Korean cases and cooling specialist Zalman Technologies has released the jet-engine inspired Zet5 CPU cooler to retail. According to Korea’s Quasar Zone, this appealingly curvy cooler has been released on its home turf with a special offer. The black model with be marketed at 77,00KRW ($55.60) and the white model for 79.000 KRW ($57.00), with prices expected to rise after August 25. First impressions are that enthusiasts will be paying a premium for the unique design. We expect that those prices include 10% VAT for locals.

We saw the Zalman Zet5 CPU cooler at Computex in May and noted that the new lineup (which included a smaller Zet4 and Zet3) was a complete revamp of the firm’s dated CNPS9000 series of circular tower coolers.

The flagship Zalman Zet5 stood above its brethren with five nickel-plated heatpipes and its range-topping rating, which suggested it would be capable of handling CPUs with up to 200W TDP. As a reminder, the Zet4 is rated to 180W, and the Zet3 for 150W. They all share the same design language, but Zalman prunes back fans/heatpipes for cheaper, lower TDP models.

Shifting focus back to the Zalman Zet5, in particular, and Quasar Zone shares some tasty packaging and unboxing images to give a good idea of the retail experience. It had samples of both the black and white Zet5. In the box, you appear to get a manual, mounting hardware (naturally), a small tube of ZM-STC10 thermal paste, and a promotional pass of some sort.

Korean computer hardware manufacturer Zalman has introduced three new air coolers at Computex 2025 under its ZET lineup. A complete revamp of the company’s dated CNPS9000 series of circular tower coolers, these new models feature plastic shrouds and a design that is inspired by aircraft engine turbines. The company has plans to launch the new ZET5, ZET4, and ZET3, each targeting different TDPs and price ranges.

The flagship ZET5 features five nickel-plated heat pipes running through a circular fin stack and is rated to handle up to 200W TDP. Its two fans attach magnetically to the main body and use a pogo-pin system to connect to the motherboard via a PWM and an ARGB cable. The fans utilize hydro bearings, can reach speeds of up to 2000 RPM, and deliver a maximum airflow of 44.48 CFM. The cooler will be available in black and white variants and include three ARGB lighting rings.

Power, cases, and cooling specialist Zalman has launched a new case with a GPU support supplied as standard. The new Zalman i6 is a mid-tower ATX case, with triple 140mm RGB fans in the front and another 140mm RGB fan at the rear. The case comes in black or white. Another nice design touch is the sizable, hinged glass side window.

Zalman’s new case offers quite a clean design with its simple construction and heavy use of mesh panels (backed by removable filters, as is the bottom). The front is almost all mesh, as is the top, whereas the sides use solid material for the most part, except for some perforations in the base – roughly corresponding to the sectioned-off PSU zone.

According to Zalman’s diagrams, the GPU holder isn’t integrated, but some consideration has been put into being able to fix it firmly to the top of the PSU shroud while allowing for precise adjustments. This support device ‘pinches’ your GPU between upper and lower rubber-faced jaws for what should be a gentle but secure fitting.

We don’t have numbers from Zalman for any max GPU thickness figure for its holder jaws to be able to grasp. It would be a mistake if the jaws didn’t allow for cards up to 4-slots wide in this day and age. The specs reveal that GPUs up to 355mm in length can be fitted, though.

The glass side panel on this case extends from the top to the PSU shroud area and is 3mm thick tempered glass. Zalman has made this PC easy to access and service by adding hinges to the back of this glass panel, and a catch / handle is present towards the front.

On the topic of convenience, you will get this case with four 140mm RGB fans pre-installed, three behind the front mesh, and one exhaust fan. Lots of other cooling options are available – with fan mounts also top and bottom, as well as a multitude of water cooling radiator mounting options.

As a sizable mid-tower ATX case, there are plenty of options for other build choices too. Your choice of E-ATX, ATX, micro ATX, or mini ITX motherboard can be mounted inside. Users have a drive cage for fitting two desktop 3.5-inch models, while there are also mounts for 3x 2.5-inch drives.

Another option afforded by the roomy interior here is to install your GPU vertically, to show off the spinning fans / RGB better. However, Zalman doesn’t include a PCIe riser cable and this choice would make the included GPU support bracket surplus to requirements.

Last but not least, we would like to draw your attention to the front/top panel ports Zalman has furnished its i6 with. It is good to see a USB Type-C there, as well as two type-A ports and an HD Audio connector. Please check out the diagram which illustrates the LED button’s full functionality.

Zalman is selling the i6 in both black and white finishes but at the time of writing, we don’t have details about availability or pricing.

Features and Specifications

Zalman has been a cooling mainstay in the PC building community for decades, offering up a variety of coolers, from sculpted, steampunk-esque copper works of art to benchmark-breaking workhorses with simpler designs. While the CNPS10X Optima II bares the namesake of the same parent company, it pales in comparison to the best Zalman products that came before it.

Zalman CNPS10X Optima II Specifications

Features

Zalman ships the CNPS10X Optima II with the usual assortment of plated fasteners and tension brackets we’re accustomed to, including a universal backplate, PWM to 4-pin/3-pin splitter cable and a packet of ZM-STG2M thermal compound.

While the CNPS10X Optima II is listed as having RGB lighting, it should be noted that there isn’t an included control module or set of interface cabling for either standalone or motherboard-capable management.

As a quad-heatpipe design with a direct contact base, the Zalman CNPS10X Optima II is similar to other coolers of its type. The aluminum fin stack of the cooling tower provides low resistance to airflow produced from the dual-blade design, 120mm hydraulic bearing fan that’s rated up to 61.5 CFM at 1500 RPM.

An elegant shroud encases the top and each side of the Optima II, while also providing self-tapping screw eyelets for fan mounting. Recesses in the top allow for the embedded RGB lighting to emanate through opaque sections of the shield.

As previously mentioned, the CNPS10X Optima II is RGB capable. However, illumination comes equipped as a single factory-set ‘spectrum lighting’ pattern that is powered exclusively by the fan header. In short, this means the RGB effects for the fan is always on, although one could opt to leave the top-shroud lighting module disabled by choosing not to connect the 3-pin (fan type) pigtail for it.

As a direct-contact heatpipe solution, the Zalman CNPS10X Optima II mates the handsome, brushed base of the cooler with the milled heatpipes into the mounting block. The contrast of metals around the cooler base provides an elegant, highly-engineered look, while the shark-fin plastic tabs of the lower cooling shroud (on each side) provide clear indication to the origins of our memory DIMM clearance concerns.

Installation of the mounting brackets requires some PC hardware gymnastics in the form of unscrewing both sides of the mounting base’s fasteners, while not completely removing them. This allows the base plate bracket slack on each side to slip the tension brackets over two alignment tabs on either side, while aligning gaps in the brackets with the fastener screws.

While the alignment tabs do help maintain bracket orientation during the re-torqueing process of the machine screws, there remains a small bit of play in the bracket system, which can require a few attempts at getting this step right. If the brackets are not correctly aligned, securing to the motherboard mounting posts proves a bit daunting.

After the bracket ballet, installation of the Zalman CNPS10X Optima II is relatively straightforward to complete. The self-tapping screws for the fan mounts can require a good bit of force to get started, which also requires some significant pressure (and great care) in order to secure them in place without applying excessive force with your screwdriver inside a PC case.

Our recommendation is to test fit the fan to the cooler prior to installing to allow the fan screws to pre-tap into the shroud first, since the fan cannot be in place when the cooler is initially being mounted to the motherboard. This lessens the amount of lateral force needed to secure the fan’s four mounting screws. But be prepared to still provide support on the cooler’s opposite side. Pro tip: a stubby Phillips-head screwdriver works much better here than those with longer handles.

Clearance was very limited during our installation process and we needed to re-seat the Optima II three times in our attempt to get the cooler shroud low enough on our MSI X99 XPower AC motherboard PWM heatsink to allow the heatpipes to make good contact with the CPU heat spreader. Initially, the shroud was causing the side of the cooler to lift off of the processor while also causing us some alignment issues with the mounting hardware.

A 90-degree turn to orient the heatsink and cooling fan up/down on the Optima II also wasn’t possible as the same clearance issues were also present, but this time, we found installation restricted by our memory DIMMs. Our best course of action was to re-orient the Zalman cooler to its original, vertical (front to back) airflow configuration while being very meticulous in our movements as we anchored it.

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Testing Results and Conclusion

Comparison Products

Benchmarks

Testing was performed on our Intel i7-5930k test bench, overclocked to 4.20 Ghz at 1.20v. We will compare the Zalman CNPS10X Optima II with Arctic Freezer 34 eSports DUO, the Scythe Kotetsu Mk.II TUF and the Cooler Master Hyper 212 RGB Black Edition, as these all represent similar mid-tower heatpipe cooling solutions.

Thermal load testing shows the Zalman CNPS10X Optima II struggled on our overclocked, 6-core high-end desktop CPU. At 50% fan speeds, we witnessed some CPU throttling due to temperatures bouncing up against the processor’s thermal threshold.

Thermal load testing often provides some insight into measured fan RPM. In this instance, the Zalman and Scythe each listed slower fans of the testing group and were outpaced in thermal performance by the higher-RPM fans on each the Arctic Freezer 34 eSports DUO and Cooler Master Hyper 212 RGB Black.

Fan speed often hints that higher RPM fans will generate elevated decibel levels. However, despite having a wide range of speeds across the testing group, we’re seeing a relatively tight grouping of measured decibel readings.

Acoustic efficiency evaluates thermal performance and relative noise measurements to give an insight into how effective a CPU cooler is as it is utilized in equivalent load scenarios. This chart favors a cooling solution that excels in thermal performance, measured acoustics, or both. For our comparison group, we saw very similar decibel readings from all coolers, so individual thermal load performances creates more separation across the board.

Priced at $45, the Zalman CNPS10X Optima II is the most expensive of the testing quartet, but just barely. Measuring the acoustic efficiency value of the CNPS10X Optima II while accounting for retail pricing further skews the performance value chart in the comparison. By contrast, the Arctic Freezer 34 eSports DUO posts strong marks in our chart due to its exceptional thermal load performance, modest noise levels and slightly lower price.

Thermal imaging from our FLIR ONE Pro is very similar between 50% and 100% fan speeds, primarily due to the insulating properties of the plastic shroud around the Zalman CNPS10X Optima II. However, around the perimeter of the cooler we can see slightly lower temperatures on the adjacent hardware and motherboard features at 100% speed as compared to 50%. Also interesting to see is the expansion of the heat bloom on the roof of the chassis above the cooler where the higher fan speeds dispel more thermal load out of the cooler and into the surrounding hardware above and to the rear of the Optima II.

Warranty Oddities and Bottom Line

Moving past performance, one thing of note: We had some difficulty finding actual warranty details around the Zalman CNPS10X Optima II. Zalman’s own website and the included documentation each seemed barren of claim information, until we found what appeared to be the warranty information in Chinese in the boxed product documentation and in downloadable PDF. A quick run-through on Google translation services shows that Zalman provides a 1 year warranty for the cooler, although this is clearly not the most reliable or convenient way to suss out warranty details.

The Zalman CNPS10X Optima II trails behind other solutions in the same price range, and its physical design makes it difficult to recommend compared to some of its peers. Outside of the thermal load performance gap, simple details such as the shroud clearance and RGB lighting limitations are obvious let downs when most solutions adequately account for these technicalities.

The Zalman CNPS10X Optima II does potentially appeal to system builders who wish to follow a color scheme featuring a prominently pearly cooler design and who might be content with factory CPU clock speeds and lower core counts. But those who are performance-driven power users will want to take a closer look at alternatives in the same pricing tier, like Arctic’s Freezer 34.

Image Credits: Tom's Hardware

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Last year Zalman had a small number of new products to show at Computex, with one of them being the impressive holographic 3D fan. This year there weren't any 3D fans, although we heard that they might use something similar on the interiors of their chassis. However, there were tons of new products, from cooling solutions to chassis, and various interesting peripherals. Because there were so many new products in Zalman's suite, we will provide a general overview focusing on the most interesting ones.

Zalman had lots of new CPU coolers that span from budget-oriented models to high-performance products. All of them feature RGB lighting, of course. Zalman also introduced a new fan which uses a unique frame that has a distinctive look.

This is a laptop cooler utilizing the Peltier effect. It is compatible with MacBooks, but any laptop featuring a metallic chassis could fully exploit the cooling capabilities of this product.

Zalman also had plenty of liquid cooling solutions. The Reserator 5 series is compatible with all popular sockets from AMD and Intel and it uses a water pump with dual blades to boost performance. There is also a press regulator on the radiator that prevents leakage by keeping the internal pressure of the liquid cooling system under control.

We saw a lot of new chassis, with the most interesting being the Z-Machine 300 and its full aluminum body. This is a mini-ITX case that supports up to 310mm long VGAs and CPU coolers with up to 72mm height. It looks impressive, despite its compact dimensions, thanks to the extraordinary workmanship. It will be quite expensive though, with its price not being finalized yet (you should expect more than 250 bucks).

The Z-Machine 500 also looks interesting, but its small brother managed to impress us more.

This is a mini GPU accelerator. Because of its tiny dimensions, only small VGAs can be used.

Zalman plans on releasing a large number of power supply offerings, covering all market categories, from mainstream to high-end. All PSUs will be made by Enhance Electronics, which is a good PSU manufacturer (not among the best though).

Zalman faced lots of financial problems over the last three years, which is why it hasn't released anything new for a while. We spoke with Zalman's marketing director and CEO during Computex 2018, though, and both said the company is preparing to make a comeback. They said Zalman is looking for new product ideas across many categories because it wants to offer something different from what's available today.

One thing that caught our attention in Zalman's suite at the Hyatt was a holographic 3D fan that belonged to a startup the company recently acquired. Contrary to similar products we've seen in the past, this one offers high quality images and videos, with impressive results. And, of course, the system also cools you down at the same time! You can also use multiple fans at once to display larger and more complex media.

You can see the fan in action in the video below.

Features & Specifications

When it comes to closed-loop liquid cooling, enthusiasts and system builders have an ample selection. The appeal stems from sleek lines, simple installation, no-touch maintenance, and a decent warranty, beseeching anyone wishing to liquid cool without venturing into the depths of custom water cooling. We continue to help you sort through this plethora of choices by putting EVGA's offering on the test bench.

EVGA has primarily been known for premier performance PC hardware—graphics cards, motherboards, and power supplies; but also more recently closed-loop liquid cooling for both GPUs and CPUs. 

The EVGA 240 Closed Loop CPU Cooler employs dual, 2400 RPM (max) 120mm sleek fans with a concave face and gently rounded edges pre-mounted in ‘push’ configuration to the 2x120mm (240) aluminum radiator. The radiator is satin black and provides moderate fin folds per inch (FPI) for optimal heat transfer between the lateral tubes and the surrounding ambient air.

Fans can be driven via PWM motherboard headers, fan controller, or linked directly to the EVGA pump fan tail to be controlled via the pump unit itself.

Specifications

The pump unit is an attractive, glossy centerpiece with RGB lighting and the EVGA logo as the highlight of the customization. Pump control and lighting configurations can be adjusted via the included USB-to-motherboard header cable using the available EVGA CLC control software, however it is only referenced via printed link within the installation manual.

With the EVGA Flow Control software, you have the ability to control both fan and pump curves based on CPU thermal load, and you can set RGB lighting profiles for the EVGA pump logo, but the pump unit lacks an RGB header to extend control any further. The Flow Control software also provides useful information like pump and fan RPM, as well as coolant and CPU temperatures in real-time, functioning as several monitoring solutions at once. For those familiar with the EVGA Precision software for graphics cards, the layout and UI of the EVGA Flow Control is nearly identical, and likewise, can be set to load at startup.

The surface mount of the pump is a circular, copper base with very fine concentric milling and secured with recessed screws. The mounting system includes appropriate brackets for Intel or AMD CPUs. A ring with internal tooth-shaped hooks fits grooves on the underside of the pump in a twist-locking fashion. While the accompanying photo does not show it, the EVGA 240 CLC comes boxed with manufacturer-applied thermal compound, though it seemed chalky and dry. We removed this for testing, as all of our cooler tests are performed using Arctic MX-4 thermal compound.

The tubing connecting the pump to the radiator is semi-rigid and sleeved in satin black nylon braiding. The connections at the pump do allow some twisting orientation during mounting and radiator positioning, but the tubing fittings at the radiator are fixed. While this allows for ease of setup and positioning, we would recommend not rotating the fittings any more than needed.

Given that the EVGA 240 CLC utilizes a very common 2x120mm radiator size, it should fit most standard, dual 120mm case fan mounts. For our testing, the EVGA 240 CLC is configured in the top of our standard testing system with the fans set to exhaust out the top panel. Since the fans were factory installed in a push configuration—that is, forcing air through the radiator—we simply need to mount the radiator in the top of the case without any modification.

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Testing Results & Conclusion

We use CPU cooler test data from previous reviews to provide standardized results for comparison. For this review, we will be evaluating the EVGA 240 CLC against the Zalman Reserator 3 Max Dual, the Gamer Storm Captain 240, and the Arctic Liquid Freezer 240, because each cooler makes use of a 2x120mm heat exchanger.

As previously mentioned, our setup of the EVGA 240 CLC is expelling warm air generated by our 4.2 GHz Intel i7-5930K CPU through the top vent of the Corsair Graphite 760T case. The EVGA 120mm fans are factory configured as push, while also providing the most appealing look for the cooler.

Comparison Products

Test Results

The standard CPU load test yields some very solid results for the EVGA 240 CLC. Reported load temps show a difference of 11°C or greater for both 100% and 50% fan speeds compared to others in the group. Although the EVGA cooler uses the highest fan speeds of the test group to produce the lowest temperatures, interestingly enough, the Arctic Liquid Freezer 240, which has the second lowest temperatures, has the slowest fan speeds at just over 1400 RPM. It would appear that these two coolers utilize different approaches in fan and radiator efficiency to achieve their goals.

And speaking of those EVGA 2400 RPM fans, they do produce a significant amount of noise while running at full tilt, although not quite to the degree we experienced from the Gamer Storm Captain 240. Decibel readings on the EVGA 240 CLC at full and half speeds are in the range of what you would expect, although not to the whisper levels achieved by the Arctic Liquid Freezer 240.

The EVGA 240 CLC turns out very good cooling results, allowing the cooler a respectable, all-around acoustic efficiency rating, but it still lags behind the Arctic Liquid Freezer 240. The thermal test results of the EVGA 240 CLC just weren’t enough to overcome the superb acoustic levels of the Arctic Liquid Freezer 240 when both of these tests are evaluated together.

Seeing how much of an impact the fans made both from a cooling and sound value perspective leads us to an interesting evaluation when we now factor in cooler retail price. The EVGA 240 CLC falls behind the Arctic Liquid Freezer 240 in this category; the latter shows a commanding spread over all coolers in the test group. In the end, the EVGA’s noise levels and slightly higher pricing weren't outweighed by its solid thermal performance.

Given that the EVGA 240 CLC offers very minimal difference in acoustic value (2.5dB) between full and half speeds, there is little reason not to run the fans at full speed and take advantage of the +20% cooling difference. The available EVGA software suite does provide the ability to wrangle those noisy fans, though, as setting custom fan curves could easily keep the system running quietly until high performance is absolutely needed. This can be easily customized from the desktop UI, whereas the other coolers in the comparison can only be controlled via BIOS or other third party PWM controllers. The EVGA Flow Control Software alone provides substantial value: you get the ability to quantify the performance of the EVGA 240 CLC in the way that best suits your needs with a simple click of a mouse.

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Introduction & Specifications

Bloody is the key brand of A4tech, a Taiwan-based peripherals manufacturer seeking to innovate in the gaming market with mechanical keyboards based on optical switch technology called “Light Strike” (LK Optic 1). It’s these Light Strike switches that are the main unique selling point of these keyboards.

Although optical switches aren’t new (Burroughs used them all the way back in the 1980s) their resurgence with these keyboards are an interesting re-introduction of the optical keyboard switch. Although quite simple in construction (an infrared LED and photoresistor separated by a movable view blocker between the two), such a type of switch offers several inherent advantages.

Specifications

The Bloody B188 is one of the lowest-priced models in the company’s extensive keyboard range. This budget version is a stripped-down model with limited three-color backlighting, and crucially, Bloody’s proprietary optical Light Strike switches on just eight keys (QWERASDF). The rest of the keyboard has rubber domes (non-mechanical). The idea behind this is obviously that gamers who don’t care too much about all the bells and whistles can still enjoy the technology where it benefits them most - around the WASD cluster.

Unfortunately, in a bid to appeal to the (nowadays highly lucrative) gamer market, Bloody has gone rather over-the-top with its advertisement of its products, using aggressive marketing buzzwords and misleading, unsubstantiated, or even outright false claims. We have discussed these issues extensively with Bloody, but even so, not all our questions could be answered, and some answers were conflictive or demonstrably untrue.

This is unfortunate, especially because the Light Strike technology is actually quite appealing and has several key benefits, which are being mis-advertised by overly aggressive marketing.

Aside from the Light Strike switches, the B188 also includes a gaming lock; the aforementioned three-color backlighting; and textured, high-grip QWERASDF keycaps - all of which to appeal to the gamer market. Media shortcuts are also available, and there’s an included ring keycap puller. It also has rubber-coated feet to prevent the keyboard from slipping.

The Bloody B188 comes in an ISO international layout, which is a hybrid between the U.S. and UK layouts.

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Debunking Switch Claims

The eight Light Strike switches on the B188 are the heart of its appeal, and they’re what the product page and box advertising focuses on most of all. In contrast to most contact-based keyboard switch designs out there, such as Cherry, Gateron, Greetech, Kailh, and so on, Bloody’s Light Strike keyboards use contactless switches. This means that the switch parts don’t have to come into contact with each other, unlike Cherry MX and similar switches where the slider pushes against a set of movable contacts. The upshot here is that the elimination of this rubbing motion can make for a switch that gives a much smoother keyfeel.

Optical switches are also much more durable than contact-based switches. Whereas Cherry MX and other contact-based switches claim a lifetime of 20-50 million keystrokes per key, the Light Strike switches are tested to 100 million keystrokes. Although we suspect the lifetime of optical switches could probably be significantly in excess of that, Bloody was not able to answer which part fails first, or what the prospects of the switches were after 100 million presses.

The most advertised feature of these switches, however, is the “world’s fastest key response” which “can never be surpassed.” According to Bloody’s product page, there are two factors behind this: a fast (0.2ms) key response, and a high actuation point of 1.5mm.

Bloody shows a pretty graph of a keypress on the Light Strike switches versus that of a “traditional metal” keyswitch, with the former showing a smooth transition lasting 0.2ms (although the graph axes are missing) while the latter is showing massive signal spiking over what Bloody claimed to be an 18-30ms interval. This is caused by so-called “contact bounce” which is basically a short period where the contacts rapidly open and close — a well-established and known phenomenon in metal contact switches.

If a switch “bounces” for 30ms, you’d need at least an equal amount of time for the keyboard to stop registering keypresses after the initial event (called “debouncing”), or the keyboard would start to output keypresses like crazy. Because the Light Strike switches register after just 0.2ms, there is “zero input lag,” which makes the switch 30ms faster than other switches - or so Bloody says. Moreover, the higher actuation point (1.5mm compared to 2.2mm on “traditional metal switches”) means the switches actuate some 30-odd percent earlier through the keypress.

There are several problems with these claims. The most glaring one is that the benchmark of 18-30ms contact bounce is absolutely unheard of in any metal contact switch on the market, now or in the past. Cherry MX and other designs specify a bounce time of <5ms, which has been the standard debouncing period used on keyboards for decades. If a switch that bounced for 30ms was present in any such keyboard, it would register five or six times for each individual keypress (a phenomenon known as “chattering”). Obviously this makes no sense at all.

Moreover, Bloody was not able to answer the question of which competitor’s switch was used for benchmarking, nor what procedure was used for this testing, how many switches were tested to obtain this graph, how consistent these results were, and whether the data shown was an average or a single keypress. Furthermore, upon closer inspection, it’s obvious that the “traditional metal” graph is not a keypress, is of an extremely unusual design, or has gone through data manipulation, as the switch goes from open to closed rather than the other way around.

The notion that shallower actuation depth delivers faster response time also suffers from a number of flaws. First of all, the benchmark 2.2mm of the traditional switches does not correspond to that of most current linear switches such as Cherry MX, Gateron, or Kailh (which are 2.0mm), which means the actual actuation difference is considerably less than what is advertised. Again, Bloody could not provide us with what switch this was benchmarked against.

Second, although Bloody implied this alleged speed increase is due to the optical action of the Light Strike switch, it’s not - it’s simply due to the placement of the actuator and has nothing to do with the mode of operation. For example, Cherry recently brought out its MX Speed Silver switches, which have an actuation distance of only 1.2mm, and with some tooling readjustments, it would be trivial for Cherry to make a switch that actuates far earlier than that.

The disappointment here is that this sort of marketing detracts from what is actually an interesting and beneficial switch design. According to Bloody, the keyboard’s effectively analog action does not warrant the implementation of a debouncing delay (a minor revolution in keyboard innovation by itself), which, coupled with the high polling rate of 1,000Hz, does mean that the keyboard would actually register quicker than contact-based keyboards.

The difference would be significantly smaller than Bloody has suggested, and it’s debatable whether you could even detect the difference in practice, but it’s a difference nonetheless - and a difference some gamers who want nothing but the fastest possible technology available might want to pay for. Although 1.5mm is not a particularly high actuation point, especially for a “fast response” switch, a higher actuation point does theoretically increase key response - again, if only minimally. The extreme durability of the switches is glossed over so much that it appears Bloody didn’t bother to test beyond 100 million keystrokes to see how far its switches could really go. Finally, regarding the potential smoothness of the keyfeel (which is actually rather nice, we might add), there is not a single word.

It should be noted that although the inclusion of only eight optical switches in a 101-key keyboard does reduce the price, you’ll be limited by your choice of control scheme if you want to reap the benefits of the optical switches. As the other switches are simple rubber domes, the vast majority of the keyboard isn’t even mechanical.

Not only is this not what most people would buy a mechanical keyboard for, many people might find having linear switches on a few keys, and tactile switches for the others, quite distracting. Further, the advantage of the abnormally long switch lifetime of the eight optical switches is also meaningless if the majority of the board will wear out in just a fraction of that time. Worse, the product description is sufficiently vague that many potential buyers won’t clue on to the fact that only eight of the switches are optical, and there is no mention at all of the rest of the board being based on rubber domes. (Bloody does sell keyboards in which all keys are LK Optic switches, however.)

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Lighting & Key Caps

Lighting

The B188 comes with “neon glare” backlighting, which is a fancy term for a simple system. The backlighting is either green, blue, cyan, or off. There are no patterns or customization other than brightness, although the keyboard will start to cycle between the colors when it hasn’t been used in a while.

Moreover, because the lighting is not based on LEDs integrated into switches, but on a lit membrane shining through a translucent top plate, there is considerable light bleed around the edges. The stems of the rubber dome caps also don’t lend themselves to even lighting through the caps, so the legends don’t appear smoothly lit. The optical switches, however, feature integrated LEDs and much smoother lighting.

Obviously a product of the cost cuts necessary to bring the price of the keyboard down, the lighting is limited enough in its execution that it would seem suitable only for people who don’t care for backlighting at all. However, even those people will probably find themselves having to use the backlighting anyway, as the keycaps’ lettering is made from completely transparent plastic rather than the semi-translucent or silver-coated lettering keycaps generally used by other manufacturers such as Logitech, Corsair, and Cooler Master. As a result, it’s much harder to see the legends when the backlight is off than it is on many other manufacturers’ keyboards.

It should be noted that although the lighting on the majority of the board can be set to green, blue or cyan, the QWERASDF cluster can only be lit in blue.

Key Caps

The keycaps on the board are doubleshot injection-mouded ABS, meaning that the lettering is of the highest quality you can expect in a keycap. In contrast to the much more common laser-ablated lettering present on backlit keyboards, the lettering is much more durable, and virtually impossible to wear off - certainly a welcome feature on a keyboard with switches purported to last as long as these. Another advantage is that this enables the use of more textured keytops, as laser-ablated keycaps tend to have extremely smooth keytops that promote slipping, and on which fingerprints stick out like a sore thumb.

The special gaming keycaps included on the QWERASDF cluster are thick; at approximately 1.4mm, they are nearly as thick as Cherry’s (now GMK’s) old 1.5mm doubleshots. You’ll rarely find such as occurrence these days. Bloody’s keycaps are made of a soft, gel-like material (which the company advertises as “silicone”, although we’ve confirmed that they’re actually ABS with TPU, which are non-siliceous materials).

The material, in any case, is relatively grippy compared to harder plastics like ABS and PBT, and they have a hexagonal pattern that further enhances grip. The lettering is not fully translucent like it is on the other keycaps, and lighting appears much more evenly through them. Interestingly, the “gaming” keycaps are advertised as being convex, even though they’re not; only the bottom row is convex, and furthermore, the application of convexity for gaming purposes is not clear.

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Teardown

We found that tearing down the bloody B188 was remarkably easy compared to many other keyboards (such as those from Corsair, Logitech, and Zalman). You simply remove the fourteen screws at the back as well as the extra one under the model sticker (which detaches and reattaches with no damage, smudging or loss of stickiness), and you’re in.

Inside, there’s a simple two-part case construction and several layers of membranes, topped by discrete rubber domes. There are two small PCBs; one is for the controllers and lock lights, and the other is for the LK Optic switches and is screwed into a hole in the membranes. As there is barely any solderwork present on the keyboard, it’s hard to comment on its quality, but we noticed no obvious imperfections.

The B188 is marketed as being water resistant due to being “double secured” - the membranes are sealed and there are water drainage holes - but the case is not sealed, and the controller and the PCB that mounts the optic switches do seem to be completely unprotected, so it’s unclear as to how these could survive in an aqueous medium. There are also no drainage channels that guide the water towards the holes, which in fact are raised out of the bottom case, so it appears most unlikely these will effectively clear out water.

The water-resistant feature should therefore be regarded with some suspicion. It should be noted that theoretically, optical switches should be more water-resistant than contact-based switches, although Bloody did not mentioned anything along those lines in the product description.

The flip-out feet (which are mounted sideways rather than vertically) are rubber-shod to aid with stability. It’s a nice feature that helps prevent the keyboard from slipping. However, the rubber used is rather hard, and after just a week or so of use, one of the feet on ours had partially crumbled.

As you can guess from the B188’s low weight for a fullsize keyboard (under one kilogram), there are no metal plates present in the keyboard, and very little in the way of added rigidity or structural integrity. At 2.5mm thickness, the plastic of the case is not the thinnest out there. Neither the strong flexing the keyboard displays when you twist it nor the all-plastic construction inspire much confidence in the build quality.

The B188 also features a “screw enhanced” spacebar, which is a feature we’d never heard of before. When we inquired about its purpose, Bloody responded that it was used for anti-knocking resistance purposes, which honestly didn’t help me much. After the teardown, it became clear that this boils down to the spring holders being screws rather than loose pegs, as is common on other spacebar designs. Regardless, it’s unclear to us how this design is beneficial.

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Benchmark Results & Final Analysis

Key Rollover

As optical switches don’t suffer from the issues that give contact-based switches their limited rollover, the all-optical keyboards from Bloody’s catalog possess NKRO. However, being mostly rubber dome-based, the B188 is not. Bloody claimed that the B188 has 13KRO, but upon testing, it’s clear that this is not the case at all. Unsurprisingly, as the keyboard remains overwhelmingly membrane-based, the B188 has just 2KRO.

Audio

Being for the most part a simple rubber dome keyboard with a plastic case, the sound generally doesn’t differ much from a bog-standard office keyboard. The Light Strike switches, however, have a much more mechanical sound. Probably as a result of the thick, soft keycaps, and contact-less key action, the typing sound is relatively full and, in our opinion, appealing.

Switch Testing

The charts below represent testing performed on the switches that are mounted on this keyboard. For a primer on the what, how, and why of this testing, read our explainer on how we test mechanical keyboard switches.

The lines on the charts are force curves showing the characteristics of the key travel, the distance and rebound of the key travel, the force required to depress the key, and the rebound force applied by the spring to reset the switch.

The squiggly line is the press, and the smoother line below it is the rebound.

The dotted gray lines show a given switch specification as provided by the switch manufacturer - they’re not a measurement, merely a reference. For the metrics we can measure, they’re present to show how closely the switch performance matches the manufacturer spec. Some specifications we cannot measure, but we’ve shown them here so you can see what they’re supposed to be, at least.

Usually, we break out our switch testing data into multiple charts to show different subsets of the data. However, in the case of the Bloody B188-8 Light Strike, there are only eight optical mechanical switches total on this keyboard. The rest are all membranes.

Thus, we really need only one chart, and it tells the tale of the LK Optic 1 switches well on its own. Here it is:

The first and most obvious thing you can see is that one ugly outlier that mars an otherwise nearly perfectly aligned set of switches. It’s the E key, for what it’s worth. The force starts dancing around the 2.3mm mark, reaches the end of its travel far too early compared to the other switches (~0.4mm too early), and then eventually settles back down partway through the rebound.

In addition to the fact that the force curve of the E key goes a little haywire, its rebound curve is different, too. Notice that although this is a linear switch, there’s a little bump right at the beginning of the rebound (~10gf) and one at the very end of it (~3gf). The wayward E key is missing that first bump entirely. You probably wouldn’t ever feel it because it is, after all, on the rebound, but the inconsistency is notable.

Otherwise, the Bloody LK Optic 1 shows a completely linear switch. The line from when the switch engages until it bottoms out is nearly straight as an arrow.

Furthermore, the delta between the initial operating force and the bottom out force is just approximately 25gf (~30-55gf). In other words, this is a fairly light switch with not much happening throughout the travel.

One particular oddity is that the stated actuation force of the LK Optic 1 switch is miles off. It’s listed as 60gf, but assuming the switch actuates where it’s supposed to, at 1.5mm, the actual actuation force is ~42gf. That means the manufacturer spec is off by a whopping 18gf. The switch doesn’t even get to 60gf before it bottoms out - we have that metric measured at approximately 55gf.

This falls right in line with the other bizarre claims Bloody has made about the B188-8 (which we discussed earlier in this article). The company made an inaccurate or misleading claim that masked something that isn’t bad at all - in this case, it’s the fact that these switches are quite light.

A sample size of eight switches is a little small to draw definitive conclusions about the consistency of Bloody’s LK Optic 1 switches, but going by the little data we have on the B188-8, it appears that they’re almost perfectly consistent, but with an occasional ugly outlier.

Final Analysis

A good idea ruined by bad execution and flat-out ridiculous marketing, the B188 is a hard keyboard to love. Although cheap compared to Bloody’s more expensive all-mechanical alternatives, the inclusion of just eight optical switches means little to no flexibility with regard to key binding, an inconsistent keyfeel between the linear optical switches and tactile rubber domes, and massively reduced lifetime as the overall durability will be limited to the lifetime of the rubber domes rather than that of the optical switches. Moreover, the backlighting is too limited and cheap to look appealing, yet it’s necessary because otherwise the legends are illegible.

Moreover, the advertising is not just clearly untrue, but completely misses the point of the many virtues which the Light Strike switches do actually possess. Rather than citing clearly unrepresentative or false test results and droning on about extreme speeds this and screw-enhanced that, Bloody could have focused on the switches’ smooth keyfeel, consistent action, lack of contact bounce, immunity to key chattering, high resistance and extreme durability.

Bloody isn’t the only one thinking outside the box, with competing “Flaretech” optical switches in development by Adomax and more recently Gateron and Tesoro, and Hall effect switches being developed by Ace Pad Tech, both of which have teams behind them who understand the true virtues of their switches all too well.

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Features & Specifications

The ZM-K900M replaces the ZM-K700M (which we reviewed earlier) as Zalman’s flagship keyboard. Adding in more lighting options and switch choices, the K900M expands on the market that the K700M targeted. The keyboard is still obviously aimed at gamers, with flashy visuals and gamer-typical marketing features such as n-key rollover (NKRO) and a high polling rate, but the addition of clicky (Blue) and tactile (Brown) options may actually please gamers disappointed at the Cherry MX Red-only K700M.

Although in many ways the same, the K900M also includes some small (and big) changes, including a case redesign. The relatively restrained look of the K700M had been replaced by a more aggressive-looking, gamer-oriented design. The suggested retail price ($100) is actually lower than that of the K700M ($139).

Specifications

Being Zalman’s flagship keyboard, a fair amount of extra features are present. Apart from fairly standard options such as media shortcuts, shortcuts to applications and websites (including, somewhat strangely, Zalman’s own website), volume controls, and a gaming lock, the K900M also features an adjustable repeat rate, a PS/2 option (via the included adapter), and eight programmable macro keys. These macro keys offer several customization options such as an adjustable output rate (so keys can be reproduced at the same speed as entered or faster), and even the option to include right and left mouse buttons and the clickwheel into the macros.

Note that there are no separate buttons for any of these features; all are present on a function layer over the keyboard’s normal keys, shown as tertiary legends.

As we found with the K700M, the manual included with the keyboard is useful for discovering all the features (and mandatory for understanding all the sub-legends), but, again, several features (in this case the email, media player, and calculator shortcut buttons) never worked.

An old-fashioned, but very useful feature is the inclusion of a cable gutter that can lock the cable in one of five positions. This means that the lead will be much less in the way and will not flop around as much. On a personal note; I wish more manufacturers would re-introduce this feature on their keyboards.

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Switches, Lighting & Key Caps

Switches

One of the more radical changes between the K700M and the K900M is the switch lineup; whereas the K700M is available only with Cherry MX Red switches, the K900M comes with Kailh switches in four varieties: Black, Brown, Blue, and Red. The model we have to test is the one with Blue switches.

Kailh switches, which serve as the basis on which Razer’s own brand of switch were designed, have gathered an enthusiastic following in the community. Although some have expressed concerns with regards to Kaihua’s (the manufacturer) quality control, many users feel their switches stand up well to Cherry’s, the current industry standard. Kailh Blue switches are similar to Cherry MX Blue, with comparable characteristics such as identical operating forces, lifetime, and keytravel, but commercially, they cost less. Zalman’s reasoning behind this is that for gamers, upgrading computer components are probably a higher priority than an expensive mechanical keyboard.

The keyboard uses Cherry-type stabilizers, which are effective at preventing binding through off-center keypresses. You can press any key even at the very edges, and it will go down smoothly, without becoming significantly stiffer.

The switches are also plate-mounted, which means they’re less vulnerable to sustaining damage by sideways knocks on the keyboard. The plate mounting additionally gives a slightly firmer keyfeel than PCB-mounted switches would; PCB-mounted switches tend to give in a bit as you press keys down.

Lighting

The K900M comes with true RGB lighting with millions of vibrant colors. The result is instantly noticeable; color changes are smooth and natural. There are also a wide variety of patterns - 13 patterns based on the backlighting, 6 patterns based on which keys you press, and another 10 based on gaming layouts.

The backlighting patterns include light wave, blocks of keys lighting up, a two-side wave, random waves, random ripples, fireworks, some disco explosion thing, pulsating centres, breathing, a vertical bar wave, and the default rainbow flow.

Key press patterns include single keys, single keys except the light stays on for much longer, single keys plus the surrounding ones, single keys plus additional ones on the same row, and single ones plus a random line through it (which looks a little bit like arc lightning).

The gaming layouts are for Counterstrike, FPS, LOL, DOTA 2, StarCraft II, MMO, MOBA, RTS, FIFA Online, and Sudden Attack. These patterns are fully customisable, and you can pick which keys light up in what color. Customized patterns can be saved to four different user profiles. There is even a K-mask mode that allows you to disable all the keys that aren’t lit. Finally, there is a Speed Meter (misspelled as “Speed Mater” on the keycap) mode that keeps track of how rapid your keypresses are, and expresses it as one of three patterns.

An interesting feature is that the lighting options are customizable on-the-fly using only the keyboard; there is no downloadable software to do this with. Keycaps have additional tertiary legends to show these functions, and when picking colors, you can choose from a palette shown on the alpha keys; you can cycle through four different palettes in this mode with the spacebar.

Some users may find the lack of dedicated software for this a hindrance, and the lack of an analog slider means you can’t set absolutely every shade of every color you could possibly imagine. Plus, with all the tertiary legends for the lighting options and those for the macro keys, the board as a whole looks incredibly complicated at first sight. However, I found that with the manual in hand, customization was straightforward and easy, and from my personal perspective, I really appreciate not having to use software for the lighting or the macros.

Key Caps

The keycaps are made out of translucent ABS, painted black, with laser-ablated legends. The tertiary legends for the macros and backlighting are actually black lettering on a white oval on the keycaps, so there is both black and white lettering at the same time. The caps are fairly thick (1.25 mm), but lasered lettering on other keycaps have been known to wear off with several years of service. (We obviously didn’t have several years to test this model out, though.)

As we noted before in our K700M review, the lighting isn’t completely even throughout the keycaps because of the orientation of the LED. The problem that lit the numpad enter key unevenly is now fixed, but the secondary and tertiary legends are all lit more dimly than the primary legends. That said, this makes the primary letters stand out more, and some would argue that this is actually a feature.

The keycaps use a relatively restrained font, compared to many competitors such as the Razer BlackWidow series or some newer Corsair keyboards like the K70 LUX that use a more sci-fi computer-like font, the lettering on the K900M seems slightly straight-edged, but not over-the-top. One strange feature: The spacebar actually says "Zalman."

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Teardown

Weighing in at 1.25 kg, the ZM-K900M isn’t the heaviest board out there, but it’s not the lightest, either. Disassembly is far from a doddle, though. After taking out nine screws from the back (one through the warranty sticker), the top case rim needs to be peeled off with a flathead screwdriver. That still doesn’t make it let go, however--there are two inaccessible clips hidden beneath logo badge. Carefully as I tried — and I tried for a long time — I couldn’t open the case without one of these snapping off. After this, the guts of the keyboard are exposed. Unscrew the mounting plate from the bottom case, and then unplug the cable from the PCB (it is held tightly onto the bottom case by an unscrewable, plastic blocker) to free it from the case.

The soldering on the PCB is neat, and I could spot no flaws on it, despite the enormous amount of components soldered onto the board (there are LEDs, diodes, resistors, controllers, and switch pins absolutely everywhere). Conveniently, the soldering belonging to each key is clearly box-marked, and it even says what each key is. For a keyboard that discourages its users from disassembling it by putting one of the screws below the warranty sticker and including two inaccessible clips, it is remarkably user-friendly with regard to the soldering.

The vast majority of the structural strength of the keyboard comes from the thickness of the steel mounting plate, which at approximately 1.44mm is pretty thick, and the PCB is held tightly and securely to it--even beyond just the soldering, as there are another seven screws holding the PCB and mounting plate together. The outer case, conversely, is thin and feels flimsy, weighing at less than 300g altogether. The cable, which is braided, is fairly long (1.7 m), and although not extremely thick, feels tough and dependable.

Compared to the two-piece flip-out feet on the ZM-K700M we reviewed earlier, the K900M comes with simple, one-piece Key Tronic-style feet. Like with its lower-priced brother, the feet are rubber-shod to prevent the keyboard from sliding around, and indeed it is very stable on a desk, barely moving around at all.

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Benchmark Results & Final Analysis

Audio Testing

Being outfitted with Kailh Blue switches, the K900M has a loud click with a plasticy quality to it typical of most Cherry MX Blue-like switches. Although the chassis is closed, the sound is still pretty loud, and a high-pitched ping noise is present on most of the keys, presumably resulting from the metal mounting plate. This sound is only barely audible over the loudness of the switch click unless you’re paying attention to it, however. An example of the typing sound is included in the video above.

Switch Testing

The charts below represent testing performed on the switches that are mounted on this keyboard. For a primer on the what, how, and why of this testing, read our How We Test Mechanical Keyboards reference article.

The lines on the charts are force curves showing the characteristics of the key travel, the distance and rebound of the key travel, the force required to depress the key, and the rebound force applied by the spring to reset the switch.

The squiggly line is the press, and the smoother line below it is the rebound.

The dotted gray lines show a given switch specification as provided by the switch manufacturer. They’re not a measurement; they’re merely a reference. For the metrics we can measure, they’re present to show how closely the switch performance matches the manufacturer spec. Some specifications we cannot measure, but we’ve shown them here so you can see what they’re supposed to be, at least.

The force curve above shows the median of all the switches on this keyboard (red line). Bear in mind that the median curve is drawn from all switches on this keyboard, including any outliers.

The black line is the force curve of a single switch on this keyboard, chosen at random. The graph gives an indication of the kind of keyfeel you can expect from the keyboard.

Note that if you remove the tactile bump from the equation, these Kailh Blue switches offer a straightforward key press. You could draw a straight line from the beginning of the tactile bump to the end of it.

Further, if you imagine that straight line running underneath the tactile bump, you can see that the bump requires only about 15gf ( from ~45-60gf) that a linear press would. It’s also interesting to see that the median bottom-out force is 64gf, which is just a smidge higher than the 60gf it takes to get past the tactile bump. That makes for a nice, consistent key press.

The hysteresis of these Kailh Blue switches is intriguing. Although technically the reset point is 0.5mm on the wrong side of the actuation point, it happens right at the tactile bump. Therefore, although there’s 0.5mm hysteresis, if you (like almost all users would) rely on the tactile bump to tell you when you can press a key again, you’ll hardly detect it. However, because the actuation point is 0.5mm past the tactile bump, you will have just a bit of pressing to do before you actuate the switch again.

The median line is rather perfect; it both lines up beautifully with the manufacturer specs. However, when you look at the range, you can see that there are some issues cropping up. The minimum line looks great--it’s no more than 5gf under the median--the maximum end of the range shows that at least one switch required a great deal more force throughout the second half of the travel.

Indeed, when you look at all the standard switches as a whole, there are numerous keys that are above the median force line. Some are farther off than others.

The switch tolerances are tight until the tactile bump, although even there and through until the actuation point they remain no more than about 5gf off for the most part. Towards the bottom of their travels, though, they show some issues. The force is high for some, and some switches complete their travel beyond 4mm.

There are a number of outliers on the Zalman ZM-900M.

A few switches show a longer-than-most travel. The specification is 4mm with a tolerance of 0.4mm, and the Escape, F8, and 5 keys are a little too close for comfort, at over 4.1mm travel each. A few keys have a somewhat too shallow travel; L, X, N, M, NumLock, NumMult, and NumSub all finish their travel at ~3.8-3.9mm instead of 4mm.

The other outliers pertain to extra force required after the actuation point. The D key sticks out the most; it spikes up to ~80gf at the end of its travel, which is 15gf off of the median. Its partners in outlier crime include the NumDel and ArrowRight keys. Several other keys are ~5-10gf off of the median, which isn’t terrible, but it is notable.

As expected, the stabilized keys have force curves that are quite off of the median. Note that, as is often the case, they all have a shallower travel than the median of the standard keys. The Spacebar is the furthest off with a travel of just over 3.5mm.

Most of the stabilized keys are right on the median until the tactile bump, with a couple of exceptions, but what’s most notable here is that none are particular outliers. That is, they’re fairly consistent with one another, and none are more than 10gf off of the median at any given point in their travel (save, of course, for the end of the travel).

Final Analysis

Overall, the Zalman ZM-K900M is a much flashier successor to the ZM-K700M, but it comes with more features, in more switch varieties, and retails at a considerably lower price than its predecessor.

Some will love the fact that all macros and backlighting patterns can be customized on-board and without the need for external software, although others might prefer software for customization and configuration. Note, especially, that you can’t assign new functions to every single key, as you often can on keyboards that come with robust software. Regardless, with NKRO, full RGB backlighting in a wide variety of customizable patterns, fairly solid build quality, macro capabilities, and several other useful features, the K900M is even more kitted-out than some of its (more expensive) competitors.

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Zalman outed a new version of its ZM-K900M keyboard. It’s identical to the previous ZM-K900M (save for the switches) but now comes in white. We first saw different color options for the ZM-K900M at Computex last summer; there was the familiar black one, but also white, blue, and yellow.

At the time, it seems Zalman was just testing the waters on the colors, but it’s apparently decided that the white model will appeal to users. This makes sense: people love to match their peripherals with their systems, and though the pale blue and (almost) canary yellow look cool, those are not exactly common colors you’ll find on cases, lighting, and coolant.

And so, white it is.

One difference is that the black version of the ZM-K900M offers only Kailh Blue switches, whereas the white version comes with Kailh Brown. You can buy the black version on Newegg for $80. The white version is now listed on Newegg as well; currently it costs $100, but there will be a launch promotion starting March 24 when it will drop to $80. That will be a Newegg exclusive.

If you’re keen on a white model, then, you might want to set a reminder to hit up Newegg on March 24.

There’s something of a competition in the mouse market wherein companies are trying to offer simpler, “budget” mice without coughing up too many compromises. Several mice have landed in the “simple and budget-friendly” segment recently, but typically at a $50-or-so price. Zalman is looking to undercut the crowd with the $30 ZM-M600R.

Winning By Losing

Many of the accoutrements of these mice are similar, and you can categorize them almost by what they omit rather than what they include. Typically, they come without configuration software, and they do away with complex lighting options. Sometimes there are no left-side navigation buttons. And often, they’re small and light (although there are exceptions, such as the bulky Cougar 250M).  

The ZM-M600R ticks some of those boxes, and in that sense, it’s a lower-priced competitor to the likes of the Nixeus Revel and Dream Machines DM1 Pro S. However, the Zalman offering has a less impressive sensor; although it’s still optical, the ZM-M600R sports a 4,000DPI 3090 sensor, whereas both the Revel and DM1 Pro S rock a 12,000DPI PixArt 3360 optical sensor.

For many users, that presents no issue. High DPI is often used as a marketing foil more than anything (although there is a place for it), and 4,000DPI is more than enough for a large swath of users.

On the upside, the ZM-M600R does support Zalman's Z-Machine software, and it has some lighting features, as well. This ambidextrous mouse does, however, have some odd design elements.

Design

The ZM-M600R is among the smallest and lightest gaming mice you’ll find. It measures just 63 x 115 x 24mm (WxDxH) and weighs 90g--with the cable. (Usually, mouse weights are listed without the cable, and even then, 90g is a fairly light mouse.)

Bearing in mind the total subjectivity of peripherals preferences from person to person, the lightness is an asset for Zalman’s diminutive mouse in that it’s something that helps it stand out. Some people crave a tiny, light mouse, but even then, the weight distribution must be just so. Light mice tend to become ironically tiresome to use if the balance is off, because your hand, wrist, and forearm may have to overcompensate for the lack of resistance.

I found that the ZM-M600R’s weight was evenly balanced front to back, so the nose and palm rest feel about the same. This is a bit of a compromise--some people may prefer a heavier nose or a weightier palm--but the compromise should make it so that the ZM-M600R has broader appeal. Indeed, I felt comfortable using palm, fingertip, and claw grips with this mouse, and I never experienced any fatigue issues.

For as light as the ZM-M600R is, the clickwheel requires a bit more force than I expected and has relatively heavy tactile feedback. This may feel at odds with the otherwise smoothness of the mouse; I found myself lightly holding the ZM-M600R and feeling inconvenienced when I had to grip a bit harder to use the scroll.

When A DPI Button Is Not A DPI Button

A somewhat odd design choice that, to be honest, I still haven’t made up my mind about is the "Z" button on top of the mouse. You would assume that this button is a DPI switcher, but you would be wrong.

In the absence of left-side navigation buttons, Zalman didn’t want to lose navigation capabilities entirely, so it imbued that top-side button with the ability to go back (on a webpage, for example). It’s certainly not as easy and intuitive to click this button as it is to hit forward/back buttons on the left side of the mouse, but--I believe because of how small the ZM-M600R is--I found that I could click it easily and fluidly as I browsed the web. (However, more than once I clicked the back button thinking I was adjusting my DPI. It’s hard to unlearn things sometimes.)

This is Zalman’s capitulation to ambidexterity. If you make an ambidextrous mouse, which the ZM-M600R is, you have a couple of tough choices to make in regard to the forward/back buttons: You can make the mouse with four buttons (two per side), or none. We’ve seen clever workarounds to this issue before, such as Cougar’s brilliant idea of putting one button one either side of the 250M, thus requiring righties to use their ring finger for one of the navigation buttons but ensuring that southpaws could use the thing, too.

Some mice that ship without software will have a few preconfigured DPI settings, and you can use topside DPI switchers to toggle through them. On mice that ship with software and DPI buttons, you can configure the DPI levels in the software and use the buttons to toggle through the stages you set. Other non-software-equipped mice sometimes offer a DPI switch located on the underside of the mouse. This is obviously prohibits on-the-fly DPI adjustment, but at least you have options.

Curiously, Zalman took both approaches. You can configure four DPI stages via the Z-Machine software, but there's a physical DPI switch on the underside of the mouse. However, the idea here is that although the ZM-M600R can use the software, it doesn't need to. It's a plug-and-play device. There's a wrinkle, though. So you have four preset DPI stages that you can set using the underside DPI switcher. That's all well and good, but the switch is stamped, in plastic, with 600, 1,000, 1,600, and 4,000DPI. If you adjust the settings at all via the Z-Machine software, then, those indicators become inaccurate. 

Zalman's logic here is that it expects the majority of users to ignore the software altogether and just rely on the switches, and for those users who are more keen to set custom DPI settings, they'll figure it out and remember which setting goes with which stage. This seems problematic.

Lighting, Etc.

With mice like the ZM-M600R, which are supposed to be really-good-but-without-all-the-bells-and-whistles, it can be hard to see the parts they scale back to keep the cost low (which is a good thing). Other times, the cutbacks are staring you in the face. In the case of this mouse, it’s the lighting.

As we saw with the G.Skill Ripjaws MX780, the ZM-M600R’s LEDs appear somewhat dim, and although the palm rest is supposed to cycle through an RGB color wheel, I sincerely doubt that the LED controller is capable of such a feat. It certainly fails the eyeball test.

Then there’s the curious issue of why Zalman set the palm rest lighting to cycle through colors. It’s true that some users won’t buy a mouse with a single-color LED if that color clashes with the rest of their PC and peripherals setup, so there’s wisdom to offering multiple colors. However, although it’s a neat trick that the click wheel lights up in a different color depending on the DPI you’ve selected (a clever DPI indicator), the backlight of the clickwheel therefore always clashes with the changing light of the palm rest. Well, except for the instant when the color cycling happens to land on the same color as the click wheel. (It’s the “a broken clock is right twice a day” effect.)

It would have been smarter for Zalman to lock both lighting zones to one another. That way, at 600DPI, both zones would be yellow. At 1,000DPI, both would be blue. And so on.

Software

The Z-Machine software that supports the ZM-M600R is less full-featured than some other peripheral software applications out there in that you can't program buttons or create macros, and it does not appear that you can save multiple profiles. However, there are numerous other settings and features you can fiddle with.

You can leave the lift-off distance at Low, or turn LOD off completely, and you can turn angle snapping on or off. You get fairly granular control over the DPI settings. As mentioned, there are four stages, and you can adjust the DPI for each, in increments of 20. There's a handy little indicator that says which of the four stages is currently active, too. The range is 100-4,000DPI.

It also looks like you can adjust the polling rate (Auto, 125Hz, 500Hz, 1,000Hz), but if you click those items, nothing happens. It's set to Auto by default. (You can select a polling rate using the physical switch on the bottom of the mouse, though.)

In the Advanced area, you can change the speed of the double click, scroll, and click response, and you can adjust the sensitivity, too. 

There are two independent lighting zones--the click wheel and the palm rest--and in the Colors section, you can punch in specific RGB colors for both. There are 18 preset colors for the click wheel and 26 for the palm rest. For the palm rest, you can choose from Variation (where the colors cycle through), on, or off. You can switch off the clickwheel light if you like, too, and here you can set the light for each of the four DPI stages.

From the Update tab, you can manually or automatically update the ZM-M600R's firmware. The ZM-M600R has received a firmware update since it started shipping, and you'll need that update to enjoy full Z-Machine software support. The company recommends that you manually download the firmware from here.

Thirty Bucks? Worth It

Quirky design choices notwithstanding, Zalman is delivering a product for a lower price than one would expect, given the features. The ZM-M600R is a small and light mouse, and it's ambidextrous, with a pair of lighting zones and software support. The mix of onboard and software configuration options is odd, but if you wrap your head around it, you'll find that the combination works well enough. I found no tracking issues in my time with the mouse. 

There are better "budget" mice out there, but it's hard to beat the ZM-M600R at just $30. (It's currently available on Amazon for just $25.)

Introducing Zalman’s Newer Neo

Companies like Zalman know that mainstream computing and mainstream PC gaming are completely different markets: While the typical mainstream PC might get by with a $40-$60 case or some deluxe (quieter) version thereof, gaming hardware puts more heat into the case, which a gaming-market case must then expel. The result is that gamers have the privilege of paying twice as much for hardware, typically $80-$120. Zalman’s response with the Z9 Neo seems to be “We can beat that.”

Most of us know that Zalman isn’t the first company to try beating the market on both quality and price; Antec did this long ago with the sturdy materials of the 300 Illusion, and Cooler Master more recently with the EATX capability of its MasterBox 5. Of course Cooler Master basically gutted the front end of its MasterBox 5 to make room for EATX motherboards, and Zalman could have just as easily listed EATX capability by simply not including its top two removable bays. And even though the Z9 Neo doesn’t have the extra standoffs to hold a 13" board, it just as easily holds the targeted 10.65”-deep enthusiast-class motherboards that drive the mislabeled EATX gaming case market.

And we shouldn’t bury the lede: all three of the cases I just mentioned reached their glory by capitalizing on a $70 web price.

Several of our readers have dumped on USB 2.0 ports, but the Z9 Neo offers those in addition to USB 3.0 ports. We’d rather have the extra ports than not, even if they’re covered with easily-lost rubber dust plugs.

Stand out features include a rubber-backed, aluminum-skinned drive door. Anyone who despises external bays need not open that door, while those of us with bay devices such as the Asus OC Panel can gain easy access.

The Z9 Neo top panel features a floating tinted plastic fan cover. Two included 120mm lighted LED fans reside between the metal structural panel and plastic façade.

A small pull-out filter covers the power supply’s air inlet.

Front fan filtration is a little more difficult to remove, requiring the user to pull off the Z9 Neo’s face panel and slip the edges of the filter mesh out from under holding tabs. Two 120mm fans are also found here, though these lack the LEDs found on the top fans.

Building With The Z9 Neo

Zalman provides just enough space behind the Z9 Neo’s motherboard tray to slide through the main ATX power cable, and not much room for other cables to cross it. Most builders will be fine as long as they plan their wire routing with that limitation in mind.

The lower portion of the Z9 Neo includes both a power supply cover and a two-tray drive cage, and both of these are riveted in place.

Both the upper and lower trays support 2.5” and 3.5” internal drives, but the screw-on upper bay also supports 5.25” external bay devices. Meanwhile, the slide-out lower tray offers vibration damping for 3.5” mechanical drives.

Liquid cooling fans will probably like that the Z9 Neo has clearance for 1.3”-thick radiators both behind the front fans and below the top fans. The front fan mounts further support a pair of 140mm fans, while the top mount is limited to a pair of 120mm parts.

The Z9 Neo installation manual was wrapped around its hardware pack, and I took time to flatten it rather than report that it wouldn’t lay flat. Several thumb screws and cable ties are included in addition to the regular mounting hardware.

A split power LED connector fits both standard two-pin and legacy three-pin spacing. Knowing that motherboard manufacturers ditched AC-97 audio in favor of HD Audio around 15 years ago, Zalman ditched the messy legacy adapter.

The three standoffs shown in the installation kit fill the third column of a full ATX motherboard installation, or the middle row of a Micro ATX installation. Our motherboard is ATX.

Confounding marketers of tool-free features, the Z9 Neo proves that screw-together installation is usually the easiest.

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Test Results And Conclusion

Before we discuss how our finished build performs, you’ll probably want to see how it looks. Our NH-U12S CPU cooler almost reaches the side panel, which is a good look even though it means that builders have little more than Zalman’s official 160mm cooler height limit.

We retain the hardware configuration from previous big cooler reviews to maintain result consistency. Here’s how the Z9 Neo’s specifications compare to other cases in today’s test.

*Shared on 3.5" tray **w/o Center Cage ***By 5.25" Adapter Tray ^Slot 1-4

Test System Components

Software

Benchmark Suite

The $140 comparison cases won’t have an easy job in the value comparison, but they are the next-cheapest models in our recent reviews. Perhaps it’s time for us to get a few more “in the middle” review samples.

The Z9 Neo has several feature advantages over the MasterBox 5, yet four-pin ATA-style fan power connectors are a major disadvantage since motherboards cannot control the speed. It matches the MasterBox 5’s cooling at full speed, even though it has several additional fans.

The Z9 Neo does a far better job of isolating full-tilt graphics fan noise than the MasterBox 5. The MasterBox 5 catches up when the graphics fan idles down, appearing to indicate that the Z9 Neo is also stifling the extra noise of its extra fans.

Resetting the average performance to zero percent, we see that the Z9 Neo has a 5.6% better-than-average cooling to noise ratio. The MasterBox 5 was also above average, but only by half that amount.

Cooling-to-noise is also a better indicator of overall performance than cooling alone, and Zalman’s advantage there gives the Z9 Neo a 4% value advantage over the same-price MasterBox 5. A look at the balance of features, with dual mid-sized radiator support, extra fans and more ports also tilts the value scale a little into the Z9 Neo’s favor, in spite of its use of ATA-style fan power connections.

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Zalman beefed up its peripherals lineup at Computex with a new flagship mechanical keyboard, a waterproof keyboard, a pair of flagship mice and more.

Two New Flagships?

We recently reviewed Zalman’s highest-end mechanical keyboard, the KM-K700M and found it of reasonable quality (though probably overpriced), but now the company has two new boards that supplant it at the top of its product stack.

We learned a little something about the new KM-900M ahead of Computex and noted that it’s similar to the KM-700M except that it lacked the latter’s left-side dedicated macro keys and, notably, it offers Kailh switches instead of Cherry MX. The KM-900M, though, offers RGB lighting whereas the KM-K700M has just white LEDs.

Instead of dedicated macro keys, the KM-K900M has a cluster of ten keys that can double as macro buttons.

Presumably intended to be a step above the KM-K900M, we’re actually not sure why the KM-K950M exists. The only real difference between the two is that the former is all plastic and the latter is all-aluminum.

It would have made more sense for Zalman to make one of the KM-K9XXM-series keyboards tenkeyless. As it is, you have the KM-K700M with white LEDs, Cherry MX switches and a row of macro keys, and the KM-K900M and KM-K950M with RGB lighting, Kailh switches and no macro keys. There’s nothing wrong with any of those feature sets, but collectively those keyboards don’t offer any kind of logical diversity.

One thing the KM-K900M does have, though, is a variety of color options, which may appeal to a number of users. Zalman’s keyboard designs tend to be black-on-black, but in the company’s suite at Computex, we also found white, yellow and dusty blue KM-K900Ms. The key caps are black on all but the white model, which has white key caps.

The big news with the KM-K9XXM keyboards is the price. Whereas the $130 price tag for the KM-K700M is too high, the KM-K900M comes in at a more palatable $99, and a Zalman rep told me that there will be likely be promos where it costs just $80. For that, you get the plastic chassis but RGB lighting (and Kailh switches); at $109.99, the ZM-K950M will offer the same specs but in an all-aluminum chassis. Both new models are arguably still a bit pricey for what they offer, but at least those price tags are more reasonable.

The KM-K900M is currently available, but we’ll have to wait until Q3 or Q4 for the KM-K950M.

Waterproof? Waterproof!

We saw a surprising number of keyboards submerged in water in our meetings around Computex, but whereas most of those were demonstrations of optical-switch keyboards, Zalman’s ZM-K650WP is a rugged, non-mechanical keyboard that’s all sealed up and waterproof.

The lack of mechanical switches will turn off most average users, but that’s not the intended audience for the ZM-K650WP, anyway. It’s designed primarily for industrial environments, hospitals and the like where you need a device that can take anything (disgusting, moist, dirty or otherwise) that you throw at it.

The water submergence was a gimmick (and we bought in, as evidenced by the fact that we’re writing about it and showing you a photo of it), but it did serve to demonstrate the ZM-K650WP’s ruggedness. A Zalman rep typed on it while it was submerged, and the device worked flawlessly. If you work in a difficult environment (or frequently spill your coffee, or are currently attempting to parent a toddler), $25 gets you a keyboard that won’t be drowned.

The ZM-K650WP is currently available.

Squeak Squeak

Rounding out the peripherals updates, Zalman showed us two upcoming gaming mice, the ZM-GM5 and ZM-GM7. This pair will become Zalman’s new flagship mice.

Although they have mildly different exterior designs, the mice share almost identical specs save for the sensor: The ZM-GM5 has a 5,000 DPI whereas the ZM-GM7 boasts a 16,000 DPI sensor.

Frankly, 5,000 DPI should be sufficient for most users, but for a particular breed of gamer or those who have exceptionally high-res displays, the 16,000 DPI sensor offers more than enough headroom for adjustments.

The exterior designs of the ZM-GM5 and ZM-GM7 differ only slightly. They have different front ends--note that the ZM-GM5 has an angled nose that’s flush across the front whereas the ZM-GM7 has a parallel but split-nose look--and the ZM-GM5 has more lighting areas. The ZM-GM5 features an all-black design with a red-and-black braided cable, but Zalman opted for colored panels for the ZM-GM7. In its suite at Computex, Zalman showed gray-on-black and purple-on-black GM7 designs.

It’s good that Zalman has plenty of other mice in its product stack, because these two devices are rather heavy at 140g. That’s not outlandish, but you’ll find many mice in the 90-120g range. A lighter Zalman option is the ZM-600R, which weighs in at just 90g.

When they hit the market in Q4, the GM5 and GM7 will cost $42 and $47, respectively.

Seth Colaner is the News Director for Tom's Hardware. Follow him on Twitter @SethColaner. Follow us on Facebook, Google+, RSS, Twitter and YouTube.

Zalman will be officially debuting a new mechanical keyboard, the ZM-K900M, at Computex. The full size keyboard will be the company’s first with RGB lighting. Other features include a function layer with media controls, programmable lighting and macros, and custom user profiles.

The keyboard also has the ability to record macros straight from the keyboard and store them on the keyboard's internal memory. This lets you use the macros with any device the keyboard is plugged into without any reliance on software.

A notable difference between the ZM-K700M (our review here) and the new ZM-K900M is that Zalman has switched from Cherry MX switches to Kailh switches. You'll be able to select your preferred switch type between Kailh Blue, Black, Brown or Red.

The ZM-K900M will not feature the dedicated macro buttons on the left-hand side that the ZM-K700M featured; instead, it appears that macro keys will be limited to a cluster near the center of the keyboard (the keys with black bars on them in the illustration below):

The macro recording looks quite powerful, and it even allows you to add mouse clicks to macros. Users can also adjust the speed of the macros and utilize auto, loop and timing macro settings.

Without any software currently listed on the website, it's unclear if any will be released for the ZM-K900M. The manual makes it seem like everything from customizing the lighting, recording macros, and setting/changing user profiles can all be done directly from the keyboard, so software won't be necessary (although it may be an option).

Keyboards that utilize onboard controls over software tend to have a longer learning curve to them, but there are also plenty of benefits. Not only will the keyboard have all of the user-defined parameters (lighting, macros and profiles) in place regardless of what computer the keyboard is plugged into, but not having to install software to fully utilize the keyboard makes it ideal for use on networks (such at work or school) that don't allow users to install software.

Zalman did not yet disclose pricing.

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Introduction And Specifications

With the ZM-K700M, Zalman's top-of-the-line mechanical keyboard, the company is heavily targeting gamers, but the keyboard still has a reserved-enough look that it wouldn't look entirely out of place in a professional setting.

Although the keyboard boasts a nice list of features including white backlighting with multiple modes, Cherry MX switches, and dedicated macro keys, it still doesn't quite have all the bells and whistles one would expect from the $139 price tag—a price that puts it in direct competition with industry juggernauts like the Corsair Strafe RGB.

Of greater note is the fact that the ZM-K700M is one of the first products Zalman has released after its restructuring. Over a year ago, the company almost went under after its parent company, Moneual, was found to have committed a staggering $3 billion fraud. After dropping two-thirds of its workforce and surviving a South Korean-supervised restructuring, Zalman is re-emerging.

Specifications

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Product Tour

Build Quality

The Zalman ZM-K700M is a surprisingly sturdy keyboard. The outer shell is constructed of thick plastic, and there is a steel plate holding all of the switches in place over the PCB, both of which add to the keyboard's overall heft. The chassis will bend slightly if you pick it up and twist it, but not a worrisome amount. The cable is braided and non-removable, with three tracks on the underside of the keyboard allowing you to route it out of the left, right or center.

The rubber feet on the back of the keyboard are thick, and firmly ground the keyboard even during the most vigorous gaming sessions. There are actually two sets of flip-down feet to allow users to customize the tilt of the keyboard, each with heavy rubber bottoms. These rubber feet on the ZM-K700M are in fact some of the best I've seen.

The ZM-K700M also has a standard ANSI layout, meaning that aftermarket keycap sets should fit without any issue. Keep in mind many of these sets don't come with extra caps for the macro keys. Many popular gaming boards like the Corsair Strafe and Razer Blackwidow Chroma have uncommon bottom row layouts, making replacing their keycaps next to impossible. For many people, changing and upgrading keycap sets is a must, and having a standard layout is an essential feature.

Switches

The ZM-K700M uses Cherry MX Red mechanical switches, which are rated for 50 million keypresses. Cherry MX Reds are linear, non-clicky switches that have an actuation force of 45g, making them one of the lighter switches on the market. The light spring and linear construction make extended gaming sessions comfortable and help reduce finger and hand fatigue.

The MX Red switches are plate-mounted in the ZM-K700M, giving the switches a crisp, smooth feel. The larger keys use Cherry stabilizers, making removing and swapping keys a breeze. The common complaint about Cherry stabilizers is that they can feel mushy or inconsistent, but they felt just fine on the Zalman. The spacebar and larger keys smoothly actuated regardless of where they were pressed.

Currently, the keyboard is available only with Cherry MX Red switches, another sign that this keyboard is really being geared towards gamers. Many typists prefer some sort of tactile feedback in a switch, although switch preference really comes down to personal taste.

The manual was surprisingly helpful and clearly written, for the most part, although it's worth pointing out that there were a few features that I never managed to get to work. FN+H was supposed to open an online user manual, but I could never get any results. FN+G did in fact open Google as stated in the manual, though, so some of the factory defined shortcuts worked without a hitch.

Key Caps

The key caps are ABS plastic and have laser-etched legends to allow the backlight to shine though. The function layer shortcuts appear to be laser-etched as well, but they're filled with red printing that does not allow as much light to shine through. This is mainly due to the fact that the LEDs are mounted at the top of the switch, and the function shortcuts are etched on the bottoms of the keycaps.

There are three LEDs behind the spacebar to evenly light the Zalman logo etched into the center of the spacebar, though keys like Caps Lock and Enter look slightly uneven due to the fact that they have only a single LED lighting the key. The lighting on the numpad Enter is especially uneven because the LED is mounted on the left side of the switch.                                                

The five macro keys are unique and have a shorter profile with angular cutouts in the sides. These don't make the keys any easier or harder to press—they're for aesthetics only. The shorter uniform profile does make it slightly easier to quickly and accurately hit the macro keys with a pinky when you're homed on WASD during gaming sessions.

Lighting

The ZM-K700M features white per-key lighting. There is a single RGB LED behind the Zalman logo above the speed meter that is on only when Z-Key mode is active (which we'll discus in the Key Rollover section). For many people, the lack of RGB backlighting will be a huge blow to the overall appeal of this keyboard, but for others the classy white lighting may be sufficient.

A unique feature that I haven't seen on a keyboard before is the ability to set a base level of backlighting, separate from the lighting modes. This means, for example, that you could have a low light setting on the entire keyboard but turn on Key LED mode and have WASD light up to maximum brightness. All other modes function on top of this base level, as well.

Other modes include Key Wave mode, Key Touch mode, "Breath" mode and Equalizer Mode. Equalizer mode actually reacts to ambient room noise, so the louder the background music or the louder you scream in a game, the more lighting you get on the three selectable patterns.

Key Mask uses the key selected by the user (FN+F9 in Define mode) and makes them the only functioning keys on the keyboard. This would be ideal as a gaming mode where you would want to prevent any accidental key presses of unused keys. You can use mask mode with Key LED mode as well, allowing you to have just the active keys glowing on the keyboard.

A feature unique to the ZM-K700M is the speed meter LED cluster on the right side of the keyboard. Along with the macro keys on the left side, this is one of the only visual features that makes the ZM-K700M immediately recognizable as a gaming-oriented keyboard. However, I found the speed meter to be pretty useless. It visually reacts to typing speed, volume changes, LED brightness, and macro running speed.

For most of these modes, the lights just blink but don't actually visually give you any real data. In volume mode, for example, the lights simply blink from top to bottom or bottom to top, depending on the volume changes, but they have no correspondence to minimum and maximum volume levels. Anytime you are typing on the keyboard, the LEDs bounce up and down depending on speed, although I was never able to find any correlation between WPM and the number of lights illuminated on the meter. This was arbitrary feedback that I felt was more of a distraction than anything. Unless I was really banging on the keyboard, no more than the bottom three LEDs were ever lit. Overall, the speed meter LED is little more than a gimmick.

ZKeyFormation Software

There is also downloadable software from the Zalman website called ZKeyFormation. This is extremely basic software that allows you to change key locations on the keyboard. To change the location of a key you just click the two keys you want to swap. Outside of the FN, WIN, and four key cluster above the numpad, all other keys can be moved, including the macro keys. After setting up a new profile within the software, you apply the changes in the software menu and then hit FN+WIN on the keyboard to activate the changes. Pressing FN+WIN a second time will change back to the default layout.

Teardown

The first step in the teardown process was removing the four Phillips screws on the underside of the keyboard. Something to note is that one of the screws is hidden behind the QC sticker, and breaking this sticker will void your warranty. Once the four screws are out, you can flip the keyboard back over and pop out the plastic clips holding the case halves together. To do this, I simply used a tiny flathead screwdriver and a little patience. There are two clips on either side and four clips at the back of the case.

After the two case halves are separated, you must remove two more Phillips screws, between the F-Row and Number row, as well as the larger Phillips screw holding the grounding cable in place above the arrow cluster.

With all of these screws safely removed, you will be able to lift the plate and PCB out of the bottom half of the chassis. This should be done carefully, because the attached cable is still connected to the bottom of the PCB. With the PCB out of the way, you can unclip the cable, freeing up all parts of the keyboard.

The switch and component soldering on the PCB are nice and clean. The braided cable is clamped down to the bottom case where it enters. Having the cable clamped to the case will help prevent any tugging on the exterior cable from pulling on the fragile clip where the cable connects to the PCB. After closely inspecting the internal build of the keyboard, I saw no red flags that would lead me to worry about the keyboard's lifespan.

Tests And Performance

Key Rollover

The ZM-K700M has two modes of key rollover: Z-key and N-key. Modes can be switched at anytime, although there is a one to three-second period when the keyboard will be unresponsive, so changing during the heat of battle is not recommended. When Z-key mode is activated, the RGB LED behind the Zalman logo on the right side of the keyboard will turn on, giving users an easy visual to determine what mode the keyboard is currently in.

Z-key mode is mainly for gaming, and it makes use of all the keyboard's features, whereas N-key mode is the standard mode for general purpose use. N-key mode via USB supports only the standard key repeat speed, and the function keys are unusable.

When I tested the keyboard in Windows 10, I was able to get N-key rollover via PS/2 in both N-key and Z-key modes, though over USB I was able to achieve 6KRO only while in N-Key mode.

I also tested the ZM-K700M on my Asus laptop with Ubuntu 14.04 and was able to achieve N-key rollover with Z-key mode active. Just as in Windows, I achieved 6KRO only when the keyboard was set to N-key mode. I was unable to test the keyboard on Ubuntu via PS/2.

When I plugged the ZM-K700M into my mid-2010 MacBook Pro with Yosemite 10.10.4 to test compatibility and rollover, I was not able to get the keyboard to work at all. The entire keyboard would slowly flash, and I was prompted with a window to determine what keyboard was plugged in. The end result was always the same "Keyboard not recognized" message. This was the only OS X-based computer I was able to test the keyboard on, but in the very least I will not recommend the ZM-K700M to Apple users at this time.

Audio

As you can hear in the test, there is still a noticeable "clack" when the switch bottoms out and the bottom of the keycap hits the top of the switch, even though the switch isn't clicky. The noise seems comparable in volume to the average rubber dome or laptop keyboard and shouldn't be an issue, even in quiet settings.

Should the noise of the MX Red switches bottoming out still be too noisy, you can put o-rings on the underside of the keycaps to prevent the plastic-on-plastic contact that results in the "clack" when you press a switch. 

Conclusion

The conservative looks make the Zalman a great choice for anyone looking for a keyboard geared towards gaming without the flashy lights and angled cases so many other gaming keyboards have. On the other hand, there's no RGB lighting, which will disappoint many users.

Programing macros and lighting modes are not a hassle in any way, which is important due to the fact that the keyboard's limited software doesn't support editing either. The Cherry MX switches performed as expected with no issues, although not having an option for any other switches will certainly limit the interest in the keyboard.

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Zalman ZM750-EBT Power Supply Review

Zalman isn't a particularly active company in the PSU market, so it was a nice surprise to see a fresh offering from the company. Zalman's EBT series has four power supplies with capacities ranging from 650W to 1kW. The two smaller models feature semi-modular cabling and are based on Sirfa's HPM platform, while the 850W and 1kW units are fully modular and utilize the Sirfa HPJ platform. Sirfa is an OEM with lots of experience in the lower-end and mid-range categories, so it's a decent choice for the Zalman's EBT line, which targets budget-oriented folks.

All EBT models are 80 Plus Gold-certified and have a single +12V rail. A few years ago, there was a great debate as to whether multiple +12V rails or a single one was better; given the number of single-rail PSUs out there, you can guess the winner. Of course, that doesn't mean PSUs with multiple +12V rails are bad. On the contrary, they offer increased safety. However, you have to properly assign rails to cables and connectors to avoid triggering over-current protection. As a result, we've become accustomed to power supplies with a single +12V rail landing in our lab.

In this review, we're evaluating Zalman's 750W ZM750-EBT. This wattage category is among the toughest, since it includes many capable contenders that are priced aggressively. The ZM750-EBT will have to register a high performance-per-dollar score if it wants to stand out.

We admit that we prefer fully modular PSUs over semi-modular or non-modular ones. However, the first thing that a manufacturer usually leaves out in an effort to lower production costs is modular cables. This PSU has three fixed cables that most PCs need anyway, along with six modular ones. At the time of writing, we found this power supply for less than $100, making it a tempting choice since it undercuts this segment's heavyweights (including Corsair's RM750x and EVGA's SuperNOVA 750 G2 PSUs). If Zalman can get its price even closer to $90, its ZM750-EBT PSU will enjoy a major head-start.

Specifications

Again, this is a Gold-rated PSU. Unfortunately, Zalman says it can only deliver its full power continuously at up to 40 °C, while the ATX spec recommends at least 50 °C. This isn't a high-end platform though, so we probably shouldn't expect it to endure the toughest conditions (admittedly, most PSUs can't handle a full load continuously at 50 °C).

According to Sirfa, this unit comes with all of the necessary protection features, including over-temperature protection (OTP), which is especially crucial for PSUs with lower temperature ratings like this one. A quality Fluid Dynamic Bearing (FDB) fan cools the PSU's internals and there is no semi-passive mode, though that's probably a good thing. A constantly-spinning fan keeps temperatures down under light loads at the expense of greater stress to the cooler which however won't have a problem with this, since it is equipped with a long lasting FDB bearing. Finally, Zalman looks to have high confidence in this design, since recently upgraded its warranty from five years to seven.

Power Specifications

The single +12V rail delivers up to 62.5A, so it will easily feed a couple of high-end graphics cards. The minor rails top out at an ample 120W of combined power, while the 5VSB rail has 3A max current output. It should have no problem charging a tablet.

Cables And Connectors

The main ATX cable is a little shorter than we'd like. In our opinion, it should be at least 55cm long. Conversely, the EPS cable has plenty of length; we only wish there were two of them. The PCIe cables are also long enough. But the distance between the connectors (on one cable with two connectors) is a little short, so you'll have to bend them to reach a nearby PCIe slot. Finally, the distance between the SATA and four-pin Molex connectors is great, though in some cases it'd be nice to have less distance between the SATA connectors.

The number of PCIe, SATA and peripheral connectors is adequate for this PSU's category. We'd just like to see that extra EPS lead, or at least a four-pin ATX12V connector. Finally, the wiring is mostly 18-gauge.

The above diagram shows the ZM750-EBT's cables and connectors, along with their length. As mentioned, three of the cables are native, including the essential ATX and EPS connectors. We think that the third fixed cable, used for auxiliary PCIe power, should be modular, since not everyone needs it. Then again, it's probably a safe bet that anyone with a 750W PSU is at least using a mainstream GPU.

Power Distribution

Since this PSU features a single +12V rail, we do not have anything to say about its power distribution.

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Packaging, Contents, Exterior And Cabling

Packaging

The box's graphic design is interesting. On the front, we find the series name, model number and capacity point. In the bottom-left corner, a series of icons depicts the 80 Plus Gold efficiency rating, ErP Lot 2013 compliance, SLI compatibility and the single +12V rail. There is also an icon mentioning five-year warranty coverage, though Zalman tells us it upgraded the warranty on all EBT models to seven years.

On the sides of the box you'll find the power specifications table and some interesting photos of the PSU's internals, showing the APFC converter's circuit, the standby PWM controller, the DC-DC converters that generate the minor rails, the protection's IC, the 135mm fan and the single +12V rail's wires.

Contents

The box contents are nicely arranged, and the PSU is wrapped in a plastic bag. Its bottom is protected by a foam sheet. However, there's nothing covering the top, so you might say that there's something missing. According to Zalman though, only the first production batch misses the top foam cover.

A small box contains the modular cables, along with the user's manual, a set of screws and the AC power cord.

Exterior

The PSU looks good thanks to its nice fan grille. Up front, you'll find a typical honeycomb-style exhaust grille. The power switch is installed next to the AC receptacle. 

Zalman's logo is stamped on one of the PSU's sides. On the other side, there's a sticker with the power supply's model number.

The modular panel consists of a few sockets. The red ones take auxiliary PCIe power cables, while the black ones correspond to peripheral cables. A plastic ring around the cable exit hole protects the fixed leads, which are sleeved all the way back into the PSU's housing.

A high-quality finish and light matte coating are nearly scratch-proof. We definitely prefer matte finishes to glossy ones. After all, shiny surfaces have a tendency to attract more fingerprints.

Cabling

All three fixed cables consist of colored wires formed into a round shape. Sleeving quality is decent, especially for such an affordable product. In contrast, all of the modular cables are stealth and flat. Although the combination is a little strange, we've seen it many times, and not only in mainstream PSUs. For the record, though, we'd like manufacturers to know that it's more appealing to use the same type of cables on both fixed and modular cables, and avoid using weird-looking combos.

A Look Inside And Component Analysis

Parts Description

Before proceeding with this page, we strongly encourage you to a look at our PSUs 101 article, which provides valuable information about PSUs and their operation, allowing you to better understand the components we're about to discuss. Our main tools for disassembling PSUs are a Thermaltronics soldering and rework station, and a Hakko 808 desoldering gun.

The ZM750-EBT is based on Sirfa's HPM platform; we recently saw it in SilverStone's unimpressive ST75F-GS V2. The PCB could easily be housed in a smaller chassis, which would reduce the PSU's depth. Nevertheless, the architecture is modern. On the primary side, a half-bridge topology is used along with an LLC resonant converter for increased efficiency. In the secondary side, Sirfa employs a synchronous design, meaning that FETs regulate the +12V rail; the minor rails are generated by two DC-DC converters. Overall, the cap choice is decent for a mainstream PSU (Teapo caps are reliable, and besides electrolytic caps, we also found a significant number of Teapo's polymer caps). Finally, heat sinks on the primary and secondary sides are ample, especially for a Gold-rated PSU that offers lower energy losses compared to less efficient supplies.

The transient filter starts at the AC receptacle with one X and two Y caps. On the X cap, we spotted a CMD02X that blocks current through the cap's discharge resistor when AC voltage is connected, improving efficiency. The same filter continues on the main PCB with another X cap and two Y ones, along with two CM chokes and a small MOV installed after the bridge rectifier.

The single bridge rectifier is bolted on a dedicated heat sink. Usually, higher bridge rectifier temperatures translate to less energy loss on its diodes, since voltage drops on diodes decrease at higher temperatures. However, like all electronic parts, if you want to keep the bridge rectifier healthy, you have to cool it down effectively.

A single CREE C3D08060A boost diode is used in the APFC converter, along with a couple of Infineon IPP50R140CP FETs. The bulk cap is provided by Nippon Chemi-Con (400V, 470uF, 2000h @ 105 °C, KMQ) and its capacity is very low for a 750W PSU. The SilverStone ST75F-GS V2, which uses the exact same platform, has a larger bulk cap and still failed to reach a 17ms hold-up time. Lastly, the PFC controller is installed on the solder side of the PCB; it's an Infineon ICE3PCS01 IC.

The main switchers are a couple of Infineon IPA50R190CE FETs, arranged into a half-bridge topology. The LLC resonant controller is Infineon ICE2HS01G IC, which is installed on a vertical daughterboard.

In the secondary side, four International Rectifier IRFB743PbF FETs regulate the +12V rail. They're installed on an ample heat sink, at least compared to other Gold-rated PSUs, so we wonder why Sirfa didn't arm this supply with a semi-passive mode. On the same heat sink, we also found the NTC thermistor that provides temperature data to the fan controller, and most likely to the over-temperature protection circuit.

A large vertical PCB houses the DC-DC converters responsible for the minor rails. The common PWM controller is an Anpec APW7159 IC. Eight Infineon IPD060N03L G FETs are used by both converters. Several Teapo polymer caps provide ripple filtering services to the DC-DC converters.

In the secondary side, the polymer and electrolytic filtering caps are provided by Teapo. All electrolytic capacitors are rated at 105 °C, so their useful life should be long, even under stressful conditions. According to Zalman the new batches will feature only Japanese filtering capacitors, to accommodate the extension of the provided warranty from five years to seven.

Sirfa didn't install any filtering caps on the modular PCB, although there is plenty of space for them. That's a shame, since additional caps would offer better ripple suppression (something this platform needs).

The standby PWM controller is a Sanken A6069H, and housekeeping is handled by a SITI PS223 IC. Aside from the basic protection features, it also supports over-temperature and over-current protection. The PS223 can actually provide OCP for up to two +12V rails, though this PSU only has one.

Soldering quality on the main PCB is good. On the secondary side, Sirfa uses a couple of large copper bars to enhance the conductivity of the earth and +12V paths. Moreover, we noticed two shunt resistors under the +12V islands. Given the PS223's two-channel OCP, it appears evident that this PSU initially had a pair of +12V rails. Sirfa likely set the OCP triggering point very high to make it a one-rail design, since the shunt resistors aren't shorted together.

The fan's sticker claims that this is a fluid dynamic bearing fan but according to its model number, it's a plain sleeve bearing design. Someone is either using a nasty marketing trick or changes were made internally without a corresponding nomenclature update. In any case, we didn't want to destroy the fan to find out but thankfully Zalman did and proved that the fan indeed uses a Fluid Dynamic Bearing. Lastly, the fan profile is pretty aggressive, especially at high operating temperatures.

Load Regulation, Hold-Up Time And Inrush Current

To learn more about our PSU tests and methodology, please check out How We Test Power Supply Units. 

Primary Rails And 5VSB Load Regulation

Load Regulation testing is detailed here.

Hold-Up Time

Our hold-up time tests are described in detail here.

Not only are we measuring the PWR_OK signal (AC loss to PWR_OK hold-up time), but we're also checking when the +12V rail drops below its limit when AC voltage is removed from the PSU.

Our oscilloscope measured only 9.2ms, while the ATX spec requires at least 17ms. In other words, Zalman's PSU fails big time in this test. Meanwhile, the AC loss to PWR_OK hold-up time was extra long, exceeding 27ms. Sirfa uses a nasty trick here, and in the following paragraph, we'll try to explain what it did plainly.

Normally, the PWR_OK signal has to drop to zero volts before any of the rails fall below the corresponding ATX limit. In this case, the PWR_OK signal is kept active for a much longer period. This means that very low DC outputs feed your precious hardware, since the motherboard sees the PSU as active through the PWR_OK signal. In some cases, this can cause damage. Instead of dropping to zero volts while the +12V rail was higher than 11.4V, the ZM750-EBT's PWR_OK dropped while the 12V rail was at just 10.24V!

The time difference between the moment when PWR_OK drops to zero and the +12V rail goes out of spec is very large at 15ms. Normally, the PWR_OK signal should drop before the +12V rail goes out of limits, not after.

Inrush Current

For details on our inrush current testing, please click here.

The inrush current is very high with both 230V and 115V input.

Load Regulation And Efficiency Measurements

The first set of tests reveals the stability of the voltage rails and the PSU's efficiency. The applied load equals (approximately) 10 to 110 percent of the maximum load the supply can handle, in increments of 10 percentage points.

We conducted two additional tests. During the first, we stressed the two minor rails (5V and 3.3V) with a high load, while the load at +12V was only 0.10A. This test reveals whether a PSU is Haswell-ready or not. In the second test, we determined the maximum load the +12V rail could handle with minimal load on the minor rails. 

Load regulation on the +12V and 5VSB rails is satisfactory for a PSU with this price tag. At 5V it's decent, and 3.3V is on the loose side, exceeding 3% deviation.

As far as efficiency goes, the ZM750-EBT clears our 20 percent test by registering over 87% efficiency. However, it fails to do so in the 50 percent and full load tests. Of course, we run our benchmarks at much higher ambient temperatures than the 80 Plus organization and, in general, those conditions seriously affect efficiency. Still, we've seen other Gold-rated units register much higher efficiency in the same metrics.

Finally, output noise is very high since Sirfa uses an aggressive fan profile. If you dislike fan noise and plan to push your machine hard, this power supply probably won't work for you.

Efficiency, Temperature And Noise

Efficiency

Our efficiency testing procedure is detailed here.

Using the results from the previous page, we plotted a chart showing the ZM750-EBT's efficiency at low loads, and loads from 10 to 110 percent of the PSU's maximum-rated capacity.

Efficiency trails the competition in this category, and Zalman falls to last place in the light and normal load graphs. Given the modern design of this platform, we expected much higher performance.

Efficiency At Low Loads

In the following tests, we measure the efficiency of Zalman's ZM750-EBT at loads significantly lower than 10 percent of its maximum capacity (the lowest load the 80 PLUS standard measures). The loads we dialed were 20, 40, 60 and 80W. This is important for representing when a PC is idle, with power-saving features turned on.

At light loads, Zalman's offering falls significantly behind the other Gold-rated 750W PSUs. Even SilverStone's ST75F-GS V2, which uses exactly the same platform with a few different components, easily beats the ZM750-EBT.

5VSB Efficiency

The ATX specification states that 5VSB standby supply efficiency should be as high as possible, recommending 50 percent or higher efficiency with 100mA of load, 60 percent or higher with 250mA of load and 70 percent or higher with 1A or more of load.

We will take four measurements: one each at 100, 250 and 1000mA, and one with the full load the 5VSB rail can handle. 

The 5VSB rail achieves close to 80 percent efficiency in the third test. However, under full load, its efficiency drops significantly. This is a clear sign that 3A on this rail are close to its limit. Most likely, this is why ripple suppression is so lousy at higher loads. Zalman should probably keep the max current output on this rail at 2.5A to offer better performance.

Power Consumption In Idle And Standby

In the table above, you'll find the power consumption and voltage values of all rails (except -12V) when the PSU is idle (powered on, but without any load on its rails), and the power consumption when the PSU is in standby mode (without any load, at 5VSB).

Vampire power is very low, especially with 115V input.

Fan RPM, Delta Temperature And Output Noise

Our mixed noise testing is described in detail here.

The first chart below illustrates the cooling fan's speed in RPM, and the delta between input and output temperature. The results were obtained at 34 °C (93.2 °F) to 47 °C (116.6 °F) ambient temperature.   

The next chart shows the cooling fan's speed (in RPM) and output noise. We measured acoustics from one meter away, inside a small, custom-made anechoic chamber with internals completely covered in sound-proofing material (be quiet! Noise Absorber kit). Background noise inside the chamber was below 18 dB(A) during testing, and the results were obtained with the PSU operating at 34 °C (93.2 °F) to 47 °C (116.6 °F) ambient temperature. 

The following graph illustrates the fan's output noise over the entire operating range of the PSU. The same conditions of the above graph apply to our measurements, though the ambient temperature was between at 28 °C (82.4 °F) to 30 °C (86 °F).  

At normal conditions and up to 400W load the PSU is quiet enough, though not silent. Under higher loads, however, its fan quickly speeds up. Naturally, output noise increases as well. At close to 600W, the fan's noise becomes annoying. Look for another PSU if you're out to build a quiet PC.

Cross-Load Tests And Infrared Images

Our cross-load tests are described in detail here.

To generate the following charts, we set our loaders to auto mode through our custom-made software before trying more than 1500 possible load combinations with the +12V, 5V and 3.3V rails. The load regulation deviations in each of the charts below were calculated by taking the nominal values of the rails (12V, 5V and 3.3V) as point zero.

Load Regulation Charts

Efficiency Chart

For a Gold-rated platform featuring an LLC resonant converter, and considering the small bulk cap, we expected much higher efficiency. Obviously, Zalman (actually Sirfa) focused more on cutting production cost than offering the best possible performance.

Ripple Charts

Infrared Images

Toward the end of the cross-load tests, we took some photos of the PSU with our modified FLIR E4 camera that delivers 320x240 IR resolution (76,800 pixels).

Although the aggressive fan profile is bad for acoustic performance, it enables low internal temperatures, even during our worst-case testing. This will prove beneficial to the PSU's longevity.

Transient Response Tests

Advanced Transient Response Tests

For details on our transient response testing, please click here.

In these tests, we monitor the response of the PSU in two different scenarios. First, a transient load (10A at +12V, 5A at 5V, 5A at 3.3V and 0.5A at 5VSB) is applied to the PSU for 200ms while the PSU works at 20 percent load. In the second scenario, the PSU is hit by the same transient load while operating at 50 percent load. In both tests, we use our oscilloscope to measure the voltage drops caused by the transient load. The voltages should remain within the ATX specification's limits.

These tests are crucial because they simulate the transient loads a PSU is likely to handle (such as booting a RAID array or an instant 100 percent CPU/GPU load). We call these tests "Advanced Transient Response Tests," and they are designed to be tough to master.  

Advanced Transient Response at 20 Percent

Advanced Transient Response at 50 Percent

The +12V rail performs well enough, and the same applies to the 5V and 5VSB rails as well. At 3.3V the deviations are significant, though during the first test we observed this rail keeping its voltage above 3.2V. Only during the second test did it drop lower, costing the PSU performance points in our final rating.

Here are the oscilloscope screenshots we took during Advanced Transient Response Testing:

Transient Response At 20 Percent Load

Transient Response At 50 Percent Load

Turn-On Transient Tests

In the next set of tests, we measured the response of the PSU in simpler transient load scenarios—during the PSU's power-on phase.

For the first measurement, we turned off the PSU, dialed in the maximum current the 5VSB could output and switched on the PSU. In the second test, we dialed the maximum load the +12V could handle and started the PSU while it was in standby mode. In the last test, while the PSU was completely switched off (we cut off the power or switched off the PSU by flipping its on/off switch), we dialed the maximum load the +12V rail could handle before switching on the PSU from the loader and restoring the power. The ATX specification states that recorded spikes on all rails should not exceed 10 percent of their nominal values (+10 percent for 12V is 13.2V, and 5.5V for 5V).    

During the first two tests, the slopes were very smooth. Only during the last test did we notice a small drop before the rails settled down to their nominal voltage. This is nothing to worry about, and in general Zalman performed quite well here.

Ripple Measurements

To learn how we measure ripple, please click here.

The following table includes the ripple levels we measured on the rails of the Zalman ZM750-EBT unit. The limits, according to the ATX specification, are 120mV (+12V) and 50mV (5V, 3.3V and 5VSB).

Ripple suppression clearly isn't among this PSU's strengths. The 5VSB rail failed not once or twice, but five times in keeping its ripple within limits. And the 5V rail went over 50mV in our full load and overload tests. We also measured close to 70mV at +12V under full load. That's a high reading, given that we don't want to see anything above 50mV, especially from PSU that utilizes a modern platform. Finally, the 3.3V rail performed significantly better, though it also has a problem with ripple control and isn't able to match the competition. Sirfa should revise this platform and fix its ripple performance.

Ripple Oscilloscope Screenshots

The following oscilloscope screenshots illustrate the AC ripple and noise registered on the main rails (+12V, 5V, 3.3V and 5VSB). The bigger the fluctuations on the screen, the bigger the ripple/noise. We set 0.01V/Div (each vertical division/box equals 0.01V) as the standard for all measurements.

Ripple At Full Load

Ripple At 110-Percent Load

Ripple At Cross-Load 1

Ripple At Cross-Load 2

Performance, Performance Per Dollar, Noise and Efficiency Ratings

Performance Rating

The following graph shows the PSU's total performance rating, comparing it to other units we've reviewed. To be more specific, the tested unit is shown as 100 percent, and every other product's performance is shown relative to it.

The ZM750-EBT's performance is poor; it can't even match SilverStone's ST75F-GS V2, which is based on the same platform. Compared to the rest of the competition in this category, the difference is huge (and not in a good way).

Performance Per Dollar

The following chart may be the most interesting to many of you because it depicts the unit's performance-per-dollar score. We looked up the current price of each PSU on popular online shops, using those prices and all relative performance numbers to calculate the index. If the specific unit wasn't available in the United States, we searched for it in popular European Union shops, converting the listed price to USD (without VAT). Note that all of the numbers in the following graph are normalized by the rated power of each PSU.

Thanks to its low price, the ZM750-EBT finds itself in a very good place on this chart. Personally, though, I'd rather spend a few more bucks to get a PSU with a longer hold-up time and better ripple suppression.

Noise Rating

The graph below depicts the cooling fan's average noise over the PSU's entire operating range, with an ambient temperature between 28 and 30 °C (82 to 86 °F).

This is a noisy PSU, and under tough operating conditions it will annoy most users. If you plan to build a quiet system, avoid the ZM750-EBT.

Efficiency Rating

The following graph shows the average efficiency of the PSU throughout its entire operating range, with an ambient temperature between 28 and 30 °C.

In this graph, the ZM750-EBT surpasses the performance of Corsair's RM750x and RM750i. However, those power supplies feature much better ripple performance, tighter load regulation, higher hold-up time and quieter fans. The only downside is that they cost more.

Pros, Cons And Final Verdict

Although Sirfa delivers budget-friendly products that score high performance per dollar ratios, it cannot compete with vendors like Seasonic and Super Flower when it comes to absolute performance. The ZM750-EBT falls behind the competition, and the only thing saving its bacon is a low price. But spending $10 or $20 more gets you a PSU with better ripple suppression, longer hold-up time and quieter operation. It's your call whether to spend a bit extra or insist on a budget under $100.

Despite its disappointing performance, the ZM750-EBT's build quality is good, and the choice to go with Teapo capacitors seems to be a good one. While they're inferior to Japanese caps, we like them better than most Chinese capacitors and they aren't super expensive. This is why Teapo caps are favored on low-cost power supplies, and the truth is that a PSU's cap and fan choices are among the most important since they affect reliability. Speaking of, Zalman apparently trusts this platform a lot; it recently upgraded the factory warranty from five years to seven. This is a big selling point, and we're certain it'll help improve sales.

The ZM750-EBT does not match the other 750W 80 Plus Gold PSUs out there, owing to its poor ripple suppression. If Sirfa had managed to keep ripple within the ATX spec, even under tough operating conditions, then Zalman would have fared much better. Unfortunately, it seems like the company has a good reason to rate this supply at up to 40 °C for continuous full-load operation, even though the ATX spec recommends at least 50 °C.

Something else that bothered us about the ZM750-EBT is its low hold-up time, which, combined with a PWR_OK signal that drops very late, can lead to dangerous situations for your hardware. According to the ATX spec, all rails should be within the load regulation limits when the PWR_OK signal is zero, in case of AC power loss, and not the other way around. This is a great shame of course; all vendors should follow the ATX spec's requirements, especially when they claim that their products are compatible with a version of the specification.

MORE: Best Power Supplies
MORE: Power Supplies 101
MORE: How We Test Power Supplies
MORE: All Power Supply Content

Aris Mpitziopoulos is a Contributing Editor for Tom's Hardware, covering Power Supplies.

Follow us on Twitter @tomshardware, on Facebook and on Google+.

Revisiting The 990FX With A Twist

After reviewing several smaller HTPC-oriented AMD boards, I was happy to get my next assignment. Though the previous boards were efficient, compact, and made my inner home-theater nerd delighted, I really wanted to flex my muscles and stress my test bench. The Tom's Hardware motherboard crew has the Intel roadmap pretty well covered, so it is with pleasure that I revisit the land of Advanced Micro Devices.

Today, I will be reviewing the 990FX chipset but, more importantly, ASRock and MSI's offerings to the gaming community. Having been an avid PC gamer for nearly two decades, I know how important it is to pick the right components to either gain a performance advantage or to enhance my gaming experience. Both of these products offer compelling features that will help make the purchase decision more difficult on both fronts. Not much has changed to the 990FX chipset since Thomas Soderstrom's previous review, but that hasn't stopped budget-minded builders from picking up this chipset. When packed together with an unlocked Black Edition processor, high-quality RAM and some high-value drives, users can allocate more funds for graphics muscle, peripherals or games (you know, that thing you install after you build the PC). 

Given the flashy marketing labels, professional gamer endorsements and specifications that would make your head spin, I aim to cut the clutter of what could be a great foundation to a true gaming PC.

Technical Specifications

MORE: Best MotherboardsMORE:
How To Choose A Motherboard: A Guide For Beginners
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ASRock 990FX Killer

Having played some semi-pro (if you could even call it that) Counter-Strike back in the 2000s, it comes as no surprise to see Fatal1ty's name becoming a staple in the competitive gaming community. ASRock has branded this series of boards appropriately and brings a lot of features to the mix that help give either competitors an edge or make sure everyone is playing on the same level. Lag, noise and slow load times can definitely hinder performance and, more importantly, the enjoyment of gaming. ASRock's 990FX Killer aims to solve all of these trouble spots to deliver a great product.

Let's talk about the physical stuff. Measuring in at 12 x 9 and 5/8^th inches (because I'm concerned it won't fit into your full-size ATX case), this board seems to give plenty of space for most building concerns. The back panel has access to two PS/2 ports, six USB 2.0, four USB 3.0, eSATA, a gigabit Ethernet, SPDIF and 5-port analog audio output. On board, we have access to two front panel USB2.0 headers, one USB3.0 header and a lonely USB3.0 connector. Speaking of high-speed serial connections, we also have four SATA3 ports connected to an angled connector and one port hanging out begging for an angled cable. 

This board has several features that I find desirable for a high-end board. First, the PCIe connectors have latches that are similar to the DIMM latches that give a positive "click" when actuated, which helps in the removal and installation of expansion cards. Another great feature is the location of the fan headers; in a standard board installation, no fan header is more than a few inches away from where your fans would connect, which will help out with cable management. Finally, and most unique, is the M.2 PCIe SATA connector. This connector is tucked in between the first and second PCIe x16 connectors and gives the user a way to install directly attached solid-state storage to their system. This port enables users to use the new M.2 specification to gain additional bandwidth for high-speed SSD drives.

Beyond that, this board provides some of the standard connectors that we expect on a high-end board. Four 3-pin and two 4-pin fan headers are included to give you PWM control of CPU and chassis-exhaust fans and standard voltage for other attached fans. A full 24-pin ATX and 8-pin 12V connectors are available for power, and a SLI/Crossfire power connector at the bottom of the board round out the power connections. Top that off with some beefy heat sinks on the voltage regulators, north and south bridge, and you have one handsome motherboard.

Let's finish with features. One of the critical features ASRock attempts to kill is lag, and what better way to do that than to implement the Killer E2200 networking chip. Though both boards on the table today have a version of this controller, the ASRock board puts data on the forefront and claims 5x network performance and latency decreases of up to 136 percent in certain games. I don't test that in this review, but it does take up a lot of real estate on their packaging. Moving on, if streaming your gaming sessions is your thing (I'm looking at you FrankieOnPCin1080P), ASRock bundles a three-month license to XSplit Broadcaster with the motherboard that will help make streaming and recording a little bit easier. F-Stream, Fatal1ty Mouse Port, Purity Sound and "Gaming Armor" components help make this ASRock board ideal for any gamer out there.

MSI 990FXA Gaming

When I picked up this package from the shipping box, I instantly thought "F-1 Racer." MSI definitely did a great job packaging this product and keeping the text and logos minimal in order to enhance that polished look. The packaging even had a definitive texture that felt top-shelf.

Just as the ASRock 990FX Killer, the 990FXA Gaming comes in at 12 x 9 and 5/8^th inches but that's where the similarities end. The back panel has access to one PS/2 port, a gigabit Ethernet port, eight USB 2.0 and two USB 3.1 ports. For the audio department, SPDIF and six analog audio jacks finish off the connections. A nice detail that MSI adds here is that the actual faceplate is padded, which helps eliminate any gaps that might show up when mounting in a slightly out-of-spec case. Looking at the board, the bottom edge has access to three USB2.0 headers, one USB3.0 header and access to the front button headers. Along the right edge, six angled SATA3 connectors are hanging onto the edge along with one PWM fan header as well as a 3-pin fan header. Toward the top, the CPU PWM fan header is available and the DDR3 DIMM connectors only have latches on the topside. Installation will require the user to angle the DIMM in and only actuate one side. I liked the fanned look of the heat sinks on the regulators and northbridge, though they did make it more difficult to get accurate temperature readings. 

Overall, this board just impressed me with how sharp it looked and felt. The board replicated that same texture that the box had, and I can't forget to mention the bright red LED that shows up underneath the Audio Boost circuitry on the bottom left of the board. My only criticism with this board is the fan header placement and that might be due to the configuration of my case. I feel this board would be better suited to cases that have the PSU mounted on the bottom of the case rather than the top. 

From a feature set perspective, MSI has geared this product more toward a quality gaming experience. Teaming up with Creative Labs, the 990FXA Gaming board incorporates Sound Blaster Cinema 2 into the package for enhanced industry-leading audio quality. Couple that with MSI's Audio Boost 2 components and audio fidelity should be optimal. The Killer E2200 network controller is also present on this board so network traffic will be optimized for gaming. OC Genie and other MSI-bundled software round out the installation suite that enable this board to be a true performance contender.

Test Results And Conclusion

Test System Configuration

To keep this Bulldozer cool, a Sunbeamtech cooler was used to provide maximum air-cooling capacity across all of my AMD test platforms. Zalman's ZM-STG1 paste was used as the thermal compound for this test platform. Finally, this cooler feels right at home on a full-size system.

Unfortunately, I couldn't get the 2666MHz DDR3 RAM that was used when we last reviewed the 990FX platforms, so I was unable to truly let this board stretch its legs in the RAM department. But, the Mushkin DIMMS and SSD that I previously used in all of my A78 reviews are still kicking strong and running reliably. Performance is consistent between test systems and you can't beat that reliability.

It might not be the latest and greatest generation but it's hard to beat this high-end GPU with its massive triple-fan heat sink. It's fast, heavy, and I love hearing it purr. After testing the APU systems, I had to wipe the drool off of my face after installing this thing. Fire Strike, here I come.

Even with these power-hungry components, this 500W 80 Plus Gold-certified power supply has no problem keeping this system running with constant power while running the standard test suite and individual stress tests. However, these components will burn a little more than 500W of power when running both Prime95 and FurMark. Note to self: when testing 100 percent stress test, get more power!

Benchmark Settings

Comparison Products

Benchmark Results

When I start out, I always run the PCMark Home, Work and Creative suites. This helps me figure out if my systems are set up properly and if the system as a whole is showing consistent results. As we can see from the above chart, less than one percentage point separates the two boards, so I can say with confidence that I'm on the right track.

Yawn. Sandra drives the point home that these two boards are running fairly well. I do notice though, that I'm getting slightly better memory bandwidth from the MSI Gaming board while using the same timings.

While I didn't have access to the latest Tom's Hardware game software, I was able to run the 3DMark synthetic tests to get a general feeling of how the systems compared. 3DMark 11 tests DirectX 11 performance, and it proves to be an even matchup for both systems. With 3DMark13's standard Fire Strike, the MSI board shows about five percent better performance when compared to the ASRock, but Fire Strike Extreme levels the playing field for both systems.

Power Consumption

Now the data is telling us something. At idle, the ASRock is pulling five watts less power, but as we start to increase the load, MSI takes the lead and shows impressive numbers. As I mentioned earlier, this system is pulling a lot of power while it runs these stress tests by themselves. I did attempt to run FurMark and Prime95 on the ASRock system, but the Kill A Watt reported 501 W and the PSU politely shut down and told me not to do that again. Here's another shout out to the be! quiet brand for not burning my house down.

Now, looking at the temps, I am seeing a trend. The MSI appears to be cooling the regulators off more efficiently with their heat sink solution than the competitor by nearly 15 degrees C. Does this pay off for overclocking and those who might not have much airflow in their system?

With the Synthetic and Games numbers combined, the MSI Gaming edges out the 990FX Killer by 1 percentage point. Is that significant? It could be. With that in mind, I include the power data into the discussion to get an efficiency winner: MSI's 990FXA Gaming. Things are looking good for the Dragon-clad board, so now I'll look at the application benchmarks.

Overclocking

This is my first foray into the application benchmarks, but given the variety of workloads, we can see these two systems trading blows. First, the MSI Gaming board shaves a few seconds off the TotalCode Studio encode and shaves an impressive 28 seconds from the ASRock time. According to HandBrake's documentation, scaling through the OpenCL option only accounts for five percent of the CPU processing time, and performance is only slightly improved, which I don't believe accounts for this difference.

The 990FX Killer shaves a few seconds off the After Effects test and barely edges out the MSI sample in the CPU portion, but gets handed a loss when OpenCL is involved.

Autodesk's 3ds Max shows modest time savings with the MSI Gaming board, and this board is starting to inch its way forward. Meanwhile, by coming in first on Blender, 990FX Killer is still performing admirably.

With the compression suite, I finally observe a test where a single board takes the cake. The 990FXA continues to gain a couple seconds of ground on the competitor and is almost starting to gloat as we wrap up the test suite.

The overclocking story turns the table. Using Thomas' voltage and frequency results as a template, I started each board off at its default voltage and 4300 MHz. With the ASRock board, I had to up the voltage to 1.4 V in order to get stable frequencies at 4300 MHz. I tried getting an extra 50 MHz by changing the multiplier and the reference clock settings, but didn't have any luck. Interestingly enough, I was able to boot the box and run some of the workloads at the 4400 MHz setting, but running Prime95 for 30 minutes or less would generate hardware failure messages.

For the MSI, a similar method was used, but I had to translate it to what the BIOS options were. MSI lists its voltage settings in a bias nomenclature -- for example, +0.030 V from its default setting. Unfortunately, for the 990FXA Gaming, I had to go up to +0.060 V, or 1.424 V, in order to hit the same overclock. Again, other settings were playable, but Prime95 was giving me error logs that would indicate unreliable performance in the short and long term.

Conclusion

Both boards perform admirably on my test bench and without any clear-cut winners on any front, I'll have to dissect each board's performance and generate some recommendations. The numbers, however, do not lie. The MSI 990FXA Gaming does perform better than the ASRock sample, and it shows some clear wins in the application suite as well as in a couple of synthetic benchmarks. However, from a performance perspective, USB3.1 and extra audio bells and whistles add cost and decrease value. The ASRock hangs on during all the benchmarks and shows its strength when we get to the overclocking portion, allowing me to squeeze out extra performance without sacrificing too much power or heat. With all of this in mind, let's wrap up.

ASRock 990FX Killer

The ASRock 990FX Killer board lives up to its purpose: it's a gamer's ideal setup. It comes at a lower cost, dishes out average performance at stock settings and unlocks overclocking headroom to grow for extra performance. Let's not forget about the M.2 PCIe SATA port that comes on this package, which could potentially unlock even more performance with appropriate hardware.

MSI 990FXA Gaming

The F1-looking facade doesn't disappoint. In an F1 race, seconds count, and the MSI 990FXA Gaming board performed seconds faster than the competition, making it look good on my bench. Quality components and top-tier partners add features that bring polish to a good product. I'm still getting accustomed to the MSI BIOS, but this board just didn't want to overclock well.

MORE: Best MotherboardsMORE: 
How To Choose A Motherboard: A Guide For Beginners
MORE: Motherboards in the Forums

Jacob Terkelsen is an Associate Contributing Writer for Tom's Hardware, covering Motherboards.

Follow us on Twitter @tomshardware, on Facebook and on Google+.

I don’t remember which year it was -- 2008, maybe? -- when I was scurrying around the CES show floor in the Las Vegas Convention Center, locating companies I was meaning to talk to. I spotted Moneual’s booth towards the front of a hall, off to the side, in a corner. Moneual--yeah, I’ve heard of them, I should stop by. I wheeled around and made a quick detour to the booth.

No one was there. And there were few products -- two or three HTPC chassis, as I recall, and nothing else. I remember thinking how odd that whole scene looked, how strangely fake, like someone hastily threw the booth together, dropped a couple of products on the counter, and walked off. I left my card and was on my way.

Fast forward several years, and rumors were suddenly circulating that Zalman, a subsidiary of Moneual, was going bankrupt. No, wait, we learned, it’s not Zalman going under, it’s Moneual itself, and it’s due to a major $3 billion (USD) fraud.

Moneual reportedly filed false trade reports, over-reporting sales and profits, to secure loans from a number of banks in its home country of South Korea since 2007. Needless to say, it got caught.

At the time (just over a year ago), we reached out to our Zalman contacts to seek clarity on the issue, and representatives gave us the statement that we posted here. In short, it stated that Zalman was not involved in any way with Moneual’s fraudulent activity; that as a result of the Moneual fallout, Zalman would be undergoing a restructuring, supervised by a South Korean court, but would not go bankrupt; and that it would honor all existing product warranties and post-purchase customer support agreements.

Zalman didn’t have much else to say at that time, but clearly, there was a larger story to tell. Now, more than a year later, we queried Zalman about what happened, what’s gone on since then, and the outlook for the company going forward. Michael Park, Technical Marketing specialist at Zalman, gave us some answers.

A Hard Year

Tom’s Hardware: When all of this first broke, the “story” was that Zalman itself was going bankrupt, which was of course not the case. How did the rumors of bankruptcy affect Zalman’s business?

Michael Park: Partnering manufacturers began to demand advance payment and were hesitant to supply the goods. Buyers throughout the world would delay the payments in fear of the future prospect, and product developments were significantly delayed. Consequently, there were shortages on the inventory, and sales sharply declined accordingly.  

Incidentally, consumers assumed Zalman was going out of business and were worried about their existing warranties. A surge of emails and phone calls regarding the rumor flooded the support lines, as well. Such a chain reaction stemmed all from a malicious rumor with no factual evidence.

TH: Can you walk us through some of the restructuring process? Who was the group that conducted it? What was that like for everyone?

MP: The shock and fear was prevalent once the news about restructuring broke out. Many [employees] did not have any options, and those who had were suggested to seek employment elsewhere. The impact of the downsizing subsided within a few weeks, and the atmosphere quickly changed from chaotic and dismal to bustling and focused.

To many, though the workload increase was manifold, it was a great opportunity to backtrack to our original resolve to become a leader in innovation. Out of all the unfortunate events leading to this point, the most significant blessing in disguise was that we were able to reevaluate ourselves, as a company and as individual employees, and start with a fresh foundation.

TH: It must have been exceptionally difficult to maintain a workforce during the restructuring, both because of potential layoffs and because I imagine some people just didn’t want to risk it and found other work. How did Zalman manage that? Did people leave, and are people coming back?

MP: Shortly after filing for restructuring, immediate action was taken to shut down unprofitable businesses, and we channeled our resources to coolers, chassis, PSUs, and input devices only.

Then, in the absence of a CEO and directors, current CEO Keonwoong In took charge and downsized the employment number from 150 to 50 and formed a new board of directors during the shareholder meeting in November 2014. Production, sales, and marketing departments were minimally affected by the downsizing and continued to survey the market, strengthen the relationship with customers, and develop new products.

Though, currently an average employee is handling the equivalent of a three-person workload.

TH: You previously told me that your hardcore fans supported you through the tough times after the Moneual fraud came to light. What do you mean by that?

MP: Zalman has gained numerous loyal customers over the years, and those who loved our signature “flower” and “omega” heatsinks, cost-effective chassis, reliable PSUs, and innovative accessories continued to support our products despite the seemingly imminent demise of the company.

On forums, emails, and social media, they have openly sympathized with us and gave us tremendous encouragement in moving forward. So, we would like to take this opportunity to apologize for the rather unpleasant surprise and sincerely thank our customers for being awesome. We are working hard to return the favor.

TH: Tell us what’s next for Zalman. What is your core business now? Is the financial mess resolved? What can customers expect?

ZM: Since the downsizing, Zalman reached out to the founding members and veteran engineers who made Zalman the household name for PC components. If you were old enough to build a PC in the early 2000s, we are talking about the very people who made those CPU/VGA coolers.

They are anxious to rekindle the innovation that Zalman is known for, and consumers can expect great products in the upcoming years. Currently, Zalman’s core business is to provide gaming-orientated coolers, chassis, PSUs, and peripherals for mainstream consumers seeking cost-effective solutions, and we are also pursuing industrial thermoelectric cooler modules for enterprise consumers.

As for the financial situation, we are unable to disclose the details due to the ongoing legal case, but it is expected to be normalized in the foreseeable future.

In 2016, we are going back to our roots and launching five AIO CPU coolers, five chassis ranging from low- to high-tier, three PSUs, six gaming keyboards, five gaming mice (and a partridge in a pear tree).

And What Of Moneual?  

Although the above is enlightening, many questions about the whole saga remain. In our conversations with Zalman, we had numerous questions that, because of ongoing legal issues concerning Moneual, the company did not feel comfortable addressing.

In our own digging, we found only traces of Moneual. The U.S. website is offline, and a cached version (beware the chipper YouTube video that autoplays) reveals a whole lotta nothin’, if you’ll pardon the colloquialism. The listed contact number has been disconnected, and the Moneual USA Facebook and Twitter accounts haven’t been updated since mid-October 2014 (shortly before the fraud came to light).

The company is apparently still active with its robot vacuum business in Europe, and you can even find a couple of those products at online retailers such as Target and Home Depot. The Korean website is essentially blank, although Moneual’s Chinese site appears to be up and running.

There has been significant fallout in South Korea’s financial sector over the past year as a result of Moneual’s fraud. According to reports, at least six of the banks that loaned Moneual money have sought to recoup the funds via insurance claims -- and were rebuffed by the Korea Export Insurance Corporation (KEIC, also known as K-sure). South Korea’s financial sector has tightened up its scrutiny of companies, too.

The chief perpetrator of the fraud, CEO Park Hong-seok, was indicted (along with two other executives) on fraud charges, and in October he was sentenced to 23 years in prison for his crime and was ordered to repay some $100 million won (around $84,000 USD).

Moving On

At Tom’s Hardware, we never have a vested interest in the success or failure of any tech company. Our responsibility is to evaluate products based on their merits on behalf of our readers, and the chips can fall where they may. However -- in fact, because of that -- we hate to see any company struggle because of forces beyond its control.

In this case, Zalman’s fortunes were directly and significantly affected by fraud perpetrated by its parent company. One hundred people lost their jobs, and it sounds as though the remaining dozens are working feverishly to keep the company rolling. However, if Michael Park's prediction is true, the company will return to sound financial health soon.

______________________________________________________________________

Seth Colaner is the News Director at Tom's Hardware. He curates and edits the news channel and also writes on a variety of topics. 

Follow him on Twitter @SethColaner. Follow us on Facebook, Google+, RSS, Twitter and YouTube.

Performance And Style?

Exterior

The Z11 Neo doesn’t look like a groundbreaking design, though it is stylized quite a bit more than most other $85 “enthusiast” cases. Some of that style comes from hiding its second and third 5.25” bays behind a closed panel, and putting a slide-down cover over the upper bay, to mimic the look of modern feature-free designs without mimicking their impracticality.

Top-mounted front-panel ports also help to clean up the face panel, and Zalman even places a tray between those ports for holding your cell phone (or whatever other small device requires charging). This is an obvious nod to those who place their system under their desks, though we always recommend keeping the system above the floor to reduce dust accumulation.

Zalman understands that most buyers find top-panel ports extremely practical, though some readers would rather hide them under a dust cover. Its combination of two USB 2.0 and two USB 3.0 ports also matches the configuration of most mid-priced motherboards, though we’re sure someone will scream about the legacy nature of USB 2.0. Putting aside the notions of people who would negate practicality rather than tolerate legacy, the only thing that isn’t practical about the top panel port section is the non-scratch-resistant finish of the tray. Builds that must survive an extremely dusty environment could potentially use the hidden 5.25” bay for a port panel.

Speaking of dust, the front panel snaps away to reveal an easily removable dust filter. A single LED-lighted fan is installed in the lower of two 120mm mounts.

Two more filters cover the power supply inlet and an optional 120mm bottom fan mount, though these aren’t as easily serviced as the front-panel fan. Another option, installing the power supply “upside-down” to draw air from inside the case through the front filter allows users to ignore the bottom filters, though a second intake fan might be useful in that configuration. Even though that workaround exists, we can’t come up with a reason why Zalman didn’t specify a slide-out filter to cover both bottom-panel inlets.

The back of the Z11 Neo features a single 120mm exhaust fan, seven expansion slots, and two pass-through holes (with grommets). An eighth slot isn’t available, but would have been required to allow a thick graphics card to fit an ATX motherboard’s bottom slot.

A second LED-lighted 120mm exhaust fan is mounted in the top panel beneath translucent smoke-colored louvers.

A true mid-tower with an extended top panel to support thick radiators, with a full measurement of width (including the protruding side window and fan housings), adds 2.4 inches to the manufacturer-specified 8-inch width. Buyers who bought this case to fit within their 10”-wide cabinet would surely be disappointed.

Inside The Z11 Neo

An 80mm slim fan in each side panel pulls warm air away from drives, but also pulls out some of the air from the single 120mm intake fan. The duct behind these fans is responsible for the Z11 Neo’s bulged panels, and exhaust vents are placed near the rear of that bulge (facing forward).

A large hole in the motherboard tray accommodates the installation of CPU cooler support plates in various positions, and the perforated portion below that supports a 2.5” drive on the rear of the motherboard tray. That means the case can hold up to nine 2.5” drives or eight 3.5” drives, including those mounted in two blocked-off 5.25” bays.

Two triple-tray drive cages are individually removable to make way for long expansion cards. A vertical brace behind these trays is also removable, though long cards can usually be inserted without removing it.

Each flexible drive tray supports a 3.5” drive via side pins, or a 2.5” drive via screws. True craftsmen might even be able to put a 3.5” drive on top and a 2.5” drive on the bottom of each tray, though doing so would adversely affect airflow.

The chassis upon which the Z11 Neo is based was originally designed for three 5.25” bays, and Zalman makes the two closed-off bays useful by putting internal drive adapters here. Both adapters are drilled to support 3.5” and 2.5” drives. One could probably fit a full-height MFM drive here, though finding an interface adapter might prove challenging.

Space behind the Z11 Neo’s motherboard tray is more than adequate for managing cables, so Zalman decided it was a good place to put a hidden 2.5” mount. Unfortunately, installing that drive makes the space barely adequate. We’ll do it anyway, just to make sure it’s possible.

A top-panel mount that supports two 140mm or two 120mm fans is offset 1.5” from the motherboard tray, providing room for extra-thick radiators. Zalman says you can fit dual radiators (stacked) here, but that’s only possible with 1”-thick radiators if your motherboard has adequate clearence at its top edge. We’re more comfortable suggesting a single thick radiator instead.

The top is also limited to 120mm and 2x 120mm radiators (which are often mislabeled 240mm radiators by sellers), since the 140mm mounting locations are too close to the edges to fit the oversized radiator’s end caps and line fittings. This shouldn’t be a big problem for most builders, since 2x 120mm is the more-common “large” size.

Building With The Z11 Neo

The Z11 Neo includes a basic screw pack, an 8-pin ATX/EPS 12V extension cable, and a single expansion slot cover. That last part might be a bigger problem for build-your-own enthusiasts than Zalman anticipated. Unlike professionals, home-based builders tend to be hobbyist, and changing configurations is part of the PC hobby.

Experienced builders including hobbyist have long seen break-away slot covers as a sign of cheapness, and “cheapness” shouldn’t apply to a case that weighs over 17 pounds. We know that slot covers cost manufacturers pennies apiece, that breakouts are hard to remove after the motherboard is installed, and that a single slot cover is not enough to fill the myriad of slots that we may open up to test different configurations. Understanding that this $85 case would have still cost less than $90 if its slot panel were filled with removable slot covers, Zalman’s decision is baffling.

The cable selection makes sense, featuring a split power LED connector to fit both standard and Asus motherboards. The Z11 Neo gets rid of the old AC-97 audio cable that we haven’t used in a dozen years, supporting the more-recent HD Audio front-panel connection exclusively.

Our 2.5” SSD screws securely to the back of the motherboard tray, though we did need a long screwdriver to reduce the angle between the driver head and screw. Cable tie tabs made it easy to wrap both the main ATX power cable and the EPS12V cable around the drive, which removed excess cable length.

The extended cooler of our Gigabyte GTX 970 required removal of the upper drive cage, though a standard (reference design) GTX 970 would fit. The Z11 Neo supports motherboards and cards up to 11” long with all the drive cages installed, and we chose a narrower “Standard ATX” motherboard over our oversized reference model merely to open up the cable passage slots.

The LED-lighted front fan draws air from both the front grills and a slot beneath the front panel, while the tiny exhaust fans inside the side panel blow drive heat out of the side vents. Though all the blue lighting may make the Z11 Neo a little too bright for an office, the tinted side window and translucent grey top louvers soften the appearance when compared to typical “lighted” cases.

How We Test Cases

The components we used in this article only deviate from our official 2015 Reference system in motherboard. We swapped out the reference system's 10.5"-deep MSI X99S XPower AC for a standard ATX (9.6") model: the X99S Gaming 7.

Test System Components

Settings

Drivers

Noctua’s NH-U12S fits a myriad of cases and motherboards, but cooling our overclocked Core i7-5930K is more challenging for its single-tower sink and one fan compared to the firm's larger designs.

Triple axial fans in Gigabyte's GV-N970G1 Gaming-4GD keeps its GPU exceptionally cool at moderate noise, while dumping its heat directly into the case.

Power comes from the 80 PLUS Platinum-rated Dark Power Pro 10 850W by be quiet!

Benchmark Suite

Our new test platform runs hot and quiet, negating the dramatic performance differences its predecessor was designed to produce.

Noise is measured .5m from the case’s front corner, on the side that opens. The numbers are corrected to the 1m industry standard used by many loudspeaker and fan manufacturers by subtracting six decibels.

Comparison Cases

Test Results And Analysis

Worried about the impact of those side exhausts fans of the Zalman Z11 Neo? The intake fan flows much more air, as indicated by the moderate GPU temperature. Note that the GPU fans were set to full speed in each of these full-load tests.

CPU temperature, on the other hand, favored the Gaming S5’s pair of intake fans. It probably makes sense that the spread-out airflow would benefit the CPU and GPU separately, though the Gaming S5’s side vent also allowed some of the graphics card waste heat to escape out the side rather than traveling up to the CPU.

Be Quite got reduced noise by using thin acoustic foam, but Zalman achieved similar results by stiffening up the side panels with plastic ductwork.

Zalman’s higher acoustic efficiency score is due entirely to its reduced GPU heat, compared to the Silent Base 800. The other cases didn’t produce bad GPU temperatures though, and the Z11 Neo did have higher CPU temperature than the Silent Base 800, dropping its overall lead down to 1 percent.

Good acoustic performance combines with a low price to give the Z11 Neo a huge value lead over the Silent Base 800. The price difference is larger than even the performance number.

The Zalman Z11 Neo offers a great combination of overall quality and price, and much of that quality comes from stiffer panels that weigh more than most other cases in the sub-$100 class. It also offers better radiator support than most cases in its class, so what’s the downside?

Conclusion

MORE: How To Build A PC: From Component Selection To Installation
MORE: Cases in the News
MORE: Cases in the Forums

Despite going through a tough time because if its parent company, Moneual, Zalman is still pushing hard to stay afloat on the enthusiast PC components market. It's no secret that the company was working on a new PC enclosure, the Z11 NEO, but what we did not know is when it would be available or what it would cost – until now.

The interior of the case is fairly standard fare, offering room for ATX motherboards and graphics cards up to 270 mm long (or 400 mm when removing the hard drive cages). It has seven expansion slots, so you'll be able to manage up to 3-way SLI or CrossFireX configurations with dual-slot graphics cards. Additionally, there is room for one 5.25" optical drive bay (which we like, because few people use more than one, if at all these days), six 3.5"  drives, and two 2.5" mounts. Two additional 5.25" bays are accessible from the inside only, which you could use for a reservoir or accessory space if you needed it.

Cooling is handled by a total of up to eight fans. The front of the case can hold up to two 120 mm fans (with one LED-lit fan included), and there's a rear 120 mm fan. Up top you can fit up to two 140 mm fans (with one 120 mm LED-lit fan included), and the bottom will also house a 120 mm or 140 mm fan.

Two included 80 mm fans take care of additional front air intake from the side-mounted air scoops. Radiator mounting options aren't too extensive, with Zalman only offering support for a dual-radiator CPU water cooling in the top of the case. That's plenty for most users, though, and this case isn't built to be a watercooler's dream chassis. The top of the case can be sealed off for more silent operation and dust protection, and naturally, fan filters are in place in the most important intake locations.

The front I/O resides at the top of the case and consists of the standard set of HD audio jacks, two USB 2.0 ports, two USB 3.0 ports, and power buttons. Between the two sides of the I/O you'll find a small tray for storing accessories.

What sets this case apart is its rather unique appearance. The front has a brushed aluminum cover with a sliding optical tray cover, and the entire design drips of minimalism but with a hint of "look at me" here and there.

As far as pricing goes, Zalman informed us that the case would cost between $80 and $90 when it launches sometime mid-Q2. Considering what this case features, that's not a bad price at all.

Follow Niels Broekhuijsen @NBroekhuijsen. Follow us @tomshardware, on Facebook and on Google+.

Moving Up To LGA 2011-v3

We've been drawing comparisons between closed-loop liquid coolers and socket-mounted heat sinks for years, and the reasons for picking one or the other have grown in proportion to cooler size.

Lower cost, reduced maintenance and improved portability remain the rationale for choosing a closed-loop solution instead of custom-installed liquid coolers. But even after consigning open-loop liquid to the most hardcore enthusiasts, we must concede that closed-loop kits face some of the same obstacles. Systems sporting large heat sinks also reduce cost and increase longevity compared to closed-loop liquid, and longevity can also be considered an eventual maintenance issue.

It might seem, then, that big heat sinks win the debate before we even start testing, and that closed-loop coolers need to significantly outperform big heat sinks in order to justify their existence. Yet, most of our tests conclude that there’s no performance gain in adding a pump to your cooling system when the radiator is no larger than the heat sink it replaces. Why would anyone even bother with closed loops, then?

A look at today’s contenders reveals at least two of those answers!

Who would hang a three-pound cooler off their processor interface, knowing that it’s going to turn into a wrecking ball as soon as the machine gets shipped somewhere? We’ve seen smaller coolers than these break off from the motherboard, smashing surrounding components. That’s a lot of equipment to lose.

And then there’s the matter of clearance. System builder and graphics guru Don Woligroski was forced to take a hacksaw to his high-end memory in order to fit a big CPU cooler into his System Builder Marathon machine. That move earned him the temporary title Hacksaw Don, and the fact that I actually specified DIMM clearance (base height, thickness and assembly offset) in my review of the cooler he used erased any sympathy he might have otherwise garnered.

The only reason we often see “big air” in our System Builder Marathon configurations is because it’s cheaper. Whenever large heat sinks are big enough to outperform closed-loop liquid, we’re left warning readers that their PCs must be handled gingerly. We’ve even been forced to disassemble our completed boxes prior to shipping after one of our winners fell victim to the wrecking-ball effect on a cooler less than half this size.

All of this means that a performance win by Noctua’s NH-D15 would necessitate a flurry of caveats in our final recommendations. NZXT and Zalman better step up!

Noctua NH-D15

I love that big air coolers are so easy to manage via motherboard firmware. No additional software is needed; today's platforms continuously monitor temperatures and fan speed. The ones we test with are even able to control the fans, adjusting rotational velocity down to the quietest level needed to maintain a preset thermal ceiling.

The NH-D15 itself is a creation of beauty and majesty, towering 6.4” above the CPU and covering roughly the footprint of a mini-ITX motherboard. Noctua ships it with enough hardware to fit both versions of LGA 2011, all versions of LGA 115x and all AMD motherboards that include a four-hole backplate on the factory retention bracket. Previous high-end sockets require additional back plates. Check with Noctua for availability.

The NH-D15’s solid copper base is polished to a semi-smooth finish prior to nickel plating. The finish is almost perfect for keeping thermal compound in place without requiring a thick film of the stuff. I could go on with specs like soldered-on fins and six heat pipes, but I’d rather focus on test results than pontificate about how those things will affect them.

LGA 2011 installations thread bundled standoffs into the motherboard’s integrated support mechanism. LGA 1150 users will find an included backplate with studs and spacers to accomplish the same task, while owners of AMD CPUs are stuck threading individual screws through their board’s original backplate and Noctua’s spacers. The standoffs or spacers are topped with cross brackets that are held in place by knurled cap nuts.

Did you spot the studs that protruded from the cross bracket two photos above? Spring-loaded nuts clipped to the cooler’s factory-installed bracket (three images above) thread over those studs. The springs provide very firm pressure to assure level seating of the cooler base against the CPU’s heat spreader.

NZXT Kraken X61

Dual-fan radiators are typically visually obscured by either the top or front of a case’s frame, and most of those enclosures are now painted flat black on the inside. NZXT designs the radiator of its 2 x 140mm Kraken X61 to blend in, rather than stand out.

You’ll still need a chassis that accepts two 140mm fans side-by-side, with a little room to spare for the radiator’s tanks. We chose Corsair’s Graphite 760T.

Finding a compatible motherboard is even easier, since NZXT’s installation kit supports the entire LGA 115x series, LGA 2011 and 1366, and the four holes of AMD retention mechanisms.

The Kraken X61’s cooling head comes with factory-applied thermal compound and a factory-installed LGA 2011/1366/115x installation bracket. A variation of the familiar Asetek design, a plastic lock ring can be removed to install the AMD mounting bracket.

Using a single motherboard fan header for RPM feedback, the Kraken X61 gets its power from what looks like a SATA connector, which feeds the pump and four 4-pin fan headers. Meanwhile, a USB 2.0 connector allows software to control fan and pump speed.

Included standoffs take advantage of LGA 2011’s integrated support bracket. LGA 115x requires that you install a support bracket first, while AMD users get to replace the screws that hold the motherboard’s top bracket in place with those supplied by NZXT. Regardless of the hardware you use, protruding threads are the result.

The factory-attached Intel bracket fits over those protruding threads, and is secured using knurled nuts. AMD users must replace the bracket with a different, bundled part before accomplishing this.

The “Kraken” menu within NZXT’s CAM software allows users to pick between various cooling modes. Manual selection lets you set 100% fan speed, though our processor ran hot enough to get there using the “Performance” setting. We also used “Silent” mode to gauge minimum-noise performance.

Zalman Reserator 3 Max Dual

Some cases don’t have a good place to hide the radiator, and some builders wouldn’t want to hide it anyway. Zalman designed the Reserator 3 Max to resemble its stylish air-only CPU coolers, and revised that design before doubling the cooling area in its dual-fan Reserator 3 Max Dual.

One of the most notable changes during the revision process is two 120mm fans with standard screw patterns, which replace the original design's proprietary center-mounted fan.

The Reserator 3 Max Dual fits most dual-120mm-fan case panels, and its socket support plate replaces the four-screw retention kit of most AMD desktop processors. The same support plate works with a different top bracket to secure LGA 775, 115x and 1366. The same Intel top bracket works directly with LGA 2011’s integrated support via custom-sized shoulder screws.

Shipped without any bracket installed, the pump head includes a finely machined copper base and pump. Installation step one is choosing from AMD or Intel top brackets and securing one of them with eight screws.

You probably noticed in the first photo that the Researator 3 Max Dual's fans aren’t butted against each other, and we’ve seen the same spacing strategy on some of Zalman’s cases. Everyone with standard fan spacing needs to add the included offset brackets which, thanks to mounting slots, also provide the enormous benefit of sliding the radiator up to 15mm away from the motherboard.

Also seen above (through a center hole of each half-radiator) are three mounting holes for Zalman’s original center-mounted fan.

Just four screws are required to attach the Reserator 3 Max Dual’s cooling head, which is, in turn, powered by a single 3-pin fan connector. A built-in splitter cable allows both fans to be driven by a single 4-pin PWM-style fan connector. The entire unit relies on motherboard fan controls to reduce operational noise under favorable thermal conditions.

Unlike the NZXT cooler that only has a lighted pump logo, Zalman also adds lighted fans to its Reserator 3 Max Dual.

Test Results

Since most of the components in today’s system have already been fully reviewed, I decided to skip the description page and move quickly towards thermal testing. You’ll see the Core i7-5930K overclocked to 4GHz at 1.20V, since further overclocking could put it at risk of thermal throttling in certain cooling configurations.

I'm dividing each product’s results into maximum and minimum speeds. The NH-D15’s speed is lowered by its included resistor wires. The Kraken X61’s fan and pump speed is reduced by choosing “Silent” mode in its control software. And the Reserator 3 Max Dual’s fan speed is reduced by choosing minimum mode (50%) on the motherboard’s “System 1” fan header. When plugged into the CPU header, the Reserator 3 Max Dual’s 3-pin pump RPM could not be reduced.

Mounted in an exhaust configuration, NZXT’s Kraken X61 is still able to produce the lowest CPU temperatures. Perhaps that’s because the internal cooler it’s being compared to is…internal.

Voltage regulator temperature is always a big concern when it comes to liquid cooling, which often causes us to consider standard air coolers as a primary choice. The motherboard chosen today benefits from having its voltage regulator placed directly next to each radiator’s fans, though, causing an unexpected benefit in motherboard temperature.

The Reserator 3 Max Dual’s lead in voltage regulator temperatures makes some sense when we look at fan speed and consider the design’s bleed-off. That’s certain to hurt it in noise tests, though.

The reported pump RPM of NZXT’s Kraken X61 appears unrealistic. We think it’s twice what it should be, and I've seen controller software that was designed to compensate for doubled detection speed in certain pump designs.

Here we see the primary reason for the NH-D15’s higher temperatures: slower fans produce less noise while delivering less air pressure.

Performance Analysis And Recommendations

Noctua delivered the quietest cooling solution in today’s test, though higher temperatures will probably put a damper on the NH-D15’s overall score. You see, a cooler's actual performance is a matter of both heat and noise, since nobody is willing to tolerate a screaming computer in order to achieve a minor drop in temperature.

Mid-pack cooling performance didn’t pay off for the Reserator 3 Max at maximum fan speed, since that setting forces a screaming 47dB a full meter away. I tried switching the power headers to reduce pump speed, but the increase in temperature was far greater than the reduction in noise. A score 16% below-average was the best I could get.

Noctua’s NH-D15 fared far better. Even though it was noisy at full fan speed, its low-noise configuration had a small-enough impact on temperatures to allow a 28% above-average final score.

Oh, and NZXT’s Kaken X61 wins when set to silent mode. Of course, it's also more expensive than the air cooler.

Both the Kraken X61 and Reserator 3 Max Dual are priced at $140, yet they appeal to different markets. The Reserator 3 Max Dual is aimed at enthusiasts who like to show their internal components off, in spite of its moderate performance.

Price is still a problem for the Kraken X61 though, even in the face of its excellent performance. Noctua saves a lot of money by not adding a pump to the mix, and the company passes that savings to buyers.

Again, I insist that the true measure of performance is a cooling-to-noise ratio. Using that metric in a value calculation, we see a huge spike in the NZXT Kraken X61’s value at low noise settings. The NH-D15 still beats it by being both quieter and cheaper.

That means we end facing the same problem we started with. Oversized air-only CPU coolers are too good of a value to ignore. Insanely expensive by air cooling standards, Noctua’s NH-D15 wins primarily because closed-loop liquid coolers are even pricier. It’s also a very powerful, well-made part. I should say something nice since it wins.

There’s still a list of caveats, though. If your tall memory modules don’t fit, blame the memory company. If your cooler hits your graphics card, blame the motherboard company. If your case won’t close, blame the case company. Or do what I did with “Hacksaw Don”, and blame the builder for not considering potential problems in advance.

You can’t ship a system with a huge air cooler. In fact, you shouldn’t move it at all. And we’ve even seen certain four-layer motherboards warp to the point that they stop working when big, heavy CPU coolers are installed. This in an X99-focused article though, and I really don’t think we’ll see that problem in a board with four channels of DDR4 routed through it.

Without the option to give NZXT’s Kraken X61 a value award, I can only say that this is the cooler I would choose to use if I had the money. Weighing the same as our value leader, NZXT’s cooler hangs most of that heft from the case rather than the CPU interface. My gaming system will be no more or less easy to carry to a LAN party, but at least I have some assurance that the machine won’t be broken when I arrive.

As for longevity concerns, the six-year warranty of NZXT’s Kraken X61 is a dead match for that of Noctua’s NH-D15. This stands in stark contrast to Zalman’s one-year guarantee. I’ve seen a couple of closed-loop coolers dry up in the past, and take some comfort in NZXT’s confidence.

Noctua NH-D15

NZXT Kraken X61

Zalman Reserator 3 Max Dual

Rumors of Zalman's bankruptcy hit the web recently and proliferated rapidly. We reached out to the company and were told that the rumors were untrue -- although we weren't told anything else about Zalman's fate -- and that we'd receive an official statement soon. 

Tonight, a company representative issued the final word: Zalman lives.

To be clear, Zalman stated that it was in no way involved in Moneual's fraudulent behavior. In fact, it was actually the most direct victim of that fraud. Even so, the company will not go bankrupt. It is instead undergoing a restructuring, which is being supervised by a South Korean court. All of the company's warranties will be honored, as will any and all promised post-purchase support.

You can read more about the background of this story here.

And you can read Zalman's official statement below:

Disclosure Statement on Zalman Bankruptcy and Connection with Moneual’s Fraudulent ActivityThe purpose of this disclosure is to announce our official statement addressing the rumors on company bankruptcy and Zalman Tech's connection with the $3 Billion in financial fraud committed by parent company Moneual.Recent rumors circulating through major tech news outlets, internet message board forums, and other websites regarding Zalman’s imminent bankruptcy and connection with Moneual’s fraud allegations are completely false. Zalman is currently restructuring the company under the oversight and jurisdiction of the court in South Korea.We would like to emphasize that this will not be a mechanism for company liquidation (i.e. bankruptcy). The following are details in addressing the rumors:(1) Zalman Bankruptcy and Its Implication to CustomersWhile Zalman headquarters is experiencing financial hardship due to the recent troubles caused by Moneual, Zalman is not going bankrupt. Nothing will change for owners of existing Zalman products as they are still covered by the manufacturer’s warranty if applicable. Zalmanwill always guarantee post-purchase support to our customers. Customer satisfaction has always been our top priority and we will continue towards that goal with superior product quality, innovative technologies, and outstanding customer service.(2) $3 Billion Fraud ConspiracyZALMAN was not involved in any fraudulent activity of parent company Moneual, anything to the contrary are baseless allegations with no factual evidence. While everyone at Zalman is deeply saddened and disappointed with the actions of Moneual, we emphasize the fact that Zalman itself was never a part of anything illegal, in actuality Zalman was one of the hardest hit victims by this recent scandal.

We at Tom's Hardware wish Zalman and its employees all the best as they endure what is no doubt an extremely difficult time.

Follow Seth Colaner @SethColaner. Follow us @tomshardware, on Facebook and on Google+.

There have been reports around the web that PC component manufacturer Zalman has filed for bankruptcy, thanks to large-scale corporate fraud by its parent company, Moneual. Upon contacting Zalman USA, however, a source denied the rumors.

The source told us that rumors about Zalman going bankrupt because of parent company Moneual's scandals in Korea are false. The source did, however, state that Zalman HQ is having financial difficulties because of the Moneual mess. 

Zalman also indicated that it would be providing an official statement at the end of November about the current situation and what the future of Zalman looks like. The company also assured us that nothing would change for owners of existing products or warranties.

Reports emerged this week that Moneual forged its export performance papers, allowing the company to secure large loans from Korean banks. Reportedly, the scam was planned by the company's executives from the moment Moneual was founded. Zalman was purchased by Moneual in 2011, allegedly as an additional cloak to cover up the numbers.

How much danger is the Zalman brand in? Only time will tell.

Update 11/13: Changed source name of the refutation. Removed quote and restated content.

Follow Niels Broekhuijsen @NBroekhuijsen. Follow us @tomshardware, on Facebook and on Google+.

Three More High-End Cases Compete For Enthusiast Attention

We can’t remember the last time we’ve issued an “Elite” award to a case, and there are reasons for that. Elite means “best”. An Elite case should have the best features, the best performance, the best build quality, and the best materials. Yet every single case we had recently tested had been nothing more than a bundle of compromises. Looking to avoid those issues, we began our search by setting a relatively-high $180 price baseline, and expected everyone to deliver something that was both costlier and worth the extra cost. Some companies still managed to shove mid-market parts into our roundup, as if anyone wanted to pay more than $180 for a mid-market product.

We trudged on into Part 2, and found two examples of the upper limits of mainstream product. The mainstream’s “ragged edge” if you will. And while those two examples might have been worth more than $180, any level of mainstream isn’t going to live up to our “Elite” expectations. Today we take our third swing at this beyond-value curve ball: Do Elite cases even exist, or will we strike out of this game?

Mountain Mods produces custom cases, and the supplied configuration includes half-windows that are only available using its flash configurator. The price shown includes a $40 assembly fee, which advanced users won’t likely need. The case we received can be configured as a double-wide tower or a double-high desktop, as shown.

Zalman’s H1 is facing limited distribution in the United States, with the last in-stock vender charging $240. After it disappeared from that site, we re-confirmed price consistency at European venders.

Mountain Mods U2-UFO (Horizon) CYO

Built in the company's Horizon orientation, the only way to get this version of the U2-UFO is by using Mountain Mods' “CYO Flash Picker”. Starting with a $280 shell, the firm added its “Duality” front panel (a $25 upgrade), left and right half-windows ($10 each, x2), Triple Top panel (a $10 upgrade), and Horizon motherboard brace for horizontal mounting ($25). It's then topped with Black Wrinkle powder coat ($50) and a $20 window etching.

Getting us up to a $666 pre-assembly price are twelve 120 mm Logysis fans ($78 combined), twelve 12MGAK-NM mesh fan covers ($36 combined), Lamptron’s FC-6 fan controller ($45), wrinkle-finished triple-HDD cages ($36 each x2), single-bay covers ($13 each x2), and a triple-bay cover ($15.50).

The standard 18” chassis only has the ATX-standard seven slots, making it difficult or impossible to mount a thick graphics card in a motherboard’s bottom slot. Stranger, the flash picker did not have a rear-panel option for the larger 10-slot motherboard tray, though we were able to select both the XL-ATX tray and 10-slot back panel by selecting our configuration from the shopping cart and bringing up the configuration options.

Our U2-UFO includes power and reset buttons, but no front-panel USB or audio ports. We didn’t even find a USB/audio front bay adapter on Mountain Mods' website, so if you prefer plugging devices in to the front of your case without reaching around back, you’ll probably need to find those parts at a case modding specialty store.

Mountain Mods can etch just about any logo you’d like in onto a window, and speaks to our vanity with this example. The workmanship is impressive, and you can bet we'll be on the lookout for an enthusiast-oriented project able to utilize the chassis' copious radiator mounting space.

Inside The U2-UFO (Horizon) CYO

Because it's cube-shaped, most of the U2-UFO’s panels can be rotated or exchanged with another side. The standard (non-Horizon) configuration would have placed the motherboard tray vertically, for example, and we could still achieve that configuration if we really wanted to disassemble everything.

Rear-panel options also include the “Duality” with two motherboard trays and four power supply mounts, “10-PCI” similar to above, but with the extra slots consuming the top power supply mount's space, and “triple standard”, with the third fan consuming the space of the bottom power supply mount. Since our power supplies are more than capable for our hardware, we would have probably picked the “10-PCI” option in spite of its $40 surcharge.

Major features of the Horizon layout can easily be viewed from either side of the U2-UFO, such as the front-panel drive bays, added fan-mounted hard drive cages, and Horizon motherboard tray support.

While build options vary, this specific panel configuration supports a 1x 120 mm radiator behind the CPU cooler, a 2x 120 mm radiator below the motherboard tray, a 3x 120 mm radiator above the motherboard, and two 3x 120 mm radiators up front.

 Mountain Mods filled all 12 of this U2-UFO’s holes with value-priced Logisys red LED fans, and tied those to a four-channel fan controller.

Building With The U2-UFO (Horizon) CYO

Mountain Mods includes a basic set of screws that are specific to the way a case is ordered. Also included were a set of thermal probes for the added-cost fan controller.

We could, in theory, have moved one of the two provided hard drive cage kits to any of the U2-UFO’s fans. Because 3.5” drives screw on from both sides, we needed to remove at least one of the two cages simply to install any drives.

Mountain Mods' drive cages are 3.5”-only, so we also had to track down a 2.5”-to-3.5” adapter tray just to install a single SSD. Since that’s all we were using, we left the second bracket set out, which could have also saved $13 from this unit’s cost if it had been ordered that way.

Horizontal orientation limits access to motherboard screws. We could have removed the top panel to install the board, but removing the motherboard tray was an equally-viable option. Doing so allowed us to take this nice photograph.

It might be lacking a few basic features, such as quick drive access, front-panel I/O, and fan filters, but the U2-UFO certainly caters to the performance side of the features-versus-performance argument. And it even looks the part, with all of its radiator-supporting fans lit up.

Nanoxia Deep Silence 6

Did you remember that this story maps our quest for the ultimate example of features, performance, and apparent quality? Nanoxia certainly did, and shipped us a case that stands as tall as most desks, has perfectly flat panels (including the anodized-aluminum face panel inserts), and is packed with features that increase convenience and reduce noise.

Nanoxia doesn’t get there with fancy materials though, instead using a greater quantity of familiar hardware like steel side panels, thick plastic face and top panels, and asphalt noise dampening. That excess adds up to a case that weighs more than most complete machines, at 49 pounds!

Nanoxia doesn’t make us pay extra for access to ten slots; that’s part of the Deep Silence 6’s basic design. Those slots are set inside a deeply embossed panel to increase rigidity beyond what was already expected of its thick steel material.

Front-panel I/O includes four USB 3.0 and two USB 2.0 ports, in addition to headphone and microphone jacks. Behind the pop-up port section, a large fan cover raises up to allow more ventilation (or lowers to reduce noise). Below the array of ports, a pair of fan controllers also helps users choose between added cooling or reduced noise. And those controllers are even placed behind a noise-dampening foam door insert, which additionally muffles the acoustic output of 5.25” drives.

Unlike the top panel, the Deep Silence 6’s side panel cover doesn’t pop out. It is removable, optionally supporting two 120 or 140 mm fans, and it’s also surrounded by cloth-faced asphalt noise dampening sheet.

In addition to the ten expansion slots and four pass-through grommets, the Deep Silence 6's rear panel includes a slide-out filter that covers both the power supply inlet and an internal fan mount.

Inside The Deep Silence 6

The Deep Silence 6 is large enough to hold 13 hard drives and four optical drives simultaneously, and tall enough to stack 10 of those 3.5” trays beneath the four 5.25” bays. The three-tray secondary hard drive cage is removable.

Like the drive bays, the intake fans are also covered by a noise-dampened door. Each fan is installed on a swing-out mount with a slide-in dust filter, drawing air through slits in the side of the face panel.

Supporting both 3.5” hard drives (on rubber dampeners) and 2.5” SSDs (without dampening), the 10 hard drive trays behind the intake fans slide into a non-removable rack. The triple-tray cage behind them can be removed to make room for a 2x 120 mm radiator and additional fans on the opposite side of that rack.

Secondary cage removal also makes room for gigantic HPTX motherboards, and provides access to a lower fan mount. Rails for the internal radiator mount can be seen on the back side of the larger drive rack.

Manufacturer-supplied with two 140 mm exhaust fans, the Deep Silence 6 top panel supports triple-fan radiators in both 120 and 140 mm widths. Though the top panel raising mechanism prevents fans from being installed there, 2.5” of space between the motherboard and top panel should be more than adequate for most cooling configurations. Nanoxia even provides another set of 120 mm fan mounts offset to the outside, so that super-thick cooling configurations can hang past the top of the motherboard.

Space behind the motherboard tray is similarly generous, providing ample room for cable routing.

Building With The Deep Silence 6

The Deep Silence 6 is super-tall, so Nanoxia added a couple of power cable extenders to its installation kit. Other additions include four plugs that can replace rear-panel pass-through grommets, cable ties, and a face panel for the factory-installed 5.25”-to-3.5” adapter tray.

Because the Deep Silence 6 has four USB 3.0 ports, it also has two of the associated front-panel cables. We suggest that anyone considering a motherboard with two front-panel headers also consider whether those headers are easily accessible, since most enthusiast-class motherboards locate the second USB 3.0 header directly beneath the third PCIe x16 slot where it's sometimes obstructed.

One of Nanoxia’s fan controllers features three leads. The other has four, totaling seven.

Nanoxia’s drive trays feature two sets of mounts for 3.5” and two more for 2.5” drives. This allows builders to choose which side of the case to place cables.

Our power supply didn’t need any extender cables, and we found the Deep Silence 6’s second CPU-plate access hole perfect for running the main motherboard lead.

Rather than go by noise or flashing fans, most Nanoxia Deep Silence 6 owners will know their system is on by a lighted ring around the power button. You can open the top vent as shown if you’d really prefer to let some noise out.

Zalman H1

First shown as the Z15 at CES 2014, Zalman’s re-named H1 finally reached production status the middle of this year. We didn’t know exactly what to expect since the displayed sample wasn’t finished, but the retail part looks remarkably similar.

A modest 21.5 pounds of material isn’t much for a steel case, and a look around does reveal quite a bit of weight-saving plastic (with a little brushed aluminum visual enhancement). A hard plastic half-window provides a little resistance to light scratches, while being more flexible than heavy glass.

The top-mounted collection of I/O features separate front, rear, and top fan controls, along with manual and automatic switching modes for motorized top vents. A digital display shows thermal probe temperatures, and the panel can be set to always closed, always open, open at 35° and above (Celsius), or open at 45° and above.

The H1’s rear panel features nine expansion slots, four coolant line pass-through grommets, and two more knock-outs for pass-through access. Zalman fits a 120 mm exhaust fan in the dual-pattern 140/120 mm mount.

A rear-access filter covers the power supply intake, while a bottom fan mount get a separate, front-access filter.

The H1’s top panel includes two 120 mm fans, supports 140 mm fan upgrades, and provides 1.3” of additional space above the motherboard for a radiator.

Inside The H1

Other than the extra two expansion slots, the H1’s interior reflects a full ATX mid-tower. It features two removable three-tray hard drive cages beneath a four-bay 5.25” rack, of which the lowest external bay is blocked by the front panel.

That blocked bay could be a great place to put the included 5.25”-to-3.5”/2.5” adapter tray. Note that there aren’t any front-mounted radiator options for its 200 mm intake fan.

Drive trays feature vibration-dampened pin mounts for noisy 3.5” hard drives, and screw holes for silent 2.5” SSDs. The front access filter covers both the drive cage vent and a single 120 mm fan mount.

There’s enough room on the motherboard tray for EATX, but we only measure 13.9” of Zalman’s specified 14.1” card clearance. Anyone who needs more space can open the unit up to 19.1” by removing a drive cage.

Crossing over the motherboard area, that bent-looking piece of plastic is a card/fan holder that’s supposed to be straight. Three included tabs can secure one fan and one graphics card, or three graphics cards, and the shown deformity does not affect functionality.

Space is somewhat limited behind the motherboard tray, but we still found room for our power supply’s main lead. Side panels use those annoying slide-tabs, but Zalman manufactured them with enough accuracy to ease installation and removal.

Building With The H1

The H1 adds an eight-pin CPU power extension cable and a nifty triple-drive SATA cable to an otherwise ordinary installation kit.

Our SSD screws in place nicely, though 3.5” drive pins might have been a little quicker.

Each card bracket includes a hole to allow its use as a fan mount, when rotated vertically, rather than horizontally.

We didn’t install a fan on the other two tabs, but the default location shown would have been appropriate for cooling a motherboard voltage regulator if the system had been liquid-cooled.

The front panel pops open too, albeit manually, using a push latch.

How We Tested The Elite ATX Cases

We’ve retained the same hardware through several generations of case testing, allowing you to compare the thermal results from several round-ups. Case technology doesn’t change much, and neither does the heating capabilities of an overclocked Sandy Bridge-E processor.

We’re counting on that overclocked hexa-core CPU to flood each case with heat, and Coolink’s Corator DS is being used to similarly saturate the enclosures with noise as it transfers thermal energy away from the processor.

Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 580 is a great noise maker in its own right, its blower-style cooler spinning at a few thousand RPM at full speed. This reference card idles down to 40%, and we use full and idle speed settings for our load and idle tests.

Heat, Noise And Heat Versus Noise

With 12 fans that turn all the way down to 0 RPM, Mountain Mods' custom case provided the widest thermal range between full and low fan settings. Nanoxia had the least thermal range, while Zalman’s H1 went from high cooling to dragon’s breath at the turn of a dial (or three).

With so many fan holes to let graphics noise out, the Mountain Mods custom case showed relatively little noise difference between full-fan and no-fan modes. Always quiet, Nanoxia’s DS6 was still noisier than we expected from an enclosure weighed down with asphalt dampening.

Zalman’s thermal variation was far greater than its noise difference using different fan settings, so it goes from second-worst to second-best in overall performance after adjusting its fans and vents.

All three cases provided great overall performance with the fans turned up, which says a lot about the quietness of the twelve fans Mountain Mods chose for its custom case.

Are Any Of These Three Cases Elite Enough?

Our search for a case with the best of everything is starting to look a little unrealistic. Some might compare it to a car with the cornering ability of a Porsche and the comfort of a Rolls Royce, but cases are far less dynamic. In fact, Zalman’s H1 was the only case that “moved” at all!

Putting the H1 in an elite case round-up presents us with the problem that it’s made of mid-grade materials, using mid-grade design tenets like sliding-tab side panels. It has but one Elite-worthy feature, and while that one is a dandy, it’s not going to get us to best-of-the-best status.

Mountain Mods manufacturers cases for elitists, yet configurability is really the advanced feature you're paying for. The company offers high-quality materials to win us over, along with impressive radiator support, but building and servicing any PC placed into this thing is time consuming. And its acoustic performance…well, let’s just say that the more radiators a case supports, the more holes it has. It looks like a great system for an extreme PC project, but when it comes to daily convenience…can we get a slide-in drive bracket at least? Maybe just some front-panel connectivity?

Nanoxia keeps things plain and simple in its Deep Silence 6. Of course, plain probably isn't the hallmark of an Elite award-winning contender, but we do like the brushed-aluminum accents. As quiet as this thing is, I expected a 49-pound case to be nearly silent. And although I haven't mentioned this yet, you’d better be ready to catch those super-heavy side-panels as they fall after pivoting them only a few degrees from being closed.

All three of today’s cases are definitely high-end in one way or another, though I have to maintain that none of them qualify as the best of the best. We’re already beginning to compromise our search for an uncompromised product.

10 High-End Cases Face Judgement

Remember that we initially scratched two cases off of our list for not even being high-end parts, let alone elite. Still, those submissions are still part of our data collection. Azza’s Genesis and Rosewill’s Blackhawk instead get nominated for "most likely to injure a builder” after their side panels stuck as if they were glued-on.

Those back-of-the-pack finishers ironically perform great thermally. Then again, so does a handful of fans on an open desk.

If noise is going to be part of our evaluation criteria, we should probably set a cut-off point. Perhaps 45 decibels? That unfortunately cuts off high-fan mode for the case with the best finish, In Win’s Tòu, which got to be glassy-smooth by being made of glass.

SilverStone’s FT04 didn’t have an Elite-worthy finish or materials list, but it tops our Acoustic Efficiency chart. In fact, it wins by a huge margin with its fans set to low-speed mode. It’s also relatively cheap, by more value-oriented high-end standards.

In fact, SilverStone’s performance-per-dollar beats those cheaply-made cases that I said I wouldn’t talk about.

This wasn’t supposed to be a performance contest, and any search for the ultimate configuration of quality and features certainly sets aside some aspects of value. Yet, cases with the highest quality, Caselab’s Merlin SM08, In Win’s Tòu, and Mountain Mod’s U2-UFO, came up short on features. Conversely cases with top features like Corsair’s 760T and Thermaltake’s Urban T81 aren't made of top-quality materials, and the T81 even suffered a couple of bothersome shortcuts, such as the slide-on right-side panel and divisible hinges that didn’t divide easily. At least these two less-expensive cases looked nearly as nice as their more-exclusive competitors.

We told manufacturers that we’d consider adding a value award only after exhausting all options for finding a uniquely elite case. Since the most excessive enclosures from our search ended up not having an excess of convenient features, SilverStone’s FT04 surfaces as the top-performing model for value consideration. It wins Smart Buy recognition as a result.

Zalman has announced a new fan – the ZM-DF12. This is the company's flagship fan, and its design differs from traditional fans in a number of ways.

For starters, the fan's blade and motor hub assembly is mounted to the fan frame from the opposite side as compared to traditional fans. Also on that side users find the 3-way fan control, which can change the blade's rotation speeds from 800 RPM to 1200 RPM or 1600 RPM. Due to this hub being up front, it might be difficult or impossible to mount this fan in certain positions. The blades are also different, as they are split, which Zalman calls a "Dual Impeller" design. The idea behind this is to hold on to more airflow while the fan spins at lower RPMs.

At the full 1600 RPM the fan will push 63.76 CFM of air while making 33 dBA of noise. As those numbers aren't very impressive, we do hope that they are better at lower speeds. The minimum noise level is provided as 18 dBA, though the company gave no minimum airflow number. Power is brought to the fan through a standard 3-pin connector, and the fans do not support PWM.

No official word on pricing yet, though it has been spotted for about £15/€15, so we expect it to cost about $20 in the US.

Follow Niels Broekhuijsen @NBroekhuijsen. Follow us @tomshardware, on Facebook and on Google+.

Zalman has announced a new water cooler: the Reserator 3 Max Dual. This water cooler is an all-in-one unit with a very unique design. The design of this unit is based on the original Reserator 3 Max. This new unit is bigger though, featuring not a single 120 mm design but a 240 mm design instead. It still looks very similar to the older unit with its circular heatsinks and blue LED-lit fans.

Both the heatsink and the water block are made out of copper, with the heatsink being plated with nickel to protect against corrosion. Also, there is no reservoir along the path of water flow in the unit. The entire cooler can dissipate about 350 W of heat. Zalman has filled the loop with its nanofluids (fluids with nano particles).

The unit is compatible with all modern CPU sockets, including the LGA 1150, LGA 2011 and AM3+ sockets. Availability is likely not too far away with no word on pricing yet.

The star of Zalman's 2014 CPU cooling line, Reserator 3 Max Dual, uses the same heat-pipe-gone-liquid design of its previously tested single space effort, but spreads it across twice as many round radiator coolant lines between the radiators circumventing fitment issues of protruding tanks that affect competitive designs.

Zalman also switches this new version to standard fans with frames, easing replacement and enabling upgrades. The frame is said to direct air more effectively towards sink fins, rather than allowing it to escape from the sides.

Designed to cool most CPUs noiselessly, Zalman's new FX70 passive cooler also supports up to two fans optionally. Twisted fins are designed to better-utilize the slow updraft of air that occurs as convection.

A "Shark Fin" design to reduce turbulence represents Zalman's entire line of ZM-Plus SF (mainstream) and ZM-FDB SF (Fluid Dynamic Bearing) models. A slightly more upscale model, its ZM-DF12 employs a staggered dual-blade design, noise-dampening silicon corners, and a push-button center for manual speed control.

Form collides with function to produce a duality in Zalman's high-profile Z15 case. With full ventilation and lighting controls, it goes almost instantly from 'low-key' to 'look-at-me' while boosting cooling performance or reducing noise. Better still, the case can make that decision automatically, if you'd like.

The lower panel employs a push-click mechanism to enable additional intake ventilation, while the motorized top panel can be keyed to your preferred case temperature setting. Fan lighting can also be disabled, giving users full control of the case's appearance.

The Mi-3 Mini ITX case features Zalman's highly-regarded finish quality on sturdy steel panels and a front panel door to cover its hot-swap dual-2.5" HDD/SSD bay and 5.25" ODD bay. Two rear slots support double-slot graphics cooling, and the entire assembly is 13.3" high by 9.8" wide by 15.6" deep. MSRP is a scant $67.

Zalman's new GV series power supplies offer users lower upfront cost with a moderately-high 80 PLUS Bronze rating. The top-dog ZM1000-GVM (modular) carries an MSRP of only $150, and the line extends all the way down to the $57 ZM500-GV.

All of these products are scheduled for distribution by Valentine's Day.

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Eight Low-Profile Heat Sinks For Your Compact PC

Compact enthusiast-oriented PCs are becoming increasingly popular as hardware vendors improve the efficiency of their components alongside raw performance. In the last year, we've covered complete mini-ITX systems, low-profile memory kits, and small enclosures. We even based an entire System Builder Marathon on the mini-ITX form factor.

One thing we found during that exercise was that it's difficult to match the dimensions of boutique-built boxes with high-end hardware, if only because there aren't many enclosures optimized for tiny spaces and big specs. Always eager to make bold statements of frugality, I came upon ASRock’s M8 mini barebones system, to which I added a number fairly potent parts. I then ran smack up against the reason that Chris paid big bucks for his Tiki: ASRock’s M8 wasn’t designed for high-performance CPU cooling. The best I could do was 4 GHz, and that was only after I reconfigured the barebones machine's intake and exhaust fans, upgraded the CPU cooler, and locked the processor's core voltage at a level below Intel's stock ceiling. Clearly there was room for improvement.

We set our upper limit for cooler size at 4” to cover the largest of slim cases, and eight different heat sink vendors responded with samples. Six of them even fit within the approximate 3” limit of ASRock’s M8. One manufacturer said it thought its submission would qualify, but might not fit our test motherboard (even though we were sure it would). Several others asked us for a few additional millimeters of headroom, though that would have resulted in a vicious cycle. It was important to us that we keep this a comparison of truly low-profile coolers to address the growing compact computing market.

Here are today’s contenders:

Due to distribution issues, the Gabriel CPU cooler’s price is an estimate based on the company’s other products. That doesn’t leave any room for award recognition, but it still lets us get a look at performance in lieu of its final release. Noctua’s NH-L12 is distinct in that it's the largest cooler to qualify for our story.

Thermalright’s special-edition AXP-200R is similarly estimated to cost slightly more than the AXP-200. Both coolers are identical apart from fan color, though we aren't worried about value judgements on a product that sells for at least $64. On the other hand, exceptional performance could open the door to Tom's Hardware Elite recognition, regardless of price.

Designed to support two fans in a push-pull configuration, SilverStone’s NT06-Pro includes only one. The firm instructs users of low-profile cases to mount the fan below its radiator, so that’s how we're testing it. It might even squeeze into ASRock’s M8 in this configuration, though the side panel would probably block airflow through its fins.

Gamer Storm Gabriel

Best of luck getting your hands on the latest heat sinks from DeepCool Industries. Most of the company's products are re-branded as Logisys by online vendors sourcing them from that importer. The sub-brand Gamer Storm is rarely used in price engines. And sometimes even the product name doesn’t appear. For a while, the firm’s older Gamer Storm Assassin was simply branded as Logisys MC8000 in the U.S.

To compound our issues finding this piece of hardware online, our Gabriel sample doesn’t even have a part number. Presumably, that'll get assigned to the retail packaging, which isn't finished yet.

Apart from issues with availability and naming, DeepCool presents a fairly thoughtful and well-executed design in its Gamer Storm Gabriel. We find a copper base with four heat pipes connecting aluminum fins, all protected under a nickel-plated finish.

Our sample came with LGA 115x (1150, 1155, 1156) brackets for Intel’s three most recent generations of mainstream processors, and AMD brackets that fit all four-hole rectangular mounting patterns. We wouldn’t expect a cooler this small to be marketed towards giant LGA 2011 processors, so we’re not disappointed.

Gabriel Installation

The Gamer Storm Gabriel by DeepCool (and likely to be imported by Logisys) doesn’t weigh much, so it doesn’t need much contact pressure. Rather than add a socket support plate, the firm simply attaches this cooler using screws and insulating washers. These protrude through the back of the motherboard to connect standoffs and mounting brackets seen on the previous page.

With 1.1” of clearance for voltage regulators and memory, and around half an inch of offset in two directions, the Gabriel CPU cooler can be rotated to fit most motherboards. Buyers should still measure their boards to assuage any fitment concerns, though.

A low-profile fan clips on to finish the installation, bringing total mounting height to a mere 2.4”. This one would have definitely fit into our ASRock M8 build, though its clips wouldn’t have supported our thicker fan upgrade.

Since the Gabriel is offset in two directions, it shouldn’t be too difficult for most users to find a mounting orientation that supports a second pair of tall DIMMs. If that’s not an option, we’d suggest low-profile memory.

Noctua NH-L12

Designed for semi-slim cases, Noctua’s NH-L12 could become a truly slim cooler by removing its 120 mm top fan. A second option for reduced profile would be to replace its 92 mm bottom fan with the top fan, though doing so would significantly diminish motherboard component and DRAM clearance. Noctua only recommends the first two options (both fans or one 92 mm fan).

In addition to mounting hardware, the NH-L12 includes a fan splitter and two speed-reducing resistor wires. While we prefer to let our motherboards manage fan speed, we’ll entertain ourselves with both high-speed and low-speed mode tests.

Noctua machines its copper base plate to an ultra-fine surface before plating the entire NH-L12 in corrosion-resistant nickel. Spring-loaded cap nuts with Phillips-head tops are also factory installed.

Some processor interfaces have built-in support plates; others don’t. Noctua still supports LGA 775-based motherboards by extending foam support material across most of its cross bracket, and it supports newer Intel platforms by making that center section removable. AMD and LGA 2011 owners have the benefit of direct-mounting Noctua’s brackets to the motherboard's original support mechanisms.

NH-L12 Installation

Noctua’s LGA plate is slotted for Intel’s three consumer-oriented mounting patterns, using push-through bolts as stands for top-side hardware. Note that the LGA plate is notched in two places to clear the screws of Intel’s original support mechanism.

Another option would have been to install the cooler without a plate. To circumvent clearance problems seen in our System Builder Marathon last June, Noctua also includes a special screw and nut set to install the NH-L12 in the same fashion shown in the Gamer Storm Gabriel installation.

Regardless of whether you’re using bolts or screws, the next step is to install black plastic spacers and cross braces.

An exceptional 1.6” of clearence is reduced by around half under the 1”-thick inset bottom fan, though the fan can be slid a little to make more room at one end. Half an inch of offset also allows the cooler to be rotated to clear specific components.

Too thick for our M8 build, we might have retested the NH-L12 without the top fan, except that it’s already being retested with its included speed-reducing resistor wires.

Scythe Big Shuriken 2 Revision B

Is the name “Big Shuriken” a contradiction? While the word may refer to a small bladed weapon, anything smaller than Scythe’s low-profile cooler might have been more-appropriately named Shaken. Then again, the Shuriken is larger than the stock Intel LGA 1150 cooler.

The Big Shuriken 2 Rev. B is even large enough to hold a 120 mm fan above its ultra-thin cooling fins, relying on five double-sided heat pipes to support high thermal loads, purportedly including those of LGA 2011 processors. The installation kit even includes custom screws to utilize LGA 2011’s integral mounting bracket, in addition to Intel’s other consumer-oriented interfaces and the rectangular screw pattern of AMD’s recent mounting brackets.

Scythe puts anti-corrosion nickel plating on its semi-polished copper base, but leaves its copper pipes au naturel.

Threaded collars screw into the Big Shuriken 2 Rev. B’s mounting brackets to allow installation from behind the motherboard on any compatible socket except LGA 2011. Those installations instead require that bolts be secured using a wrench from the side.

Big Shuriken 2 Revision B Installation

Scythe’s socket support plate has holes in every direction to fit around the mounting screws of Intel’s integrated solution. Tabs on two sides of the bracket also support AMD installations.

In spite of its low 2.3” mounting height, the Big Shuriken 2 Rev. B offers 1.6” of clearance for DIMMs and motherboard components. It gets that space through the combination of a thin radiator and slim fan.

The Big Shuriken 2 Rev. B has a snug profile, but still clears the medium-height heat spreaders of our memory modules.

SilenX EFZ-100HA2

Does anyone remember flower-style coolers? Few of us would claim to be old enough, though some may have forgotten about this design. Fortunately, it still has some merit.

Low manufacturing cost of this sheet-aluminum design is probably the biggest benefit of SilenX’s EFZ-100HA2. After all, easier manufacturing leads to a supremely-attractive $15 retail price.

Smashing those fins tightly together allows SilenX to machine a smooth surface upon the EFZ-100HA2’s base. Aluminum rivets hold it all together.

Designed to clip onto AMD’s Socket 462, the manufacturer must have been thrilled when AMD decided to keep those clips for generation-after-generation of AM and FM interfaces. SilenX adds an adapter bracket for LGA 775 and LGA 1156, and must have been similarly thrilled when Intel decided to keep the 1156 hole spacing for LGA 1155 and 1150. Locking pins sit in oval holes to allow the builder to select between LGA 775 and LGA 115x compatibility.

EFZ-100HA2 Installation

White split pins on the Intel LGA adapter fit into mounting holes first, followed by black plastic tacs. This is the only cooler in today’s round-up that doesn’t require motherboard removal.

A look under the motherboard shows how the black plastic tacs wedge between the ears of those split pins to look the adapter in place.

The EFZ-100HA2 now clips onto the Intel LGA adapter in AMD style, using its original Socket 462 spring clip.

Because its fins are narrow and tapered, the EFZ-100HA2 has the best component clearance of any cooler in today’s test. On the other hand, that taper makes it hard for us to define its clearance in either inches or millimeters.

SilenX calls this a 100 mm fan, but its blades are an exact match to several 92 mm x 25 mm fans that we compared. Metric fan sizes are based on frame size, and the blade diameter of this frame-less fan is around 86 mm.

SilverStone Nitrogon NT06-Pro

Forget the word Nitrogon in your product searches, as most vendors refer to SilverStone’s latest low-profile cooler simply as the NT06-Pro. Designed to hold two fans, the single included fan complies with the low-profile requirements of many builders. Today, that includes us.

An intricate mounting kit includes a separate screw set for LGA 2011, cross brackets for Intel and AMD sockets, extension screws and spacers, a socket support plate for all compatible sockets except LGA 2011, and a spacer for boards that don’t have a built-in support plate (LGA 775).

SilverStone sands the NT06-Pro’s copper base to an ultra-smooth finish before plating the entire cooler in corrosion-resistant nickel. Short fins above the base provide access for mounting screws.

The NT06-Pro uses a variant of carriage-bolt design to prevent turning of the mounting screws in its base plate. The plate has holes for LGA 775, 1150/1155/1156, 1366, and the four-hole rectangular pattern used to hold AMD’s specified clip brackets.

Nitrogon NT06-Pro Installation

Carriage-style bolts extend from the included support bracket through the motherboard, and are topped with plastic spacers, cross brackets, and nuts. LGA 2011 mounting instead uses a special set of screws to hold the same cross brackets and nuts.

With its fan out of the way, we can see how the NT06-Pro’s top mounting bracket connects to its cross brackets using spring-loaded cap nuts. Phillips head indentations allow cap nuts to be tightened through heat sink access holes using a screwdriver.

Exactly 1.2” of motherboard component and DIMM clearance remains after installing the included 120 mm x 20 mm fan. SilverStone recommends both updraft and downdraft configurations, so we tested it both ways.

The bottom of the fan sits next to our medium-height modules, preventing the installation of a second set. Memory upgrade options include using shorter modules or rotating the sink away from memory.

Thermalright AXP-200 And AXP-200R

A red-and-black fan color scheme differentiates Thermalright’s AXP-200R from its more pedestrian sibling, and the firm even rates both product's fans at the same speed. Since they employ the same fan motor and design, readers should be confident of identical performance. The AXP-200 sells for $64-$80, and we estimate the special edition version in our lab is at the upper end of that range.

The AXP-200R includes a multi-sized fan adapter plate in addition to its Intel LGA and AMD four-hole mounting kits. Users can substitute the original slim fan for full-sized fans up to 140 mm, as well as Thermalright’s own 150 mm x 26.5 mm unit.

Thermalright polishes its CPU interface better than most competitors, though this does appear to affect flatness slightly near its edge. Nickel plating prevents surface oxidation.

The AXP-200's support plate is drilled for all consumer-oriented Intel and AMD processors, replacing manufacturer-supplied brackets for AMD coolers as far back as Socket 462. Extra holes near its center fit around the screws of Intel’s original support plates, and LGA 2011 users can instead use their original threaded mounts with a set of supplied standoffs.

AXP-200R Installation

Thermalright adds a support ring around the socket, and uses yet another bracket to push its cooler base towards the CPU. Divots on the edge of the ring align to AMD’s bracket hole spacing, and slots in the ring’s corners fit Intel’s LGA interfaces.

Shown on the previous page, carriage-style bolts attached to a socket support plate slide through motherboard holes to be topped with threaded spacers. Insulating washers prevent motherboard damage, and the assembly is topped with the ring-shaped cooler bracket and screws.

LGA 2011 installations instead use a set of supplied standoffs to attach the ring bracket over and around the socket.

Thermalrights AXP-200R does not support under-sink fan installation, but does clear DIMMs and motherboard components up to 1.4” tall. Missing fins at one end of the sink provide screwdriver access to install the final hold-down bracket.

Though its color scheme is ROG-specific, the AXP-200R’s red and black fan looks great with the red memory and black PCB of this non-ROG platform.

Xigmatek Janus

Initially available to U.S. customers from a single exporter in Singapore, Xigmatek’s Janus now sells for $40. A quick comparison of current Xigmatek products leads us to believe the eventual price will be around $30.

That price range gets buyers a dual-fan sink and two coolers: 120 mm x 15 mm on top and 80 mm x 10 mm on the bottom. Two sets of brackets fit all consumer-oriented Intel and AMD sockets from LGA 775 and Socket AM2 forward. Bolt-through installation supports all of those sockets except LGA 2011, for which Xigmatek includes a special set of standoffs.

The Janus we received was polished only half-way, showing its original machining grooves across most of its surface. These grooves are shallow and should fill nicely with paste to provide a fairly good thermal interface, and are protected from oxidation with nickel plating.

Xigmatek's submission uses a carriage-bolt design variation with threaded standoffs and insulating washers to fit onto the board from above. Most installations require users to reach around the back of the board to secure the cooler with nuts, but LGA 2011 instead requires that you reach between the motherboard and cooler with a supplied wrench.

Janus Installation

Screws from the assembled Janus cooler and bracket package stick through the motherboard and are secured with nuts. A set of insulating washers protects the board’s surface. If you own an AMD processor, you'll need to remove your board's cooler retention mechanism to accomplish this task.

The Janus provides 1.2” of clearance for DIMMs and motherboard devices, and is offset by 0.6” towards the side shown so that it can be rotated to clear taller objects. The bottom 80 mm fan needs additional space above the socket, but can be removed if necessary.

At 2.5” tall including its top 120 mm fan, the Janus is exactly the design we expected to represent the low-profile performance market. The fan even lights up for users of windowed cases such as ASRock’s M8.

If you need a second set of DIMMs to use with the Janus, you'll either want lower-profile memory or to rotate the cooler away from the memory slots.

Zalman CNPS8900 Quiet

An advancement of the aforementioned flower-style coolers, Zalman’s CNPS8900 Quiet wraps two heat pipes around copper fins to improve thermal conductivity.

A universal socket support plate uses the LGA 1150/1155/1156 and 1366 plate as a spacer, and includes a piece of plastic to serve the same purpose on other platforms (Intel LGA 775, AMD AM and FM interfaces).

Zalman’s CNPS8900 Quiet is the only cooler in today’s comparison to use a direct-contact heat pipe design. Once hailed by many firms (and several reviewers) as a giant step forward in cooler base design, its proven benefits are typically reduced material cost for the manufacturer and weight. After smashing the contact surface flat, Zalman sands it smooth.

Zalman uses shoulder screws to keep its CNPS8900 Quiet mounting brackets away from the motherboard’s surface, but doesn’t include screws for LGA 2011. Unlike several competitors, the company doesn’t appear eager to push undersized cooling onto oversized processors, and we can understand that sentiment.

CNPS8900 Quiet Installation

T-nuts are placed into support plate mounting holes that correspond to a motherboard’s mounting pattern, and are held in place with plastic retainers. These are barely long enough to reach the top of the board using Intel’s original socket support plate as a spacer.

Shoulder screws secure top brackets to the under-motherboard T-nuts. The CNPS8900 Quiet is too large to allow vertical access to the #2 Phillips heads of these screws, and we found that a #1 screwdriver could more easily be angled into place.

Like the traditional flower-style cooler that’s also in today’s comparison, the CNPS8900 Quiet is small enough to clear nearly any motherboard component and angled in a way that complicates precise clearance measurements.

With only 1.3” of space under the edge, CNPS8900 Quiet users who need to add more memory should probably choose low-profile DIMMs.

Test Settings And Methodology

One point of testing all these coolers is to find one that really allows overclocking in tight spaces. The problem is that cramped PCs are usually warm without even beginning to overclock. Given the problems of small enclosures and the lack of custom-fit solutions (such as the one found in my boss’ Tiki), I picked the O/C settings from our ASRock M8 review.

Another market for compact cooling is found in home theater systems, where stock cooling solutions might be too noisy. Thus, acoustics are an important consideration in today’s analysis.

The cooling capacity versus noise debate brings up a point made by one of our readers in our recent closed-loop cooling finale. Some products achieve their best cooling-to-noise ratio at a fan speed that’s significantly below maximum. Other coolers behave as if they need more powerful fans to reach their full potential. Readers suggested that we retest everything using a common fan arrangement, but that doesn’t work in a low-profile device comparison where many of the test subjects can’t hold a common fan configuration, or would no longer fit within the low-profile theme using standardized fans.

We don’t like playing favorites, but we also don’t like punishing a company for adding the extra capacity of a 3600 RPM fan when the product operates optimally at 1800 RPM. On the other hand, it would be arbitrary to pick our own fan speed and apply it to all products regardless of design factors.

So, I’ve left it to manufacturers to decide what speed to use. If the product includes a two-speed selector, I test both speeds. If it includes a resistor wire, I’ll use it. If it’s an analog controller, I’ll test the top and bottom speed settings. At this time, I cannot find a fairer method to compare cooling to noise other than to rely on the hardware included with the cooler.

Results: Cooling And Fan Speed

Unable to fit into our ASRock M8 project but still barely qualifying as low-profile, Noctua’s NH-L12 leads the cooling charts. Remember that these tests are based on a low CPU core voltage to compensate for reduced cooler capacity.

SilverStone’s NT06-Pro takes second place in the cooling chart, though it wouldn’t have room for air circulation in the M8 chassis. Thermalright’s 2.8”-tall AXP-200R is the best performer to fit that specific enclosure, followed closely by Scythe’s lower-cost Big Shuriken 2 Rev. B.

Adding the included resistor wires to the NH-L12 lowers fan speed significantly, but with only a minor increase in temperature. Higher overclocks might have changed this scenario, but we’re trying to use settings that all of these coolers can support.

Results: Noise And Acoustic Efficiency

Decibels are on a logarithmic scale, so every ten decibels has twice the apparent audio volume. But air is compressible, so sound sources don’t stack up as neatly. Ten times the source energy is needed to double sound pressure, and a drop of 3 dB is similar to reducing the source energy by half. With that understanding, we were pleased to see a 5 dB drop in the NH-L12’s noise level accompany the installation of its included resistor wires.

Zalman’s CNPS8900 Quiet similarly impresses us by making very little noise at full speed, and a look back at the thermal charts shows that its 51° over ambient result is very close to the low-speed NH-L12’s 49° over ambient.

A temperature reduction of 50% is a cooling improvement of 100%. To rate improved cooling with a higher percentage score, we divided the stock Intel baseline cooler’s temperature by the actual temperature of each competing solution. We then divided each cooler’s actual noise level by the reference cooler’s noise level to put noise on a direct scale, since the higher denominator produces a lower dividend.

The SilenX EFZ-100HA2 had a 10° advantage over the bundled Intel cooler, yet it's noisy enough to finish worse than the stock solution in a cooling-to-noise comparison. Zalman’s CNPS8900 Quiet takes top honors at full speed, while Noctua’s NH-L12 edges it out with the included speed-reducing resistor wires installed.

Cooling Value

Intel’s stock cooler is bundled with retail processors, so we naturally can't use its price as a baseline. We instead used the average of all coolers, and find that the $15 SilenX EFZ-100HA2 wins the cooling-to-price comparison. On the other hand, the cheap cooler runs too hot to satisfy any of our needs.

Priced at only $40, Zalman’s CNPS8900 looks like a great value in a cooler that meets most of our thermal requirements, and its value rating is closely followed by the slightly-warmer Gamer Storm Gabriel and Xigmatek Janus coolers.

Zalman’s CNPS8900 Quiet also has the low fan speed to make it a great overall performer, in the balance of cooling, noise, and price.

The Best Cooler For Compact Systems?

Noctua’s NH-L12 is the top performer in all of today’s tests, though attaining that status in our noise measurements requires installing resistor wires that also raises its temperature to third place. It's also the largest cooler in today’s tests, and fits only the most spacious of small enclosures, such as SilverStone's SG08. And we’re sure SilverStone would have something to say about that, following closely behind with its own NT06-Pro.

The rest of the field fits most compact enclosures with heights of less than 3”. The best cooling-to-price ratio among these comes from the SilenX EFZ-100HA2. If this were a comparison of basic replacement parts, SilenX’s low price would make it a top contender. But hot and cheap don't win any favors in the high-end cooling market.

Second in the value charts, Zalman’s CNPS8900 Quiet is best among the sub-3” coolers in our Acoustic Efficiency chart. It also takes second place behind the SilenX EFZ-100HA2 in our cost to benefit analysis. It's barely warmer and barely noisier than Noctua’s much larger NH-L12 in its top-performing low-speed mode, and has the added advantage of fitting most compact enclosures.

Two candidates emerge for our top-honor Elite award, the Zalman CNPS8900 Quiet that fits most "slim" enclosures and Noctua NH-L12 that fits only a few. But there can only be one best. And since one of the two products also qualifies for a value award, I’m bypassing the debate between performance superiority and enclosure compatibility.

The CNPS8900 Quiet combines good cooling performance, low noise, broad case compatibility, and a moderate price to make it the smartest choice for the majority of compact system builders.

39 Thermal Compounds Get Benchmarked And Tested

If you missed part one of this series, take a quick second and check out Thermal Paste Comparison, Part One: Applying Grease And More.

We Are Curious About Two Special Compound Categories

After discussing the theory of conventional thermal pastes in part one, I want to go into a little more detail about liquid metal compounds, and also shed some light on thermal adhesives, both in paste and pad form. Thermal pads are used to mount small heat sinks on RAM chips or MOSFETs.

But let’s start with those liquid metal pastes. While their theoretical thermal conductivity sounds impressive, that one attribute is no guarantee of success. During the course of our testing, we'll be experimenting with a long burn-in phase and comparing the liquid metal compound to Gelid's Extreme paste.

Several years ago, Coollaboratory broke new ground in thermal management by introducing the Liquid Pro liquid metal compound. But while the look (and subsequent application) of Liquid Pro reminded us of a mercury thermometer that didn’t survive a fall, its successor, Liquid Ultra, is better, avoiding some of the first effort's weaknesses. Because Liquid Pro could be so problematic, I'm only presenting Liquid Ultra in the tutorial section. Both compounds show up in our performance charts, though.

Box Contents

In the Liquid Ultra box you get the paste itself, a cleaning swab, two brushes, a sponge, and an instruction manual. That's an impressive-sounding list, but it's really just the bare minimum to use the product, sufficient for a single application. If you want to apply Liquid Ultra a second time, you'll find yourself without the alcohol swab. At least a second brush is included. While we appreciate the inclusion of the coarse sponge, it's barely adequate for removing the compound. Of course, there's a separate cleaning kit available for a hefty price.

Enthusiasts may be torn about this product, and yes, there may even be those who are more courageous than I and use it on graphics cards. However, my personal opinion is that a majority of the people who read this tutorial are new to thermal compounds, and I wouldn’t want to encourage them to mess around with this stuff due to the skill it requires. I also want to point out that you'll probably void your CPU's warranty if you do use Liquid Ultra. After removing the last remnants of it, we discovered that all of the markings etched into the head spreader were gone. If you still want to try this product after reading our tutorial, you can probably expect very good cooling performance, assuming nothing goes wrong.

Surface Cleaning and Roughing

The most important prerequisites for using a liquid metal compound are clean heat sink and spreader surfaces. You can buy the aforementioned kit with the three cleaning liquids, or simply snag some isopropyl alcohol at the drug store. However, stay away from acetone and cleaning naphtha. Even denatured alcohol may contain additives that are detrimental to achieving a clean, degreased surface. Finally, make sure you wait until any remnants of the liquid have evaporated!

If the surface is too smooth, the older Liquid Pro and newer Liquid Ultra may only form loose droplets on your CPU. Thus, in contrast to what you would do for regular thermal pastes, you may consider roughing the heat sink and spreader a little bit. Just remember that you only get enough liquid metal for two tries.

Don't overdo this. If you scrub too hard, the innocent-looking sponge can cause deep grooves. Move in small, graceful circles.

Coollaboratory Liquid Ultra: Application

Applying the compound is tricky, which is why we don't really recommend Liquid Pro. Liquid Ultra is a little more like the pastes you're used to, though still a lot "wetter". Its composition is still a point of concern because it corrodes light metals like aluminum and certain alloys. This could have an adverse effect on thermal conductivity, even causing an insulating layer to form. Copper- and nickel-plated surfaces are alright though, as are heat spreaders.

Once you've roughened up your CPU, you can drip Liquid Ultra on it, spreading it around with an enclosed brush. The amount you'll use varies by CPU size, but plan to use about half of the compound on AMD processors and about a third on Intel's. The video shows that you can even add liquid metal while spreading it out. Depending on the mounting pressure of your cooler, you may want to spread the compound more than the video shows. Just be careful; you don't want this corrosive, conductive material to get squeezed out the sides.

The next video illustrates an alternate method that requires less material. What we want to stress, however, is that it is better to put the liquid metal on a CPU away from its processor interface, thus protecting the motherboard from spills. We're putting the chip on our cleaning sponge to make sure none of its pins get bent.

On one hand, the liquid is spread more evenly and less of it is needed. But on the other, more metal balls form. Since they could cause a short circuit, they need to be collected. This method only works when the surface has been roughened, and it yields (marginally) better results.

Coollaboratory Liquid Ultra: Application Problems And Clean-Up

The pictures below are staged. But their purpose is to warn you what might happen if you're not careful, or if you don't pull the CPU from its interface before applying the liquid. Even if you're being meticulous, small droplets will separate and run away. So, keep a thin, clean brush handy to deal with them. Don’t spread them or wipe them away; instead, lift them up!

If you have never experienced the sinking feeling of spotting a liquid metal droplet between CPU pins, look at the bottom picture. However, the tiny droplets at the PCB’s edge may be even worse because they're barely visible to the naked eye.

Cleaning with Chemical Agents and a Wire Brush

It's one thing to apply liquid metal. Removing it is an entirely different ballgame. Even popping off the heat sink can be a challenge. It's very easy to pull an AMD processor right out of its locked socket if you're not extra careful. Make life a little easier by starting the process while the processor is still hot, and detach the heat sink by gently turning it left and right. If you roughed both the heat sink and spreader, you're going to be met with resistance. You might be best off mounting a smooth heat sink on a roughed spreader. This combination seems to come apart most easily.

The cleaning agent from Coollaboratory's cleaning set works, but it won't get everything off. Thus, you still have to use the wire brush. Scrape, apply more solvent, wipe, rinse, and repeat. As you might guess, this takes some time.

In the end, you'll probably wind up with two scratched-up surfaces. Luckily, I bought two closed-loop liquid coolers, allowing him to continue testing conventional pastes with a smooth sink.

Coollaboratory Liquid Ultra: Performance Measurements

If you want to know if this solution is worth its high price, the best we can do is answer with a non-committal maybe. Enthusiasts requiring an expensive, hard-to-apply thermal compound to lower Tcase by 2 or 3 degrees Kelvin (which could mean as much as 5 degrees Tcore) might want to consider their build goals. After running our own tests, we can state with some confidence that the supposed improvements of 5 to 7 Kelvin Tcase are overoptimistic. If you see that big of a gain, it's because you weren't doing something right with the paste you were using before. In order to create a more fair measurement, I compared one of the best conventional pastes, the GC-Extreme from Gelid Solutions, against Liquid Ultra. One-eighth of an ounce of GC-Extreme may be good for five or more applications; Coollaboratory's Liquid Ultra allows three, at most. Even without the expensive add-on cleaning kit, you're still looking at the difference between less than $2 per use and more than $4. You're also looking at five seconds of application time compared to three minutes or so. And we still haven’t taken increased risk into account.

Measurement Results

While Liquid Ultra isn’t compatible with aluminum coolers, we're lucky in that the Core 2 Quad Q6600's old boxed cooler sports a copper slug.

It is amazing how well conventional thermal paste fares compared to liquid metal. A more familiar paste sports a lower difference between burned in versus not burned in, but at a mere 1°C ΔT, the Liquid Ultra certainly proves itself in the same league. Whether we run the interval test or the 24-hour stress test, only Gelid's paste manages to get slightly better as time passes.

Asked whether the 1.5 °C ΔT, which the Liquid Ultra holds over Gelid's GC-Extreme with a closed-loop cooler, or the 2.7 °C  ΔT, which it does in the boxed cooler test, are worth extra effort and cost, my personal answer is no. But of course, some enthusiasts swear by the liquid metal. Most folks don't need the stuff; it's really for the overclockers functioning at the very top of their game.

Thermal Adhesives: Arctic Silver And Akasa

Thermal adhesives binds surfaces together, acting as a thermal compound in the process. They're available both as pastes and in pad form, and may be necessary for mounting small heat sinks on memory packages or voltage regulation circuitry. Obviously, conventional pastes don't work in those cases, since the weight of a heat sink causes them to slide right off.

Adhesive pastes have better thermal properties than pads, but they are accompanied by a significant drawback: once thermal adhesive paste cures, you cannot remove the heat sink from the component without damaging something. We've seen too many pictures from folks who've torn off RAM packages or cracked MOSFETs in half. You can try a trick to avoid this: mix thermal adhesive with regular thermal paste. We'll discuss this shortly.

Paste: Arctic Silver Alumina Thermal Adhesive

Arctic Silver's Alumina is a classic among thermal adhesive pastes, but heed the above warning: once applied your heat sink won't come off again. But a similar non-adhesive version is also available, and you can mix about two parts of the adhesive with one part regular paste to achieve a compromise. Your sink shouldn't be affected by gravity or vibrations, but it should still come off if you need it to. After popping it off, remnants of the adhesive will remain on both surfaces, which you'll want to clean with a sponge.

Adhesive Pad: Akasa AK-TT12-80 Thermal Adhesive Tape

It is easier to use an adhesive pad, if you don't mind the compromise in thermal conductivity. But for making sure that RAM packages and MOSFETs don’t get too hot, pads are typically good enough. If you ever plan to change or remove the heat sinks you're attaching, use an adhesive pad rather than paste.

Pastes: Akasa And Alpenföhn

Akasa 455

Model 455 is basically the entry-level product from Akasa. However, it is quite thick and thus not suitable for beginners. A low price cannot make up for the paste’s difficult application.

Akasa Pro-Grade 460

This paste barely differs from the Akasa 455, described above. It is not any easier to use, and the results we measured are only slightly better. Since it's also more expensive than the 455 paste, its purchase is questionable.

Akasa Pro-Grade+ 5022

This is another product from Akasa that costs more than the one we just looked at. While the performance measurements we generated are again better than the previous two compounds, and it is somewhat softer, this is still a thick paste. Warm it up a bit, though, and it can be applied more easily, yielding very satisfactory results.

EKL Alpenföhn Schneekanone

Schneekanone translates to Snow Cannon, which sounds like a whimsical name promising icy-cold CPUs. While your processor certainly won't hit temperatures that low, this paste's thermal performance is still pretty good. However, its price is too high and it's not very easy to use. While it is more expensive than the classic Arctic MX-2, it isn’t any better. Fortunately, enthusiasts in the U.S. won't need to worry about this, since EKL's Alpenföhn Schneekanone isn't available here. 

Pastes: Arctic And Arctic Silver

Arctic MX-2

This classic compound started the premium paste frenzy. It is still a good entry-level choice, too. Inexpensive and easy to use, its thermal performance is in the upper mid-range. And for what you pay, MX-2 seems like it's meant to keep competitors out of the lucrative thermal paste market.

Arctic MX-4

While MX-4 is more expensive than the MX-2, it surprises us by offering only barely better results. This paste may have its strengths, but it's not your best option for high-power applications like GPUs. It's also tougher than Arctic's MX-2, making it more difficult to use, and less attractive to novices. The thermal performance we recorded puts MX-4 into the upper mid-range, but it also doesn’t stand out from the crowd. Fortunately, at $1.75 per gram, it is one of the least-expensive pastes.

Arctic Silver 5

Buyer beware: The brand Arctic Silver is not the same as Arctic. This is one of the few pastes on the market that still sports silver as an ingredient. However, it shows its age and does not keep up with the best pastes out there today. Based on its performance, it seems overpriced.

Pastes: be quiet!, Corsair, And Dimastech

be quiet! DC 1

As with a number of other manufacturers, be quiet! merely puts its label on an OEM product. That doesn't necessarily indicate poor quality, so long as the OEM maintains certain standards. And as it turns out, the DC 1 is a solid paste for beginners, ending up in the upper mid-range. Its handling is similar to MX-2, while its performance is a notch better. While we like the product’s quality, we cannot say the same about pricing. Amazon currently offers 3 g for close to $10.

be quiet! (Paste Bundled with be quiet! Heat Sinks)

We're curious about the pastes that heat sink vendors bundle with their coolers. Since cost is always a factor when it comes to value-adds, we want to know whether it makes sense to toss the included stuff and buy aftermarket compound instead.

In this case, we are positively surprised by the freebie. It should be good enough to complement be quiet!'s coolers, which employ high mounting pressure. Under those conditions, the paste comes in a mere 0.6 °C higher than the DC 1, mentioned above.