Zalman CNPS 10X Quiet and Extreme review - Testing the cooler

Testing the cooler

Time to test. As stated in the introduction, both coolers works absolutely stunning with any high-end processor (Core i5/i7 quad-core included) at default operating speeds.

We'll first be testing baseline performance of both coolers with the fan RPM locked at 80% of it's capacity.

So for some real testing we decided to test it on a new fairly high-end system with higher specs that is mildly overclocked. With such baseline temperatures we changes the processor to a Core i5 750 to see where we'd end up overclocking wise.

Methodology -- We use an eVGA p55 Classified 200 motherboard, equip it with a Corei5 750 processor,  which we overclock towards 3.4 GHz. Now we'll test the coolers in two utilization stages:

1. Actively cooled - yet CPU has nothing to do (IDLE)
2. Actively cooled - four processors cores 100% stressed (LOAD)

Let's have a look at the results:

** Update we mislabeled the X10 Quiet as X10 Silent in our charts

Now since this is a new test platform based on Socket LGA 1156 we have few results available from other coolers, but you can see the big picture real fast -- the Zalman 10X coolers haul ass as they immediately take top ranks with a massive margin.

Please understand for the above results -- temperatures are based on an overclocked processor with a little extra voltage (1.3v) added and the fan speed locked at 80% RPM -- temperatures wise -- obviously LOWER = BETTER.

So then -- at 100% CPU load on all 4 cores (Prime 95 stressed).

CNPS 10X Extreme (80% RPM)

• With the processor in idle expect cooler temperatures of roughly 27 Degrees C / 81 F (we take the temperatures of the four cores and average them out).
• With the processor's four cores stressed 100% we max out at 46 C / 115 F.

That's just really good performance (!).

CNPS 10X Quiet(80% RPM)

• With the processor in idle expect cooler temperatures of roughly 28 Degrees C / 82 F (we take the temperatures of the four cores and average them out).
• With the processor's four cores stressed 100% we max out at 50 C / 122 F.

Again that's just great performance, however at a forced 80% RPM level (due to our test method) the cooler is just way above advertised noise levels. So to facilitate Zalman we enabled the fan controller and put the fan RPM at it's lowest possible setting. The result was the DBa level drop to 38 DBa for the entire PC (can't hear it really) and the temperatures:

CNPS 10X Quiet (LOWEST RPM)

• With the processor in idle expect cooler temperatures of roughly 35 Degrees C / 95 F (we take the temperatures of the four cores and average them out).
• With the processor's four cores stressed 100% we max out at 54 C / 129 F.

So now we have a completely silent cooler yet as you can observe our overclocked processor is still cooled incredibly well, way above other mid-range and budget coolers.

** Update we mislabeled the X10 Quiet as X10 Silent in our charts

So once we look at DBa levels coming from the PC (= noise level of the entire PC). We see that the CNPS 10X Quiet cooler is extremely silent at it's lowest RPM setting. At 80% however they are downright noisy.

Now here's a shocker, you can achieve exactly the same thing (silent performance) with the CNPS 10X Extreme as the Fan controller on it also allows very low RPM.