Quote Originally Posted by aln688 View Post
How did your Zalman 9500 perform? I'm considering one of these instead of the Noctua U12P, mainly due to its reduced weight. I also see the Xigmatek S-1283 is around 600g with fan.
This was in the early days of my RE ownership. I was struggling to get more than 420FSB and getting very frustrated at my OCZ memory not running at its rated speed so I went for the TRUE120 for a no compromise CPU cooler. From memory the Zalman ran 10 degrees hotter under load. The TRUE120 is HUGE and I had to remove a side fan from my case at the time which was a C/M Stacker 832 to fit it inside. Of course there were other issues, early bios, the huge number of bios options and N/B temps that also hampered me. When I moved to water I found the board to have warped 3-4mm when sat in its free state on the table although when fitted in my new case it 'bolted up' flat and there are no long term ill effects. Of course I never measured the mobo flatness when it was new so it may not have been perfect then and may not have warped at all - how is your new board ?.

Here is a useful comparison review of the Noctua U12 Vs the Noctua U9 :-
http://www.silentpcreview.com/article295-page1.html

and a more general H/S summary table :-
http://www.silentpcreview.com/article30-page1.html

HTH