Introduction

Zalman has a good reputation when it comes to decent coolers. Their CNPS6000 and CNPS7000 series were a hit in the market. Silent coolers, not too heavy and decent performance. Also the reasonable price made a lot of people go with their cooler.

The most obvious and eye-catching aspect of these coolers was the use of fins to dissipate the heat; all their designs were based on a lot of thin aluminum or copper blades. By doing this the heat dissipation area could me maximized, and a rather silent fan was enough to cool them down.

Zalman’s new cooler, the CNPS9500, uses the same technique for heat dissipation. Add to this a couple of heatpipes, and you should have a killer combination...or so they hope :-)


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Fan specifications

Speed: Silent Mode 1,350RPM ± 10 % / Low-noise Mode 2,600RPM ± 10 %

Noise Level: Silent Mode 18.0dB ± 10% / Low-noise Mode 27.5dB ± 10%

Heatsink specifications

Dimensions: 85(L) X 112(W) X 125(H)mm

Weight: 530g

Base Material: Pure Copper

Dissipation Area: 3,698cm2

AMD: K8 (754/939/974); Intel socket 478 / 775


More information can be found on the manufacturers' web site.

This cooler is not a lightweight, but surely not the heaviest around. The cooler is a bit bigger then the other models. This means a bigger playground for the earths force, gravity.... But while using this cooler properly installed in a case, I had no negative remarks concerning this. The pressure on the mainboard and socket is mostly taken away by the back plate.

Beside the cooler and all the parts needed for installation, there's also a Zalman fan mate included. This little useful device has the functionality of a fancontroller, but hangs somewhere loose in your case. It can regulate the fans' voltage from a range between 5 and 11 volts. From almost no movement of the fan blades to full power (well, almost full power as Zalman “steals” 1v away from your 12v).


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The design of the cooler itself is rather unique. It actually makes me think of an old water heater. The finishing is how we are used from Zalman: perfect.

I'll be short about the installation. It's very simply.

Put the heatsink on the CPU.

Place the "clip" between the heatpipes on the base.

Put the screw through the clip into the back plate of the mainboard.

Tighten them !

This all can be done in less then 30 seconds. No mainboard removal is required.



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Wondering why the name ends with "LED" ? Of course, a led is added to make the whole construction flashy. It seems to be a trend nowadays to add one or more blue leds to everything. But this way the manufacturers reach not only the normal users, but also the modding minded people.

The Zalman installed and running:


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Onto the performance tests ->

Test setup & Methodology :

Piotke's Test Setup
CPU	AMD sempron 2600+
Cooling	Zalman CNPS9500 LED Asetek Vapochill Micro Ultra Low Noise Thermalright XP-90C Scythe SGOGUN
Mainboard	Albatron K8 Ultra-U Pro
VGA	Albatron MX480
Memory	2*512 Mb A-Data Vitesta DDR600
PSU	Antec TrueControl 550 Watt

Of course, I don't use my system on default clock speeds. I added an extra 400Mhz to the cpu:



The Sempron 2600+ @ 2000 Mhz and 1.6 vcore is putting out close to 100 Watt according to this online calculator.

All results were taken with room temperature at ~22°C. Due to room temp fluctuations, different mounting and user error can account up to 1-2°C of inaccuracy from obtained results. Please keep this in mind when looking at the results. Each heatsink was tested repeatedly; if I got questionable results the test was restarted.

Setup was installed in a case less environment

Noise level of each fan was recorded with SmartSensor SL4001A. The sensor was placed ~65cm away from the HSF. The lowest dBA reading in the test room was ~32,5 dBA.

System was stressed by running K7 CPU Burn for 30min (after Thermal Compound’s burn-in); this application pushes the temperature higher then any other application or game we’ve yet encountered. Speedfan was used to log maximum obtained temperatures.

Arctic Silver kindly send us their “Lumière” thermal testing compound which has the same colour as Ceramique, requiring a mere 30-minute of break-in time!


Pure performance


The Zalman unit keeps up with the top contenders, but even though its fan is spinning faster (and is louder) than that one on the XP-90C it's trailing #1.

Balance Noise/Performance


Trailing the top 2 heatsink by only 1°C it's safe to say that Zalman latest heatsink is a winner when using the "low" speed option. However at High fan speed the noise increase is very noticeable, it was the loudest heatsink in our test here.

Onto our conclusion ->

Conclusion

The strength of Zalman’s latest CPU cooler comes to light when you let the fan running at “low” speed settings. Performance is on par with the best out there and noise-wise it’s as silent too.

However when you turn up the speed of the fan with the included fanmate II you’re out of the silent zone and into the extra performance realm. But testing showed the difference between minimum and maximum fan speed to be only a mere 2°C, so not quite worth the extra noise.

The rather unique design, combined with a blue LED fan might also tickle the fantasy of some enthusiasts to brighten up their casemods. Extreme power users might be turned down by the fact that the fan on the unit can not be swapped out, this seems to be a trademark of the Zalman series.

Overall the CNPS9500 LED is a very solid performer at low noise levels, found in Europe for ~€50 and ~$60 in USA, it’s no longer a budget solution, but with multiple socket compatibility and easy installation it comes recommended.

PRO
Stylish looks
Excellent performance
Fast and to the point installation method
Fan controller included

CON
It’s larger size
Fan can't be swapped out

I like to thank Bacata for providing the test sample.

Question/Comments: forum thread