Clutch's Zalman NC 2000 Review w/ Pictures (ASUS G50Vt + Undervolting)

Clutch's Zalman NC 2000 Review w/ Pictures (ASUS G50Vt + Undervolting)

Beginning Notes: While the cooler didnt provide some of the extreme lows some note books have seen with this cooler remember a 5C change for those of use used to farenheight is a decent difference. The cooler is a perfect match to the vents of this notebook and some note books like most HP and many Dell models will fair better with the NZXT Cryo LX. CPU idle did not drop most likely due to the notebook cooler dropping fan speed.

Pictures


Zalman Specifications
Dimensions: 12.52" x 15.75" x 1.67"
Weight: 3.22 lbs.
Base Material: Pure Aluminum, ABS
Noise: 18.0-25.5 dBA ± 10 %
Input Voltage: 5V (Connects with Notebook USB Port)
Fan Quantity: Two
Fan Type: Dual Centrifugal Fan
Bearing Type: Hypro Bearing
RPM: 1100-1500 RPM ± 10 %

Features
The coolers dimensions are 12.52"L x 15.75"W x 1.67"H (318mm x 400mm x 42.5mm) and according to the box is for notebooks up to 20 inches. However most 17 inch notebooks would hang over the edges a bit and I don't see this fitting 18.4-20 inch Notebooks.

The cooler is USB powered and provides an extra USB port to make up for the lost port. Power is limited to the left over 1.9 watts but the right hand port is perfect for a wireless mouse receiver (The G50's right ports are to the front). The cooler can be powered from either side and the cord can reach any position on the left right and 3/4 across the back going in either direction. The NC2K features a storage compartment for the usb port.

The fans are controllable by a dial between 1100 and 1500 RPM and can also be turned off. The on/off switch is accompanied by a blue LED. Retractable feet can further prop the back of the cooler up to provide more air flow and better angle on the notebook.

Build
The coolers upper section is made out of a solid chunk of aluminum available in silver or black. The bottom section is made of plastic and the two are meshed by 4 screws and also seems to be glued on. The whole unit feels very solid and the 3.2 pounds is light on its own but you will notice the added weight to your new laptop bag (The one you need to buy to fit this). 2 small and 1 long strip of rubber help keep the notebook where it is.

The Notebook
The notebook for this test is an ASUS G50VT-X5 in stock configuration as well as overclocked with the exception of the second hard drive. The specs are as follows:
Screen - 15.6 inch CPU - Intel C2D P7450 @ 2.13Ghz (1066Mhz FSB, 3MB L2 Cache) GPU - nVidia GeForce 9800M GS RAM - 4GB DDR2 800Mhz

The bottom panel contains most of the vents so measuring isn't even necessary. The vents are 99% covered by this cooler with the notebooks own feet being between the rubber support strips of the cooler. The force draw cooling method of the notebook causes it to pull the air from the Zalman into the vents and over the components before routing it through the heat pipe assembly. As i said before the USB cable can reach any of the USB ports I chose to use the back.

The Test
The test's where conducted in a 20C room on a flat table using HWmonitor with the cpu tjmax properly set. Idle temps where taken and compared from a cold boot at 15 30 and 60 minutes to ensure accuracy. Thermal sensor temps where taken from their max excluding idle. While not the method that gets them the hottest I have observed that WPrime's temperatures where 1 degree higher then I encounter under any kind of use and this was run for 15 minutes to obtain the temperature.

GPU temperatures where obtained using the Crysis Benchmark Tool @ native res on high looped 5 times. This setup has been consistent through 10 runs straight. Hard drive temperatures where obtained by first heating the GPU and CPU up to raise the case temperature and then benching the hard drive read write for 15 minutes while still loading the CPU and GPU.

In addition to testing the cooler by itself I tested the CPU undervolted to 1.00 volt and subjected it to the same on cooler tests.

The Results


Note the CPU has a very consistent idle even after coming down from heavy use. Non fan cooled components take the most benefit from the cooler as the system adjusts its fan as fan cooled temps drop.

Impression
The cooler surface is always ice cold and cold air blows out all 4 sides cooling you as well as your laptop. The cooler is comfortable in my lap when the feet are retracted. At full blast the fan is audible but almost as quiet as the G50's fan which drops in speed on the cooler. Only in a very quiet room do I notice the cooler on low which still adequately cools the notebook..

Conclusion
I feel happy with the drop in temperatures and also know that components that I can not measure the temperature of are being cooled as well. But the cooler's results do not jump out at me and is partly the fault of the laptops own cooling system taking a load off and its force draw design. The cooler will perform better on some systems but is also not suited to all system such as HP and some dell gaming systems.

The undervolt and the cooler combined provide an impressive drop in temperature and RM Clock is fine for the P7450. The T9600 I now have installed already runs cooler then the P7450 at idle however the half multipliers is driving me to check out CPU Genie.

However I feel not all of my notebooks fit, take this monstrous Pentium 1 for example:


I feel this is complete I may modify it a bit as well as add links to the other reviews on this site.

 

Excellent review Clutch! I love the pictures and table.... don't even have to read lol.

My Zalman NC2000 fits my Gateway P7805u perfectly! I have it facing normally to keep my hard drive cool hehe.

Pos rep!!

 

Reminds me of my NC2000 Review + Undervolting on an hp dv5t... lol, yours is more organized though.

For GPU temps on the 9600M GT, i remember raising the back shed off 5C off the GPU, then putting it on the cooler shed off another 5C off the GPU.

 

Raising the back on the G50 doesnt do much as half the vents are in the front. On other laptops who directly draw air into the fan especially middle to the back benifit from that greatly though.

 

i thought the speaker looking thing in the bottom was a vent where the heatsink fan sucks in air odd i was sure it was.....hmmm oh well not 100% sure anyways

overall good review want to get that notebook cooler but its expensive

 

That's pretty odd. I can switch mine off and my mouse is still powered through the USB port.

Eitherway, great review~ (")b

 

Clutch, you write the wickedest reviews!

 

Yeah your right i rechecked it, will correct.

 

awesome review

 

Interesting review. Someone finally did some decent testing of a cooler.

 

Nice review.......love that 'monster' pic at the end too

 

What a nice thorough review! Everything was just great about it!!
Good photo's also!

Cin

 

does anyone have slight problems with the base? My NC2000 is a bit uneven on the base and so it doesn't sit completely flat. Sort of like having a chair with two short legs on opposite diagnols... it rocks very, very slightly when I distribute weight on one end to another.... it's annoying me even though it probably doesn't affect anything.

 

hmm... my Zalman sits quite still. Are you using the pop-up legs? Maybe one of them might not be pushed in all the way. You could always put a folded piece of paper under it to fill the gap.

 

Great Review

 

Thanks for posting, I am still debating whether I should buy the NZXT Cryo or the Zalman NC2000, so hard to decide!

 

nice review.

 

Mine stays flat, until I tried using the popup legs.... which are slightly uneven incase that is what you are talking about

 

Nah, the legs weren't popped-up. I've sent it back for a replacement, it's all good.

 

so it seems the bottom line is that you'll get around a 6-7 degree reduction. I just picked up a G50VT-X6 and after about 15 minutes of Bioshock, the GPU was running as hot as 85C.

Is 85C a problem for a GPU, especially after 2 hours straight? Is it a sustainable temperature, or am I pretty much crazy not to pick up a notebook cooler? And is 78C a much better and sustainable temperature?

 

Might I be able to ask what kind of table it is? I set my laptop on a glass table so there will be probably less of a difference than if you put it on a wooden one.

 

nice review.
thanks for your sharing..

 

anybody find a good backpack for fitting the asus g50vt-x5 with this nc2000 cooler?

thanks.

 

Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you!

This is the exact review I was after and it couldn't have been done any better. Very detailed and it had all the information I was trying to find. The part where you compared the dimensions was just what I needed to know. The best notebook cooler review for sure, especially for all the G50, G51 and G60 owners out there.

 

Thanks for the review, I own a Qosmio X500 18.4" and the cooler fits great

 

Bit of a bump - anyone tried the Cryo LX as well on the Asus G50vt-x5, to see whether it has a better cooling effect than the Zalman? It'd be interesting to have a comparison and find out which is a better match, etc... or if there are other coolers we haven't heard of, for example.

 

If you wish to bring that up you should also note the newer NC 3000 which is a bit like the cryo, much better than the NC-2000.