As good/better than the Noctua NH-D15, which goes for well over $100.
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Zalman CNPS20X ARGB CPU Cooler $59 + Delivery @ Mwave
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integral on 11/11/2020 - 15:17 mwave.com.au (761 clicks)
Last edited 14/11/2020 - 11:24 by 1 other user
Last edited 14/11/2020 - 11:24 by 1 other user
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I didn't know they're still around. My last Zalman was for the LGA1155 build and that was a fantastic cooler although fair while ago.
I can do you better.
I had a Zalman CNPS9700 on my Core 2 Duo E8400.
Was a great cooler before i migrated to water coolingI had a Zalman 7000 AlCu (couldn't afford the full Cu version). It was the bee's knees back in the day.
Still rocking a Zalman power supply in one of my backup rigs.. They've got a storied history
Please note that performance is great but if i remember correctly, the GN review mentioned the fitting (ie, how you put it on) is a PITA and likely will require 3 hands.
Yes all reviews say the assembly is way harder than it needs to be. But this is less than half the price of a Noctua NH-D15 right now - I'd say the normal RRP of the Zalman is out of step with build quality, but at this price? Bargain!
Also notes a resonance issue at high RPM, and then there's the enormous height of the thing.
Suddenly it's not really surprising it's this cheap, because it's not versatile and has a host of caveats.
Actually a really good cooler, this is a steal. Well spotted OP.
I agree, I'd swap the fans - the P140 isn't a bad choice.
Sound really huge! Can I install 4 RAMs with this?
DEFINITELY check clearance. I've read reviews that go into this, and with some boards you need to remove heat spreaders to get them to fit. Not that there's much issue with that - heat spreaders on consumer memory are purely for show - memory doesn't get hot enough in a consumer PC application to have any impact on performance or stability. Yes you can PUSH it under artificial stress loading so it heats up, but there's no game in existence that can do that, and likewise for pretty much anything else any retail consumer is ever going to run.
But if you want your pretty heat spreaders attached, look closely at your board configuration and the dimensions of this cooler to make sure everything's going to fit.
Thanks a lot for the info! I have the MSI X570 Tomawhok wifi, will this cooler fit with 4 RAMs with that board? what do you think?
The height between the bottom of the fan and the motherboard PCB is just 33mm. With a ruler, measure the height from the PCB to the top of your memory with it installed. If it's 33mm or less, you'll be fine. If it's taller, you're going to run into issues with any slots that sit directly under the fan. This TweakTown article has images of the product packaging and the cooler when mounted.
Hmm I've taken another look, and it appears that you can adjust the position of the fan with it mounted to the heatsink tower, so you'll need more case clearance (from 173mm to 184mm) but it does give you an additional 11mm to play with if your case is large enough.
@TrevorX: You mean I can play with the fan position on the Zalman heat pipes to have an extra 11mm for the ram?
@max-pc1010: Yep, see Zalman's diagram. If your case has enough room for 184mm clearance between the mothboard PCB surface and the inside of the case, then you can raise the fans up by 11mm, giving you 44mm of clearance for your RAM.
Man this is a giant heatsink. 173mm clearance required, and thats for 33mm ram height. Taller ram up to 44mm would need 184mm clearance height. Any case this big could probably fit a 360 or even 420 AIO…
Total cooler height is 165mm, and that's to the top of the fans. If you use smaller fans that sit flush with the top of the heatpipe studs you'll cut maybe 15mm off the total height.
Yes, it's big, but then what do you expect from an air cooler that outperforms most AIO water coolers? You need truly massive surface area to get rid of all that heat.
Why does it say 173 according to the product page (in red on the left image)?
https://www.zalman.com/EN/Product/ProductDetail.do?pageIndex…
Ah, that's total clearance height. That's the total height required if you measure from the face of the motherboard PCB to the top of the heatpipe studs. Bear in mind that the fan position can be adjusted depending on how much case clearance you have, and how tall your memory heatspreaders are. If you need to mount the fans lower because you don't have sufficient depth in your case, you can get down to a minimum height of 173mm from the PCB surface (which, of course, includes the height of the CPU socket). If you have taller memory and you need to raise the fans up for clearance, if your case has sufficient room you can go to 184mm max height (otherwise raising the fans by 11mm).
The thumbnail image makes it looks small in my mind!
But it's a 6 heatpipe dual-tower cooler with 2x 140mm fans…
Thanks OP! Been looking to upgrade from a Hyper 212. This is perfect.
Cheers OP. Gotta be the best performing cooler at this price.
one of the top 3 air coolers at ANY price… being about 1/3 the price of the noctua and bequiet just makes this a no brainer.
except possibly size issues… probably
Agreed! Order placed and fingers crossed its gonna fit in my case lol
Does this fit inside an cooler master nr200?
I really dislike the aesthetic design of this cooler. But at this price the price/performance ratio makes it such a great bargain.
Just replace the fans, ugly aesthetic sorted :-)
Cooler uses non standard fan clips. Don't know if you can actually replace the fans, maybe standard fan clips work but haven't seen anyone do it. Also if you replace the fans that cooler becomes significantly more expensive which means it would no longer be a bargain.
Mine just arrived today. The fan mounts are a nice innovation, and are actually much easier to work with than usual clips.
The fan screws into a standard 140mm frame, which then clips onto the cooler. From what I can tell it should be fine with any fans with 140mm spaced holes
Just received this cooler today, can answer any questions people have re. compatibility.
Total height of the heatsink is around 166mm, but in order to have any kind of ram clearance you'd have to move the front fan up, so total height would increase to ram height + fan diameter (measured as 140mm).
In my case I didn't have room to raise the fan, so I ziptied a 120mm to the front mount, increasing ram clearance to around ~36mm while not increasing total height. This required a bit of destructive modding but was pretty easy to do.
Alternatively, you could run it with the middle fan only, similar to the NH-D15S, in which case total height would be 166mm and ram clearance looks to be around ~44mmFrom what I can tell the mounts will support any 140mm fan with standard hole spacing.
I got mine and installed it. Very impressed so far! Installation is also not as bad as what reviews make it out to be, I replaced my current cooler without removing the mobo from the case and it was still fairly straight forward. You WILL need a very long screw driver thought to make it easier for yourself.
Coming from a Hyper 212 and running Prime95 my CPU was hitting 70c with an ambient temp of 22c. With the Zalman under the same conditions its now at 54c. Pretttttty nice results.
The fan is hideous but nice price and attach P140s to them