Also cool under stress

Blackbird has been running continuously without any problem for over 33 hours now with its new Zalman CNPS9700 LED HSF, and idle temperature for the CPU @ 3.4 GHz has remained steady at 31C/87.5F. The temperature of the motherboard has also stayed constant at 34C/93F.

How about under load?

The System Stability Test of Build Version 0841 of Everest Ultimate 2006 does not work in Vista Ultimate x64 so I downloaded Build 883 of Everest Ultimate 2007. The System Stability Test in this version works in Vista Ultimate x64.

After running the System Stability Test for 10 minutes, the CPU temperature under load remained steady at 47C/117F and the motherboard temperature at 37C/99F.

I do not know whether a fair comparison can be made with Nighthawk's performance since the System Stability Test in Everest Ultimate 2007 appears to behave differently compared with Everest Ultimate 2006. In Everest Ultimate 2007, the CPU utilization remains close to 100% the entire duration of the test.

Nighthawk's CPU peak temperature during the System Stability Test was 53C/127F for comparison, in case it is valid.

At the end of the System Stability Test, the CPU temperature dropped rapidly like a stone. This is a testament to the cooling effectiveness of the Zalman CNPS9700 LED HSF.

In less than a minute, the CPU temperature is back to its idle temperature of 31C/87.5 although it is really not at idle. I wonder if the CPU is ever idle while running Vista.

The Zalman CNPS9700 LED HSF is definitely a good investment.