Zalman Z9 Plus - Cheap, Cool and Quiet Build
- Thread starter andy_mk3
- Start date
Yeah agreed, although I have just found the 1000W for £140 on a competitor website with free delivery as well. I'd be more inclined to spend the extra £5 for the extra 150W and the possibility of going three-way crossfire if I ever get rich.
Well, at that price it doesn't hurt to future-proof 
It's all fitted now, looks so much better. Unfortunately the bottom fan wont fit, I managed to secure it with one of the 140mm fan holes so at least I can keep it there, still annoying though. Excuse the dust, the fan filters were clogged right up again
The dust in my room is unreal 
I'll buy an air purifier one day as I have dust allergies as well
At least I have peace of mind from a decent PSU and I have room to upgrade the graphics. I can't decide between the 560ti and the 6950 though, not that it matters much, I have no money
It's all fitted now, looks so much better. Unfortunately the bottom fan wont fit, I managed to secure it with one of the 140mm fan holes so at least I can keep it there, still annoying though. Excuse the dust, the fan filters were clogged right up again
The dust in my room is unreal I'll buy an air purifier one day as I have dust allergies as well
At least I have peace of mind from a decent PSU and I have room to upgrade the graphics. I can't decide between the 560ti and the 6950 though, not that it matters much, I have no money
Well, at that price it doesn't hurt to future-proof
It's all fitted now, looks so much better. Unfortunately the bottom fan wont fit, I managed to secure it with one of the 140mm fan holes so at least I can keep it there, still annoying though. Excuse the dust, the fan filters were clogged right up again
[Snip]
At least I have peace of mind from a decent PSU and I have room to upgrade the graphics. I can't decide between the 560ti and the 6950 though, not that it matters much, I have no money
Looking good
Well atleast you know the fan filters are working. Also i ordered my case earlier Excellent, get a thread up soon then
Yes they work very well indeed, it's left on 24/7 which is why it gets bad so quick, I might start putting it into standby overnight to help reduce the dust!
I'll put a thread up of me putting it all together for you guys
Permabanned
- Joined
- 10 Nov 2010
- Posts
- 602
- Location
- Disneyland
Nice case and well worth the money 
6950 in my opinion
The Z9+ arrived today... I am amazed with the quality... best bang for the buck!!!
Ps. will share some pics tmrw
It's getting hard to find rev1 versions which unlock now though apparently!
I was amazed with the quality also, it feels like a £100 case, I was expecting much worse!
Nice case and well worth the money
It sure is
Been a while since an update!
Finally got myself a HD6950 2GB, unlocked to 6970
It's HUGE compared to my 800GT that's for sure lol!
I also had to remove the hard drive cage to make it fit!
Works like a beast now though! Not much more progress as I built a HTPC
Finally got myself a HD6950 2GB, unlocked to 6970
It's HUGE compared to my 800GT that's for sure lol!
I also had to remove the hard drive cage to make it fit!
Works like a beast now though!
Not much more progress as I built a HTPC 
Yeah but the case sits on the floor so I don't worry about the insides to much
I'm thinking of saving up and selling up when IB comes out and have a whole new build.
The accelero xtreme keeps the 6950 really cool though
I'm thinking of saving up and selling up when IB comes out and have a whole new build.
The accelero xtreme keeps the 6950 really cool though
Not too sure
It's an ASUS 2GB 6950 Reference Design. Here's a screeny of GPU-Z if that helps.
I'm glad I opted for the 2GB version as I've seen VRAM usage up and past 1400mb in a couple of games now
Many thanks
Not sure what to do to it next really.
You don't even want to know how much pain that power switch caused me on that case. Was building a friends PC (while he was watching) finally put it together after suffering a really deep cut courtesy of those PCI slot covers, plugged it in, pressed the power switch- nothing. Checked the power switch connection to the motherboard- fine. Stripped it down, checked for shorts, tested outside the case then it was only when I put it back together that I saw that you have to plug the power switch in as it was on the front panel
You don't even want to know how much pain that power switch caused me on that case. Was building a friends PC (while he was watching) finally put it together after suffering a really deep cut courtesy of those PCI slot covers, plugged it in, pressed the power switch- nothing. Checked the power switch connection to the motherboard- fine. Stripped it down, checked for shorts, tested outside the case then it was only when I put it back together that I saw that you have to plug the power switch in as it was on the front panel
Hahahahahha
D'oh! I think an SSD may well be next for this, also a better CPU cooler!
Associate
- Joined
- 18 Apr 2010
- Posts
- 1,062
- Location
- Respawning...
OCUK are selling antec kuhlers for £40 get in there son!
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HS-005-AN
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HS-005-AN
You don't even want to know how much pain that power switch caused me on that case. Was building a friends PC (while he was watching) finally put it together after suffering a really deep cut courtesy of those PCI slot covers, plugged it in, pressed the power switch- nothing. Checked the power switch connection to the motherboard- fine. Stripped it down, checked for shorts, tested outside the case then it was only when I put it back together that I saw that you have to plug the power switch in as it was on the front panel
Had a similar issue, but my switch itself was nackered. It only switched on when I stretched the wire out straight for some odd reason.
Sent my front panel and switch back to OcUK anyways, waiting for my new one to get back to me
I'm loving the case though, I'm tempted to upgrade to a full tower sometime soon though after seeing the amount of space they have in them!
Good evening fellow enthusiasts
Hate to butt-in with my own little life story, but I'm thinking of doing a build with the Zalman Z9 Plus.
I'm leaning more into doing an AMD build, as the Phenom II X4s have dropped in price quite a bit with the release of the X6s and now BD.
I'm intending this to be an office PC, with some high-resolution photo-editing, a bit of video-editing, media streaming to my PS3 and some gaming (GTA IV, maybe a bit of Flight Sim). Pretty much a bit of everything.
The OP here has used an Intel build - I'm looking around and it's the same old story - all the Sandy Bridge's are way out of my modest budget.
So I'm thinking:
I don't really want to spend more than £400 for the lot - but I've only built one machine myself before - a few years back and it's a bit tired now (crashing every few weeks requiring a reformat)
Sorry for hijacking Andy's thread but I haven't been able to find a huge wealth of information at my budget (pretty low to mid range with a little oomph). My question is - have I included any huge bottlenecks or made any vital mistakes? (that's the easy question, only a few marks for that one )
Also, for the same price, how similar would Intel perform? I've looked at the new i5's but even the 2500k is out of my budget. I also looked at the Phenom X6 1090T, but I can save a few bob and get the X4 965 BE and OC it and get pretty similar performance, as X6 is pretty overkill right now, especially for gaming - in fact the X4 outperforms it in gaming, especially with a 4.0GHz OC.
Many thanks for all your time in reading this, and sorry again for butting in here Andy - if it's any consolation I love what you did with the keyboard lighting! Brilliant
Hate to butt-in with my own little life story, but I'm thinking of doing a build with the Zalman Z9 Plus.
I'm leaning more into doing an AMD build, as the Phenom II X4s have dropped in price quite a bit with the release of the X6s and now BD.
I'm intending this to be an office PC, with some high-resolution photo-editing, a bit of video-editing, media streaming to my PS3 and some gaming (GTA IV, maybe a bit of Flight Sim). Pretty much a bit of everything.
The OP here has used an Intel build - I'm looking around and it's the same old story - all the Sandy Bridge's are way out of my modest budget.
So I'm thinking:
- MSI 870A-G54
- AMD Phenom II X4 965 BE - I hear it OCs well, to around 3.9GHz on air with a decent cooler)
- 8GB (2x4GB) G. Skill Ripjaw DDR3-PC10666C9
- Sapphire 6850 1GB
- (Rival shop, begins with Nova ) PowerStation 400W PSU (rebranded OCZ)
- Arctic Freezer 13 PRO CPU Cooler (should let me OC to 4.0GHz??)
- The Zalman Z9 Plus, of course!
I don't really want to spend more than £400 for the lot - but I've only built one machine myself before - a few years back and it's a bit tired now (crashing every few weeks requiring a reformat)
Sorry for hijacking Andy's thread but I haven't been able to find a huge wealth of information at my budget (pretty low to mid range with a little oomph). My question is - have I included any huge bottlenecks or made any vital mistakes? (that's the easy question, only a few marks for that one
)Also, for the same price, how similar would Intel perform? I've looked at the new i5's but even the 2500k is out of my budget. I also looked at the Phenom X6 1090T, but I can save a few bob and get the X4 965 BE and OC it and get pretty similar performance, as X6 is pretty overkill right now, especially for gaming - in fact the X4 outperforms it in gaming, especially with a 4.0GHz OC.
Many thanks for all your time in reading this, and sorry again for butting in here Andy - if it's any consolation I love what you did with the keyboard lighting! Brilliant