The whole bretzelt in a Zalman Z9 housing, because the whole combination found no place in the old mini tower chassis.
Mounting on the board was simple, if you have not just two left hands. The cooler budge and the whole affair looks solid. If you've never done anything like this, but will probably want better than the enclosed rather cryptic instructions.
To equip all four RAM banks on the MSI board is millimeters thing (Corsair CC9 Venegeance LowProfile) the CPU the next sitting RAM touching the frame of the CPU cooling fan easily - but more grade so uncritically. To mount the fan on the other side of the cooler, is this board not as would the heatsink to the motherboard in your way. 1-2mm thicker or higher RAM would be a probably unsolvable problem.
The Zalman Z9 housing is very well done and suitable for this combination - but one cm higher is unlikely to be the fan, then the side cover would not meh draufpassen.
The desired noise level is actually given, the i5 is not overclocked, the solid 120mm fan only runs in overdrive, yet the CPU remains in normal operation at 30 degrees - under load, the non-overclocked CPU goes up to 42 degrees. That the noise had changed here, is not noticed.
In the first operating at moderate overclocking (via OC button on the board), the temperature remained around 50 degrees. That seems to me for everyday use
to be outstanding - this is all you can hear from the computer, a barely audible sonorous noise does not bother with concentrated work.
I often still hear radio on PC - then you just hear from your PC just nothing - and even of penetrating through the window traffic noise drowns out any noise level of this combination. Just great.
Clear the 2 x 80mm fan (PSU) and three 120mm fans (2x housing and 1 x CPU Cooler) are not completely inaudible - but there are no interfering frequencies, no buzz, no whine or chirp - the blank one in the long nerves would whet. Clear the mind and the Zalman housing a large share (see my Rezi there)
I'm not a gambler - overclocking does not interest me to the limit of what is possible - and the comparison to Intel's fan of boxed CPU I have not even made - too often I have this test done in the past, only the Intel turbines usually after to cut a few days in the garbage.
This fan offers a imo equivalent of the full 5 star justifies - worth mentioning is also that of the enclosed 120mm fan are easily changed against a more powerful 120mm fan COULD other. In my configuration seems however unnecessary.
Addendum:
Have the fan now bought a second time and again installed in Zalmann Z9 housing. This time on a MSI Z77 GD80 motherboard with i7 / 3770K CPU
He does his job just as smoothly as in the calculator above.
Even overclocked to 4,5GHz and put under full load, the temperature of the CPU remains stable at 55 degrees - so absolutely critical.
The second fan, a suitable screwdriver in quite good quality this time was even here - the question remains, why no one came with the first cooler .....
