Cooling Performance
All tests were conducted at an ambient temperature of 20.6° Celsius, plus or minus 0.1°.
All three systems provided the same CPU temperature at low fan speed. The Koolance and Zalman pre-configured systems dropped CPU temperatures by one degree at maximum speed, while our own assembly was only designed to run at a single speed.
Because our own assembly was not designed to provide airflow over the memory or chipset, we chose the Antec Spotcool fan from the beginning. This gave our design a significant lead in chipset temperatures, but the same fan could also be added to either of the competing products. The real winner here is Zalman, because the huge side fan of its LQ1000 was capable of cooling the chipset to 39° in near-silence, without requiring additional components.
The primary graphics card ran the hottest in our SBM chassis, since both the Zalman LQ1000 and Koolance PC5-1326SL are designed for better airflow. Koolance has the overall best cooling performance, but at significantly higher noise levels.
The Zalman LQ1000 kept the lower card cooler, which seems strange since the Koolance PC5-1326SL blows its radiator fans directly into the graphics card, and here’s the catch: both graphics temperature charts only show low fan-speed results.
At full fan speed, the Koolance PC5-1326SL dropped temperatures of the second graphics card by over 20°, but provided only around 2° additional cooling to the primary card. The Zalman LQ1000 dropped the temperatures of both cards by around 3°. Any card between the graphics card and radiator will block the down draft of the Koolance radiator fans, so it’s best to simply keep in mind that a temperature drop of somewhat more than 20° will benefit only the uppermost card at maximum fan speed.
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I don't really see the point of reviewing these serious water cooling solutions if you don't test the additional coolers the companies offer. For example, why not test the Koolance rig with the chipset and graphics card coolers attached? This would have substantially lowered the chipset temperatures. The Koolance case was not designed to air cool internal components like an air cooled case. Koolance systems are for people who want to easily water cool as many components of their system as possible.
Also, you kept mentioning the Koolance's noise at maximum fan levels. In the 7 years I have owned a Koolance system (with CPU, Chipset, SLI Video card and RAM water blocks fitted), I have never seen my Koolance ramp up the fans beyond the low levels.
I purchased the Zalman LQ1000 in early September after reading the positive by xsreviews.co.uk review. Like Tomshardware I also had problems with the motherboard mounting holes and had to bend, twist and force the PCI Express cards into place as well as my PCI Audigy Sound Card. Really poor for a premium priced £400 case. Given that this looks like a general problem it is disappointing xsreviews.co.uk did not mention this and neither does the more recent bit-tech.net review.
Also I contacted Zalman through their web form with the following questions:
1) Looking into the case from the side, the hose coming out of the left side of the pump (factory preassembled), does not have a tube clamp on it. Is this a problem i.e. should this have a tube clamp fitted?
2) The other end of the same hose connected to the nipple near the radiator (factory default) does not have a clamp attached. Should there be one and therefore is it missing?
3) The CPU waterblock comes with Tube Clamp Size A (13.8mmx9.5mm) and Tube Clamp Size B (11.5mm 8mm). Which size tube clamps should I use?
4) The LQ1000-Z Machine manual advises not to use thermal paste with the CPU block. The CPU block comes with thermal paste sachet. Why would I not use thermal paste?
I posed these questions twice during September and have not received a response from Zalman either time. Again not good for a premium priced bit of kit. This lack of customer service would stop me purchasing Zalman again.
Apart from the mounting hole problems the case is superb and quite easy to set-up. It is very quiet and keeps my Q6600 CPU (o/c to 3.2Ghz) at 22C idle or 40C load (hottest core). Although my graphics card is air cooled it gains from the overall low ambient temp in the case. The left panel with the radiator and large fan does let a fair amount of dust in. The case is very heavy, even though it is aluminium.
Update, Zalman support in the UK is via QuietPc.com. So even though I didn't purchase through them they have arranged with Zalman for a new motherboard tray to be sent to me with correctly positioned mounting holes.
So my faith in Zalman customer service has been restored. Zalman never responded to my web form questions which is disappointing though.