Zalman LQ320 Pre-Filled Liquid Cooler Unboxing & Overview
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2013-05-07
·
692 words · ~3 min read
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This video is brought to you by CM Storm, preferred choice of mice,
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headsets, and mechanical keyboards of Curse Gaming. Visit
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www.coolermaster-usa.com/team_curse for more details. Welcome to my unboxing and
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first look at the Zulman LQ 320 Ultimate
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Liquid Cooler. This is a 120 mm liquid
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cooler. Uses a lowprofile block design, quarterinch tubing. Um, it's an
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asetchbased design. So, what that means is you've got a very mature retention
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mechanism based on their ring mounting. So, we've seen this before. We're pretty
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familiar with it. The difference between this one and the 315 is the fact that
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the radiator is thicker. It comes with instructions for how to install the
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entire thing. But other than that, it is very similar to what we found with the
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315. So, what Zelman's done to differentiate this particular cooler
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from the other ones that are out there is a couple of things. So, number one,
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they're still using quarterinch tubing, which has advantages, such as the very
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tight bend radiuses that are possible. Radi radiuses radius. You know what? It
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doesn't matter. Um, they've added a blue LED to the block itself. So, it's got a
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plastic cover on it now, which we're actually just going to remove there.
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There we go. All right. So, it's an illuminated Z logo like that. And this,
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I think, is a pretty nice touch. So, they've added a faux brushed aluminum
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finish to the side of the radiator on both sides. So, that's using plastic,
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which is just I mean, honestly, it looks just as good as the actual aluminum
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finishes that you see, but it's not fingerprint and it's much easier to
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clean and all of that kind of good stuff. It also means that they've added
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these brass threads instead of just threading the actual shroud on the
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radiator itself. So, these should be a little bit easier to find the right
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threads and avoid stripping compared to just the uh the regular designs that
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we've seen in the past where it's just the uh the tank um the tank shroud
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itself that is just tapped with a uh with a tap. So, other than that, I mean,
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more thickness is more better in general. So, the thicker the radiator
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is, the more cooling performance you're going to get out of it. But, you need to
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have a pressure optimized fan. So, Zelman includes their ultra quiet fan
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here, which only mounts one way on the radiator. It should be noted because on
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the other side you don't actually have mounting holes. So you can see I'll hold
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it up this way just for a change of pace. You can see that it's here on this
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side and it's missing on this other side. So while you actually can go both
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ways on it if you don't have a seal
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around the frame of the radiator. So if you had it mounted this way, you're
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going to lose some of that performance. So, you're going to be drawing air
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through the fan this way, and some of it's going to come in from here and not
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actually be forced to pass through the fins themselves. So, that can affect
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your cooling performance. Uh, mounting hardware, as I
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said before, is included. Easy. 775,
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1155, 1156, 1366,
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2011, AM2, AM3, AM3 Plus, AM2 Plus, FM1,
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FM2. Pretty much whatever you want to mount it to, you can. The bottom of the
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block has a high quality thermal compound pre-applied to it. I would
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definitely recommend using this for your first application because it's good.
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It's not until you take the block off and then you need to reapply it that you
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have to replace it with some other thermal paste. So, thank you for
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checking out my unboxing and first look at the Zulman LQ320. Don't forget to
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