I'm trying to find a CPU cooler for my future system and i have narrowed it down to these 2. The reason why i'm considering these is because i'm looking for something that would be light weight, Zalman is 560g and AC is 520g, i intend to move my system around the house a bit and i may have to move, and intel recomends the weight of the CPU cooler to be 450g, so i dont want to go over that by much. The other thing i'm looking for is low noise, i know that Zalman can get a bit loud at the highest setting, but so does the AC. But i only intend to do some moderate OCing so i dont think that should be a problem.

Im getting a e6600 or e6700 CPU, with intel D975XBX2 board, which is compatible with the Zalman cooler accoring to them, i dont know if AC is compatible with my board since there is no info on their site regarding that. Both of these have great newegg reviews and are top sellers as well, so they have to be decent, though i'm leaning towards Zalman. Can someone help me decide which one to get? or if someone wants to recomend something else i would only welcome it, though please dont recomend anything which weights more than 600g.

Hmm

Not sure the zalman your talking about is the same as mine ( i have the 120mm fan) but I must tell you it works wonderfully. At max output it is still whisper quiet. My temps on my e6600 are in the mid 30's but my case isnt the best cooling and I have a heat producing 8800GTX.

Never used AC but I heard that they are pretty good too. The zalman looks really slick in your case also.

Without any experience with AC I cant tell you which is better, but I get good results with the zalman. And if you do get the zalman, dont use the speed control, just hook it right to your mobo....as I said before it isnt very loud at full bore...

I take my case to LAN's all the time and never had an issue with cracking mobo's and I had this fan on a few systems already. The support mounts are pretty high quality and dispurses the weight good.

Thanx for the reply Jim. I think the one you have is 9700, but it has 110mm fan not 120mm. Yes the reason why i like the Zalman (especially the Led version because of its looks) is because it supposed to be cool and quiet. The case i settled on is Gigabyte 3D Aurora 570 which is supposed to have excellent airflow, its a full tower afterall, and 3 120mm fans (1 intake, 2 exhaust) though i would like to add some to the top and side for extra cooling if the case will allow that. Also will be running hot vid cards as well a 8800 or 2 x1950pro havent decided yet.

In regards the mobo controlling the fan, 9500 comes in 2 varieties:

9500 LED and 9500 AT, i'm not sure what the difference between them is only that the LED has Fan mate 2 that lets you control the fan, does anyonme know any other difference between them?

Go with the Zalman. I have had bad experiences with AC.

Zalman on the other hand work great but cost a lot. So go with Zalman.

oK, thanks, like i said i was leaning towards zalman anyway, so i guess it is more vote for it. By the way, Zalman is cheaper than AC 7, at the moment newegg charghes $45 and $47 for 9500 and $69 for AC 7 pro, i remember it used to be $35 a month ago, i wonder why they doubled the price?

Also, i still would like to know what the difference between LED and AT versions is, anyone know?

My Zalman is certainly loud at the highest setting, but the difference in temp between the highest and lowest is only about 2C for me. It even stays below 50C idling if i unplug the fan altogether (it seems that the fan simply blows air through the hole in the middle not over the fins so it dosent make much difference).

Thanks for the tip, so i take that you still recomend Zalman, i cant really tell from your message?

Yeah, I definately recommend it

ok, Zalman it is then, thanks for all the suggestions.

on Zalman:

I'll second that!