Zalman has been pimping its “blooming flower” heatsink design for what seems like ages, so we were understandably excited to see the company deviate from this mold with its all-new CNPS9500 LED CPU cooler. The cooler’s unique design bucks conventional heatsink wisdom, but as the benchmarks show, it’s still quite capable of accomplishing Zalman’s twin goals: superb CPU cooling and quiet operation.

The 9500 sports standard air-cooling hardware, including a copper base, copper fins, and copper heat pipes, but it combines these ingredients in an entirely original way. Rather than using five or six short-length heat pipes that terminate in a dense array of big, long fins, the 9500 uses just three heat pipes, which start at the base and run in a figure-eight pattern from one side to the other, providing increased surface area for cooling and transferring heat to the copper fins. The fins are very small and their thin-blade design lets air from the 92mm adjustable-speed fan pass through without appreciable noise. The blue LED-lit fan is mounted on two floating posts, which helps reduce noise output.

Installation of the CNPS9500 is effortless. On AMD systems, you use the stock mounting bracket and simply tighten two screws. Intel LGA775 systems require motherboard removal and the installation of a Zalman back plate. The cooler comes with a fan-speed adjustment brick with an adhesive base for placement on your case or desktop.

During testing, the CNPS9500 delivered impressive cooling performance. What is surprising is how quiet the device is regardless of fan speed. Compared with the Cooler Master Hyper 6+ (reviewed in September), the CNPS9500’s temperatures are virtually the same, and it’s just as quiet. Zalman’s cooler is also a cinch to install and looks enticing,making it worthy of a 10 verdict.
—Josh Norem

Month Reviewed: Holiday 2005
Verdict: 10
kickass=yes
URL: www.zalmanusa.com