Zalman ZM-NBF47 - First Thoughts

Fwapp · Post by **Fwapp** » Tue Jun 06, 2006 11:45 am

My new zalman northbridge cooler came today, It's the new flower type.

It's was as easy/fiddly to install as my previous NB47, whilst being considerably bigger. My only gripe with it is that I was unable to mount the cooler sideways on to my front fan, allowing air flow through the vanes of the flower. How ever first temps as below.

Ambient temp 23C

Asus A8N-E standard NB cooler - 34C
Asus A8N-E with new NB cooler - 32C

Case is a Antec 3000B with Yate Loon D12SL-12 front and back @ 7V

Processor is AMD 3700 san diego with Scythe ninja passive.

Temps after 1/2 hour idle. Paste used is Ceramique.

My 7600GT is well clear if the heatsink.

sgtpokey · Post by **sgtpokey** » Tue Jun 06, 2006 2:38 pm

Hmm,
thanks for posting, that might solve a particular problem I have. Quick question, where did you order it from? My usual US shops don't seem to stock it yet. I saw it on a German site, but did you get it from a UK shop?

Tzupy · Post by **Tzupy** » Wed Jun 07, 2006 2:04 am

How were the temps measured? The Asus probe is not reporting true chipset temps AFAIK.

Fwapp · Post by **Fwapp** » Thu Jun 08, 2006 1:56 am

Hi

I bought the cooler from QuietPC. I believe they have a US presence, but do not know if they have any in stock.

As for the temps, they are the temps reported by speedfan. Probably more indicative of the the temp reduction that is capable with this cooler, rather true temps relating to local heat sources in my home!

Engine · Post by **Engine** » Thu Jun 08, 2006 10:25 am

I'm a huge fan of this design from Zalman, having been successfully using a pair of CNPS3100-Pluses in my dual-1ghz box for a while now. My only caveats are:

1. Airflow. Duh. While the flower design - particularly the "split flower" allows airflow from nearly any direction, it's best to have it blowing across the side of the flower, or better yet, from above. Still, it works pretty much any way you orient it.

2. Dust. My processor temps rise by about 5C per month until I clean the CNPS3100-Plus, and then I'm back down to something reasonable. The flower, for whatever topological reason, seems to hold more dust than block-type heatsinks. Just my experience.

ldan86 · Post by **ldan86** » Tue Jun 13, 2006 11:42 am

I installed the NBF47 a week ago and I'm still not convinced it was a good idea. Installation was a bit fiddly but went alright. However I had to bend some of the fins on my graphic card fan (VF700CU), some of the fins of both heatsinks stick together. Unfortunately I couldn't manage to install it in the direction of airflow, so the nearby fan blows against the side of the fins of the NBF47.
Temperature around the heatsink increased enourmously and the graphics card fan seems to have a hard time coping with the temperature (~100Â° at load against 60Â° before), although this could also be a result from a bad connection between gfx fan und chip because of mistreating the fins...

The new northbridge sink however gets very hot to touch, when the computer has been running for some time, it's impossible to touch without burning the hand. The mainboard thermal sensor (on an A8N-SLI) still displays the same temperature it did before, so I suppose its not displaying the northbridge temperature. Fwapp could you check whether your NBF47 gets that hot as well? I.e. just try if you can touch it.

roadie · Post by **roadie** » Thu Jun 15, 2006 1:11 am

Yeah, NF4 chipsets do get remarkably hot and they do not have a temperature sensor, which I feel is a large ommitance. My EPoX board uses a Winbond chip for temperature sensing and fan control.

Igor · Post by **Igor** » Fri Jun 16, 2006 12:20 am

ldan86 wrote: Temperature around the heatsink increased enourmously

That would mean that the heatsink is doing a really good job transferring the heat out of the chipset, right?

roadie · Post by **roadie** » Sat Jun 17, 2006 2:18 am

There's a review of the new chipset cooler here:

http://www.bcchardware.com/index.php?op ... &Itemid=40

It looks to be pretty decent. I might pick one up to see if it makes much difference over my NB47J.

Speed · Post by **Speed** » Wed Jul 12, 2006 12:48 am

Fwapp wrote:My new zalman northbridge cooler came today, It's the new flower type.

It's was as easy/fiddly to install as my previous NB47, whilst being considerably bigger. My only gripe with it is that I was unable to mount the cooler sideways on to my front fan, allowing air flow through the vanes of the flower. How ever first temps as below.

Ambient temp 23C

Asus A8N-E standard NB cooler - 34C
Asus A8N-E with new NB cooler - 32C

Case is a Antec 3000B with Yate Loon D12SL-12 front and back @ 7V

Processor is AMD 3700 san diego with Scythe ninja passive.

Temps after 1/2 hour idle. Paste used is Ceramique.

My 7600GT is well clear if the heatsink.

Any chance of some pictures? I also have a Asus A8N-E and am thinking of using the same northbridge cooler.

Open to anyone who has a Asus A8N-E and ZM-NBF47, thanks!

Firetech · Post by **Firetech** » Wed Jul 12, 2006 10:39 pm

and here's another test against the HR-05.

scorp · Post by **scorp** » Wed Jul 12, 2006 11:07 pm

Not directly related, but anyway : I installed a HR-05 instead of the small noisy cooler that the KN8 Ultra came with; the HR-05 gets hot (i can keep my fingers on it without actually burning them) from bottom to top, so at least the heat-pipes seem to do a really good job at spreading the heat; the Abit system sensor (probably somewhere in the vicinity of the nf4, but who knows) reports 50C after 9 hours of ATiTools; bear in mind the fact that my CPU is passively cooled by a Scythe Ninja, the 7900GT (overclocked at 520 / 1600) is cooeld by a VF900Cu @ 5v and there is a single Nexus @ 5v as an exhaust fan (the ambient temp was 27C);

Zalman ZM-NBF47 - First Thoughts

Zalman ZM-NBF47 - First Thoughts

Re: Zalman ZM-NBF47 - First Thoughts