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Thread: Reviews - Zalman LQ315

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    Reviews - Zalman LQ315

    All-in-one liquid cooling backed by a thick 120mm radiator.
    Read more.

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    Re: Reviews - Zalman LQ315

    I don't think there's a big enough benefit in performance to justify an AIO over a high-end air cooler, plus this one in particular is considerably loud in comparison for just a small temperature difference.

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    Re: Reviews - Zalman LQ315

    Quote Originally Posted by Badbonji View Post
    I don't think there's a big enough benefit in performance to justify an AIO over a high-end air cooler, plus this one in particular is considerably loud in comparison for just a small temperature difference.
    Also I just don't trust em. Why introduce more moving parts and a liquid. I have some coolers that are over 10 years old, I've just replaced the fan once or twice.

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    Re: Reviews - Zalman LQ315

    A few months ago I would've agreed that CLCs were fairly pointless, but there are a couple of good reasons to have one under some circumstances. The first is in a small case (e.g. my case, the Bixfenix Prodigy M). If I had a phanteks ph-tc14pe, noctua d14 or a be quiet dark rock pro 3 then I wouldn't be able to do maintenance on my computer without taking the cooler off, period. The second reason is that you can use them to directly take in air from the exterior, if you mount the radiator as an intake, giving you several more degrees of headroom for overclocking.

    A more minor note is aesthetics, with a CLC you can show off your motherboard, RAM, GPU backplate through a case window, if you're into that kind of thing.

    The fact that a company like Corsair offers a 5 year guarantee is enough to convince me that this thing isn't going to be a massive issue for me.


    Having said all of that, if I had a larger case I'd certainly be sporting a PH-TC14PE again rather than a CLC, that thing's just so damn fancy looking

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    Re: Reviews - Zalman LQ315

    90 degress its not much,my 4770k for a week staid at 100 degrees -the pump wasnt well connected.

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    Re: Reviews - Zalman LQ315

    http://www.bit-tech.net/news/hardwar...receivership/1

    Maybe not a great time to buy one of these, if the story is true.

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    crossy (10-11-2014)

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    Re: Reviews - Zalman LQ315

    Quote Originally Posted by CountBartok View Post
    http://www.bit-tech.net/news/hardwar...receivership/1
    Maybe not a great time to buy one of these, if the story is true.
    Thanks for sharing that - I'd managed to miss it. I used to be a big fan of Zalman (in the "Flower Cooler" days) but increasingly their products seemed pretty "ho hum", with only average performance.

    Looking at the review, I'm less than impressed that the temperature difference between the LQ and the "conventional" NH-D15 are so small, given that the LQ seems to be a lot more noisy. That said, I'm willing to bet that the 'D15 is a substantial piece of kit - making access to cards and especially memory a lot more difficult than is desirable.

    I'm pretty happy with my old NH-D14, so I can't see me wanting to go to an AIO in the foreseeable future. That said, the Corsair H series seem to have pretty good reviews - with fixes for the drawbacks - and decent guarantees, so if an AIO was needed then I'd be flashing my cash at them instead of Zalman.

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    Re: Reviews - Zalman LQ315

    I have the Corsair H80i in mine and I can't fault it, even at over clocked speeds it runs about 5 degrees cooler than this. But that might be because of the dual fan push pull, and the variable speed of the system so you can reduce noise and still get great cooling. You can a manufacturer refurb unit up for about £45. Add in some good thermal paste and you can push the 4770k to 4.5Ghz and beyond. At 4.5Ghz mine topped out at around 75 degrees.

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    Re: Reviews - Zalman LQ315

    One other great thing about CLC setups, is that you not putting the weight of the whole fan and heat sink on the motherboard. So you not getting any flex and stress on the PCB which is a bonus for longevity.

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    Re: Reviews - Zalman LQ315

    Rumors and connections like this, even to a parent company never do any good for consumar confidence. Too bad, even if the nov10 response is true and accurate. My only experience with any Zalman products was my Gigabyte hd4870 gpu...still working on an Asus m4a79xtd evo. it is quiet, too though that card tends to run warm anyway.
    I have a thermaltake(asetek) and this is just enough to turn me away from taking a chance with the 2yr warranty I believe is offered.
    As the review notes above, the field is very competitive now. just 2 or ,possibly 3yrs ago I never would have considered liquid aio and put good but giant heatsinks on all my overclocked builds.but, since I got this TT Water2.0 a year or 2 ago, i am sold. It handles an fx8120 OC'd to 4.0 easy. it is quiet most of the time, no pump noise but fan noise as temps head up. only 1900or so rpm so not terrible. silent otherwise-I am presuming that the basic components are very similar as the same tubes, rotating connectors are the same looking only no pump noise, some do and some dont within the same final brand.
    I now use both air and have learned to appreciate the benefits of these easy to install , no maintenance products. If the same size model as reviewed here 38mm thick push pull radiator can contain a well overclocked fx8120,better than the cm 212 evo with two good fans. I am sold. plus there are 2 larger radiator sizes upward should i want to keep the 4.4gz overclock 24/7.
    john

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    Re: Reviews - Zalman LQ315

    Quote Originally Posted by gstrange42 View Post
    One other great thing about CLC setups, is that you not putting the weight of the whole fan and heat sink on the motherboard. So you not getting any flex and stress on the PCB which is a bonus for longevity.
    Very true - and the Noctua NH's are substantial bits of kit. Actually there's one major plus for the Noctua (sorry if I sound like an ad for them - satisfied customer) in that they replace the stock HSF mountings with their own ones. I've run AMD sockets for a long time and unfortunately a heavy HSF seems to make the mounting plastics fail within 12-18 months. On the other hand the Noctua's been in place since 2010 (on my 2nd motherboard though) and it's steady as a rock (4GHZ+ overclocked PhenomII and I've never seen it top 50C)

    Of course, with units like the Zalman there'll always be folks complaining that "you'd get better performance from a custom loop setup". On the other hand for a klutz like me just being able to swap out air fan for water unit sounds a lot more appealing than a hell-sent combination of fluid, pipes and electricity!

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