Zalman Reserator 3 Max AIO Review

Performance

At stock CPU clocks the Zalman doesn’t fail to impress as it offered up low idle temperatures and stayed cool under load.

However, the great cooling at stock did come at the cost of silence. While the noise levels we recorded are not what I would call loud, there was definitely some air turbulence to be heard under load. However it likely wouldn’t be very noticeable once installed in a good quality PC case.

Under load we saw idle temps were still holding up really well and once we packed on the heat by running Prime95 the Reserator held steady at 41.25 above room temperature, clocking some of the best performance we’ve seen in a while.

Noise levels while overclocked were on par with the Antec 650, both of which have a similar integrated fan design and there is definitely a bit of fan noise to be heard from the radiator, but again it is not too severe. Of course, given the temperatures we have seen I suspect you could dial back the fans profile a little to keep the noise in check without things getting too hot.