360° View - Zalman LQ315 - Water Block Information on Frostytech's test methodology is available here.
The Zalman LQ315 waterblock stands 32mm tall. The metal mounting brackets slip over the top of the pump and lock into the barbs which surround it, so installation is pretty easy. Power is supplied to the pump by a 3-pin motherboard fan header and illuminates the top of the waterblock blue to indicate when the pump is on. Both pipe connections swivel.
The pump head measures 72mm in diameter.
The copper base plate is roughly 2mm thick and 54mm in diameter.

360° View - Zalman LQ315 - Heat Exchanger Information on Frostytech's test methodology is available here.
	The 38mm thick aluminum heat exchanger measures 153x120mm in size and supports one or two 120mm fans, mounted back to front.
	Fans can be attached on either side of the heat exchanger. The heat exchanger tubing connectors are metal and do not swivel.

Base Finish and Flatness

Flipping a heatsink over to inspect the business end is often a simple indicator of overall cooler quality. More practically speaking, a heatsink is in many ways only as effective as the contact it makes with the processor - the flatter and smoother the better. Base finish is one of the criteria that Frostytech measure in the course of evaluating heatsinks, and it involves two distinct aspects. Surface Finish is the first; this is calculated with the aid of Surface Roughness Comparator that has a cross section of common machine surface finishes and their numerical surface roughness equivalents in microinches. The second is Surface Flatness. This is tested with an engineer's straight edge or proven flat surface, in two axes.

The copper base plate of Zalman's LQ315 waterblock has a machined finish with a surface roughness of approximately ~16 microinches. The manufacturer ships it with a pre-applied circle of grey thermal compound. The copper base plate is convex in both axis so contact with a flat processor integrated heat spreader is less than ideal.

Next, acoustic measurements and then AMD and Intel synthetic thermal test result charts.