ZALMAN LQ-320 Water Cooler

Pros: This cooler is impressive! The LQ-320 absolutely curb-stomps my 1st gen H50 it replaced. My temps are a good 15c lower across the board!

The blue LED lit Zalman logo looks fantastic. Thankfully it's not super bright, it just glows enough to be visible. The hoses are nice and flexible.

Cons: The included instructions leave a lot to be desired. Thankfully I've installed several of these types coolers with similar mounting systems. People who are new to installing these closed-loop water cooler kits might have trouble following along, Zalman should do a thorough rewrite and post it on their web site.

Also, the stock fan, while not terrible, isn't anything to write home about. For this radiator to truly shine, it needs 1-2 quality fans with decent static pressure

Other Thoughts: Installed this with a pair of CM Blademasters in push-pull config. The Blademasters are cheap and have excellent static pressure making them a good, economical choice for moving air through a radiator. I did a brief comparison of the stock fan vs single and dual Blademasters to see if the aftermarket fans made a noticable difference in the radiator's cooling performance. Short answer: They did.

With a single Blademaster, I can achieve the same cooling performance under load at ~1,000rpm(50%) vs the stock fan at ~2000rpm.(100%) Running at 50%, the Blademaster is almost silent, while the stock Zalman fan running at 100% is loud comparatively. Adding in the second Blademaster to the setup, with both fans running quietly at 50%, drops my CPU temp 2C - 3C below the stock fan running full bore.

Both Blademasters running 100% shave 5C - 6C off my CPU temp under load compared to the single stock Zalman fan at 100% on this radiator. Of course, these results are from my setup and YMMV. It is clear, however, that the Blademasters are superior to the stock fan. And they are cheap. I recommend that anyone who bought this cooler should ditch the stock fan put one or two Blademasters on the LQ-320 to get the most out of it.

Pros: Got this to replace my AMD Phenom II 965 stock cooler, took max temp from 61c to 48c running Prime 95 for 12+ hours. The pump and fan are both very quiet, no louder than my 4 Cooler Master 120mm fans. There are some other people complaining about the instructions and installation, I found them to be pretty straight forward and easy to follow the illustrated installation guide.

Cons: One concern I did have when installing the cooler was with the backplate and the nuts, you have to insert the nuts into the holes on the backplate which looks like it has tabs to keep the nuts from spinning when tightening the screws, however when I was tightening the screws down from the front the nuts would eventually turn in the holes of the backplate,. This made me kind of worried because I could only get it so tight, but with the temps im getting I think it was tight enough to make good contact.

Other Thoughts: The radiator in this kit is very large, I was planning on installing it directly to my rear exhaust port with the provided fan pushing air out through it. However there is a small lip about half an inch below the exhaust port on my case, the bottom resevoir hits the lip which prevents the radiator from sitting flush against the back of the case. I ended up using a push/pull configuration, with a 120mm Cooler Master fan sitting between the radiator and the case. This was an easy solution and was easy to do thanks to the many extra screws provided for mounting the radiator, giving you many different mounting options.

Pros: Works great, temps dropped about 40 degrees vs. intel stock cooler.
Add on to existing fan for push/pull.
It glows blue and looks cool.
Mine it totally quiet, or no noise increase.

Cons: Since it fits several different sockets, there are lots of different parts and configs. The manual isn't clear. Let me just say the short thumb screws are for 2011, and the long screws are for 1366 & 1155... They look identical in picture. It took me a couple trys to get it installed with everything in the right place.
Seconly, I have a zalmen Z7+ case. I had to remove the sides fan because it got in the way with rear mounting the water cooler.

Other Thoughts: I also have an antec cooler in another computer and I would say installation and performance were similar.

Pros: Zalman cooler comes with all the hardware needed to install anywhere on your case, and even extra screws if you wish to do a push/pull configuration (you should).

Design is nice aesthetically, materials are top notch.

The glowing Zalman logo looks fantastic.

Cons: Biggest issue is the oversized radiator (and plastic covers) which may cause some fitment issues with certain cases. Wasn't a problem for me but might be for some.

Pros: I bought this cooler for my mildly overclocked AMD 1090T. idle temps went from 51 to 34C. System no longer locks up under heavy load.

Cons: My rebate was rejected because a small corner of the barcode was missing - though the entire barcode is there.

Other Thoughts: Price after rebate its a solid deal, but without the rebate its way to much money for what it does.

Manufacturer Response:

Dear valued customer,

We sincerely apologize for the issue. Please contact our customer service e-mail support.usa@zalmanusa.com or via toll free number 1-888-925-6266 for further assistance.

Thank you.

Best regards,

Zalman USA Customer Service

Pros: Very good water cooler... (see below)

Cons: ...but a cooler with this thick of a rad really needs 2 fans
to push/pull air through it. Unfortunately purchasing a second matching fan from Zalman has been an exercise in futility. Had to deduct one egg from what would have been a five star review because of this.

Pros: Wow! I replaced an old AMD stock cooler with the LQ-320 and honestly wished I had purchased it sooner! It brought my cpu temp down from high 50s (when playing games it was at mid 60s) to low 40s. Haven't seen it go past 47.

Cons: Big. Make sure there's enough room for it to fit in your case. I had to make adjustments to mine so I could fit it.

Pros: Doesn't leak, easy installation, keeps my i7-970's temps under control.

Cons: Single loud fan

Other Thoughts: While the device works as intended, the fan that comes with it is LOUD which defeats the purpose of water cooling. It is designed to use 2 fans for push/pull ventilation - two slower and quieter fans should have been used. I used a another fan that I had which made it more quieter. 1 star off for the LOUD fan.

Pros: Good cooling capacity. I was able to OC my 3570k 300mhz more just by changing the cooling from a Zalman 9500 air cooler.

Cons: Instructions are vague at times. Somethings I like about the install of this cooler better than a Corsair H50 I used, and other things I didn't like as much. Overall, it wasn't "too" hard to install. Hard to find a second identical fan to use for push/pull while used with a PWM Y-connector. I ended up using two Cooler Master blademaster fans as I couldn't find a Zalman.

Other Thoughts: I would buy again for the price.

Pros: Amazing Cooling Performance (55C core, 43C indicated temps, stress test i5-2500k @ 4.5GHz)

Single Slot
Good CPU block
blue LED is not bad at all in case, not annoying)

Cons: Due to oversize size of radiator It's very hard to fit into most cases. if they had simply made it exactly 120mm like the fan while still thick, It would have been better

Instructions on motherboard backplate were vague, I initially thought they forgot it as I'm used to the metal ones but it was just a plastic one

Other Thoughts: Can't beat it for the price still, just mounted on front intake slot and removed 3.5" bays. The size is a bit awkward as it would not fit in the exhaust fan slots I wanted it to.

Replaced a 5-6 year old Thermaltake 240mm separate container & pump hard core cooling system which it OUTPERFORMED?!?! More importantly my old setup didn't have the correct bracket for LGA 1155 so I had it modified