbit review (supposedly) found that the 9500 (at 2400 rpm) had equal cooling to the Ninja (at 1600rpm) (I wish they would have matched them by CFM, or by dB)http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/coolers/display/5-cool_24.html
that's why i wonder if a 120mm on the 9500 might cool better than the ninja.

hmm, what would the CFM be for a 92mm/2400rpm, and a 120mm/1600rpm ?? That seems to be how to see which HSF cooled better, according to that xbit review.

 

[bront]

Someone on here has modded his 9500 with a 120 MM fan, and he was supposed to post details on exactly how to do the conversion, but it didn't look too hard. Also, the 9700 is coming out soon with a stock 120 MM fan.

I love my 9500 personaly. It looks nice, and performs quite well. Can you get better? Probably. Should you worry if you have one already? Not realy.

 

[function9]

Hmm, tho the optimal design for a fanless HS, may be different than for a fanned HS.

Yes. If you look at that pic at the bottom of the page of the link you posted, you will see how much greater the spacing of fins is on the Ninja compared to all the other heatsinks in that picture. That means the Ninja is designed for passive (absolute silence) or low airflow (<25cfm). I realized I could run the Ninja passive on my own. Originally I had a Nexus 120mm mounted on it. I found that there was no difference in temps if I ran the fan at 12v or at 6v. So with it spinning so slow I figured with the exhaust fan about 1.5" behind it, it wouldn't hurt to try it passive. And I was right idle temps are the same, load temp rose 2C.

Another point is the 9500's copper fins will transfer heat better than Ninja's aluminum fins.

Not really. It's more marketing than anything. Design is more important than material. And Zalman has shown this themselves. Look at their 7000/7700 line of coolers. Why is it the all cu versions only cool 1C maybe 2C better than the cu/al versions? Because it's already a sound design, but "all copper" has a nice ring to it and maybe looks a tad nicer and of course they can certainly charge more for them.

Over at SilentPC Review's forums I read a press release from Scythe stating that they redid a couple of the more popular heatsinks (I believe it was the Ninja and the Katana) in all copper. But their own results showed that the gains in cooling we overshadowed by the increase in weight and cost. Because again, those heatsinks were already based on a good design.

Look at Thermalright, why is it the xp-90C (all copper version) is not really popular? Because there's barely any difference between it and the original xp-90.

So no, I don't buy into the "ohhhh, it's all copper!!!!" mentality. Maybe if we were comparing a block of cu and a block of al, then I would probably agree. But aftermarket sinks have come a long way from just being a chunk of metal with a fan slapped on it. Now having all copper certainly can't hurt, but I don't think it's always necessary. Point of diminishing returns?

What do Thermalright and Scythe have in common? They use copper strategically. Copper is a good material for components like the actual base and heatpipes.

the xbit review (supposedly) found that the 9500 (at 2400 rpm) had equal cooling to the Ninja (at 1600rpm)

And like I said, just by looking at the Ninja you can see it's designed for passive or low air flow applications. Meaning it will not only cool as good or better than other sinks, BUT it will do it at a lower noise level. And a 1600rpm 120mm fan is hardly quiet or low air flow, so that's a lot of noise being generated and a lot of useless air being pushed through the Ninja.

Why may I ask you are so insistent on xbitlabs? I wouldn't look to them for heatsink reviews anymore than I would look at THG for them. From what I gather the two leading "authorities" on heatsinks are Madshrimps and SilentPC Review. If I was serious about a heatsink purchase, those are the 2 places I would be looking at first.

Taken from the xbit review on the Ninja:

The temperature seems to have gone down, but the minimum and maximum points have remained the same, only the CPU temperature now less frequently exceeds 60°C. The Scythe Ninja was developed with passive operation in mind; its ribs are placed at a rather wide distance from each other and are blown out well with a single fan. There’s no sense in installing a second fan. The option of fanless (i.e. completely noiseless) cooling is very appealing, but I obviously couldn’t make use of it in my tests, with a 4GHz Prescott processor.

The reviewer says it himself, so why he's using a 1600rpm fan, not to mention trying 2 fans on there is beyond me.

The Ninja isn't supposed to be a cooler that performs well. It was made to perform well at lower noise levels than other heatsinks and it does. Something that the xbitlabs reviews fail to mention I believe (unless I missed it) was noise level testing. Without noise levels being recorded by a knowledgeable reviewer, you're not getting the whole picture. The Ninja is made for people that want a silent or very quiet computing environment. I'll take any good (eg. Nexus, Yate Loon, Globalwin) 120mm fan at <1000rpm over any 92mm or 80mm fan at any speed.

 

[Grimmy]

Someone on here has modded his 9500 with a 120 MM fan, and he was supposed to post details on exactly how to do the conversion, but it didn't look too hard. Also, the 9700 is coming out soon with a stock 120 MM fan.

I love my 9500 personaly. It looks nice, and performs quite well. Can you get better? Probably. Should you worry if you have one already? Not realy.

Yeppers Bront.. I remember it, and found the thread.

The guy who modded his 9500 with 120mm was named "Facey"

Thread with 9500 120mm fan - By Facey - Msg. 11

 

[jonjan]

thank you for the ideas, all

that thread with the 9500/120mm fan mod is great :!: I was planning to just attach the fan with paper clips or something... it's nice to know it can actually be attached to the 9500 like that too. for me, function is first, and appearance is last

Why may I ask you are so insistent on xbitlabs?

I only posted the xbit reviews because those were the only reviews i found comparing the ninja to the 9500.
I don't neccessarily trust the accuracy (or possibly even the intent), but use if for an idea of what *might* be accurate, and compare it to other data, like personal experience from forums that's more likely reliable.

I have a 3.8 2MB 670 that i may OC, and i want to cool it as silently as possible. I think passive cooling would be difficult (without combining/modding HeatSinks to increase the fin area). I had considered experimenting with having 4 heatpipes running into a container of ice water, but would prefer something that doesn't require setting up each day, and doesn't have water near the computer :? .
So a huge efficient HeatSink and a super quiet fan seems my best bet.

I want total silence so I have complete concentration. The computer is for trading and using the majority of the gains to fund peace and education efforts and hope i can be free of the distraction of fan sound.

 

[Grimmy]

Well... ear plugs are optional, I think

but then if its gaming.. headphones will pretty much cut out any fan noise. :lol:

 

[function9]

Or if you have the ability to move the computer to another room and route monitor cables, etc., that would work to

 

[jonjan]

yes, having the puter on the other side of a wall is a Good idea