Zalman Z9 Plus - Cheap, Cool and Quiet Build

Seems like a decent enough build there Joseph. I'd be a little hesitant about that 400W PSU though.

I wouldn't like to comment on the Intel/AMD debate, but the 2500k is a far superior chip from everything I've read and from my own experience. I too built a Intel 2500k build including the Zalman Z9 ;)

Not sure what else I can tell you mate, I'll let the others do their thing! :) Enjoy.
 
Thanks for the speedy reply! I have had a few second thoughts with the PSU, especially in terms of upgrading and futureproofing. For an extra ten quid I could get the same product but rated at 500W, which seems like a good way to go. It's a very well-built, fairly high performance PSU and so should cope well.

And yes well, if we all had bags of money we'd all have OCed i7s but for my budget I think I'm going to have to stay with the Phenom X4s.

In terms of the Zalman Z9, I'm fairly adamant on buying it but I'd like the two cents of a few people here first ;)

Thanks!
 
Thanks for the recommendation - the PowerStation PSUs I was looking at earlier are actually rebranded ModXStreams! I might go for the 600W model though - always nice to have a bit more headroom to keep things running cool :)

Regarding your sub-£500 i5 build - what GPU are you using?
 
JosephNV said:
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:

  • 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 :p ) 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 :p )

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 :p
Click to expand...

Biggest piece of advice I can give you is to save up a little more if you can and get something along the lines of the following;

YOUR BASKET
1 x MSI GeForce GTX 560Ti OC Twin FrozR II 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card **Supplied with FREE Batman: Arkham City PC game** £179.99
1 x Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - OEM £173.99
1 x MSI P67A-C45 Intel P67 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard ** B3 REVISION ** £87.98
1 x OCZ ModXStream Pro 600w Silent SLI Certified Modular Power Supply £52.99
1 x Corsair XMS3 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMX8GX3M2A1600C9) £49.99
1 x Zalman Z9 Plus Tower Case with Fan Controller - Black £49.99
1 x Arctic Cooling Freezer 13 High Performance CPU Cooler (Socket LGA775/1155/1156/1366/939/AM2/AM2+) £17.99
Total : £627.92 (includes shipping : £12.50).
  • I changed the RAM since the ones you picked are very tall and have issues with some CPU coolers so gone for low profile ones.
  • I changed the video card so something with more RAM and since it is nVidia will provide CUDA support for apps which do support the feature.

If you need further help then please drop me a mail in Trust and I will be happy to help.

Stoner81.

PS - My most sincere apologies to the OP but I am hoping that my reply will help and get your thread back on track. Nice mobo upgrade too btw ;) and the video card is huge!
 
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JosephNV said:
Thanks for the recommendation - the PowerStation PSUs I was looking at earlier are actually rebranded ModXStreams! I might go for the 600W model though - always nice to have a bit more headroom to keep things running cool :)

Regarding your sub-£500 i5 build - what GPU are you using?
Click to expand...

HIS ATI Radeon HD 6870 1024MB

Back on topic! :D
 
Stoner81 said:
Biggest piece of advice I can give you is to save up a little more if you can and get something along the lines of the following;

YOUR BASKET
1 x MSI GeForce GTX 560Ti OC Twin FrozR II 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card **Supplied with FREE Batman: Arkham City PC game** £179.99
1 x Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - OEM £173.99
1 x MSI P67A-C45 Intel P67 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard ** B3 REVISION ** £87.98
1 x OCZ ModXStream Pro 600w Silent SLI Certified Modular Power Supply £52.99
1 x Corsair XMS3 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMX8GX3M2A1600C9) £49.99
1 x Zalman Z9 Plus Tower Case with Fan Controller - Black £49.99
1 x Arctic Cooling Freezer 13 High Performance CPU Cooler (Socket LGA775/1155/1156/1366/939/AM2/AM2+) £17.99
Total : £627.92 (includes shipping : £12.50).
  • I changed the RAM since the ones you picked are very tall and have issues with some CPU coolers so gone for low profile ones.
  • I changed the video card so something with more RAM and since it is nVidia will provide CUDA support for apps which do support the feature.

If you need further help then please drop me a mail in Trust and I will be happy to help.

Stoner81.

PS - My most sincere apologies to the OP but I am hoping that my reply will help and get your thread back on track. Nice mobo upgrade too btw ;) and the video card is huge!
Click to expand...

Thanks for the recommendations - I always wanted to go for an Intel build but really I wanted this computer sorted for Christmas. I'm going to have a think about it, perhaps wait and get an i5...I hate to say but the Phenom's will be obsolete first...

Many thanks again.
 
One of the cathodes died the other day :( I may not replace them as I'm looking at getting a backlit keyboard :)

On the other hand I'm waiting for this to come from overclockers:
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:)

I'd like to spend a lot more on it but I can't justify it sadly :( It's performing great though, hoping to lower the CPU temps a bit as I'm running it at 3.6GHz now :)
 
My parcel arrived today :D

Here's how it used to look, crappy old Arctic Freezer 7.
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Now with Antec Kuhler 620 fitted with 2 fans in a push-pull setup :)
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Replaced the pre-applied TIM
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Before
Ambient temp: 23.2°C
Idle: 54°C
Load: 79°C

After
Ambient temp: 22.7°C
Idle: 40°C
Load: 61°C

Made a massive difference to CPU temps :)

Both tests carried out on a Q6600 running at 3.6GHz (400 x 9.0x) with 1.296v in CPU-Z at idle and 1.288v under load.

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New 140mm fan as an intake for the front, it's pretty noisy tho, I need to get a fan crontroller at some point now that I have 6 case fans, plus the 3 fans on the graphics card, plus the PSU fan :p
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Congrats dude, that sure is some significant difference on the temps! Sorry to hear about the 140mm being quite loud. Was tempted to install one myself. Are you using those anti vibration fan fittings by any chance? Could be a good should have you're not. I bought the akasa ones and they're pretty good.
 
J-FRO said:
Congrats dude, that sure is some significant difference on the temps! Sorry to hear about the 140mm being quite loud. Was tempted to install one myself. Are you using those anti vibration fan fittings by any chance? Could be a good should have you're not. I bought the akasa ones and they're pretty good.
Click to expand...

It came with a set of anti-vibe pins but I used them on the fan on the side panel instead :p I've connected it up to the fan controller on the case and it's still very loud, certainly shifts some air though! I think I'll get a 'proper' fan controller which should allow for some more control over the fan speeds.

spenncerr said:
Looking good man, glad to see you improved your temps! Do you recommend the Kuhler?
Click to expand...

Without any bout I recommend it to anyone! Especially at £40 :) Only criticism I'd give it is that it's pretty fiddly to install, you have to loosely scrw on the bracket and them fit the cooler and twist it, at the same time you have to hold the bracket up so that it will twist underneath! The instructions are very vague too. But it's exceeded my expectations. Plus I left it on all day when the room temp drops to around 19°C and here's the lowest idle temps :)

Check out the minimum temps :)
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Well I tried for 4ghz, managed to boot into windows at 1.5vcore but it soon bsod'd :p I think that's the limit of the chip really. I'm happy with 3.6ghz at the volts and temps I have though.
 
Small update, the 140mm at the fan was making a hideous amount of noise, so enough was enough and I chopped out the grill on the intake.

utf-8BSU1HLTIwMTExMTA2LTAwMTIwLmpwZw.jpg


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Much quieter, and much better airflow :)

Decided to re-jig all the other fans and have a bit of a tidy up while I was at it.

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Looks soo much better now it has to be said :)
 
Interesting case mod to say the least, I'm assuming you've left the dust filter over it though? Any noticeable temperature drops with the 140mm fan? And lastly with your push/pull on your cooler, is that pulling air into the case or pushing it out?
 
Yeah the dust filter is still over it :) GPU temps have dropped a few degrees, it really shifts some air that fan does! But that grill over it was making silly amounts of noise.

They're currently pushing out, I will try them as an intake later on and see what happens though.
 
Santa's been again :D :D :D
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SSD fitted in a handy space at the back of my case :)
f37b5a85.jpg


Windows all installed again now, it is just mind-blowingly fast :D

Now for the keyboard,which I also love :D

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If anyone is on the fence about an SSD, just BUY ONE :)
 
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Haha awesome dude! Got my 60GB Agility 3 to install tomorrow at some point :)

Any problems with yours? How was the reinstall of windows?
 
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