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Zalman CNPS-9500AT


Date
: 08/6/06 – 05:34:16 PM

Author
:

Category
: Cooling

Page 1 : Index

Manufacturer
: Zalman

Price
: $62.99 USD (Newegg)

Zalman is no stranger to
Overclockers Online
. We have featured a number of their amazing products ranging from cases to coolers for video cards and processors utilizing innovative heatsinks and waterblock designs.

In today's review we'll present to you the
Zalman CNPS 9500 AT
. The 9500 series is a variation to the flower cooler design; you could almost say it's a vertical flower. It raised a number of eyebrows when it was first released and there are now multiple variations to the CNPS 9500. The
AT
model I have is supported only on Socket 775 machines but uses PWM for fan throttling. There is also the LED version which is exactly that, an LED equipped fan with the FanMate 2 as an accessory. That model is supported on socket 775s, 478s, 754s, 939s and 940s. The last model is the AM2 variation which supports all AMD sockets and also comes with a FanMate 2. All of the heatsinks share the exact same design.

Page 2 : Package

The CNPS 9500 AT came in a rather simple box. It doesn't have any flashy pictures or bright colors to grab your attention. If you're looking for a Zalman product, you want it based on reputation and not because the box was pretty.

Regardless, Zalman managed to keep the package interesting looking with a side profile shot of the cooler showing the 92mm fan. The components of the heatsink you don't see are replicated through the box via color printing – pretty creative if you ask me.

The backside of the package has a few quotes about the CNPS 9500, but more interesting is the rear side of the cooler. Here you get to see some more fins and how the heatpipes are curved.

The remaining sides of the box outline some features and specifications. All very good and important stuff while you're at the store. For the sake of the review, we'll be coving these details in greater depth with far better images in the specifications section on the next page.

Let's move onto the specifications.

Page 3 : Specifications

As I had mentioned earlier in this review, there are a number of CNPS-9500 variations. I'll start by linking you to each of their pages: CNPS 9500 AM2, CNPS 9500 LED and finally we have the CNPS 9500 AT which I'm looking at right now.

The first thing for you to make sure is that your motherboard can accept the CNPS 9500. There's no point in wasting 60 dollars if a quick check can prevent that. For the most part, a large majority of the motherboards will support the cooler, so it's whether or not there is sufficient space between the board and the edge of the power supply that'll be of any concern. A full list of the support motherboards can be found on this page.

Here is a copy of the specifications available on the Zalman page, note that the CNPS 9500 works for all speeds at the silent and low noise mode. We'll have to see about that when it comes to testing!

To give you an idea of what we'll see when we open up the package, here's a rundown of the components.

Zalman then goes on to list a few things to keep in mind while building a silent machine and smacks on a number of warnings saying how they aren't responsible for damages if you install the cooler wrong, modify it or even overclock the processor.

Page 4 : Package Contents

The CNPS 9500 AT has very few contents within the package. As you saw from the page before, you'll know this will be a brief page. Once we open up the box, we can pull out the cooler packaged in a vacuum formed plastic shell and a white box containing the mounting equipment and additional accessories.

Inside the white little box is a user manual, a motherboard support bracket, a heatsink retention frame and a bag of goodies containing a few screws, some thermal paste and the mounting clip.

There's also a 1×1" bezel sticker, it looks like someone spruced up the Zalman logo. I think it's quite nice.

Pulling the cooler out of the plastic shell, I inspected it for damage. I noticed that the base of the heatsink was covered in some kind of dust. Probably from the Silicon Oxide baggie, a quick wipe down should be completed before installing the cooler. Looking at the base, there was no damage and it was perfectly flat. Zalman didn't bother polishing the base, but that shouldn't affect the performance with the use of some good thermal paste.

Everyone knows the beauty of this cooler are the figure eight heatpipes. This is the first time Zalman has deviated from its traditional flower like coolers as far as I can remember!

The design is still relatively the same with a large amount of copper and a fan cooling the fins.

Zalman really could have gone with a push-pull fan system as there is plenty of space for a second 92mm, but I guess thermal tests showed little improvement in performance and only increased the cost.

At the bottom of the cooler is a little notch for which we'll rest the mounting clip over and use to apply pressure onto the heatsink.

This is the perfect time to discuss the installation of the cooler so let's jump to the next page.

Page 5 : Installation

Since the CNPS 9500 AT only supports one socket system, it makes it really easy to find the parts you need for setting it up. I started off by taking the back motherboard bracket and laying it over the holes. For demonstration purposes, I will be doing the installation on my Foxconn 975X7AA motherboard while the testing will be completed on my Asus P5WD2.

The next step is aligning the front bracket for which the CPU will lock onto. For this bracket, you need to pay particular attention to where the socket lever is. If you don't orient the bracket correctly, the lever won't open!

Below is an example of the correct installation. Notice how the lever can open and swing all the way to the back and rest in a notched out area?

With the brackets lined up, secure them in place with four provided bolts.

It's now time to pull out the heatsink and grab hold of the mounting clip. You will want to thread the clip between the base of the heatsink and the heatpipes and slip it over the cap.

The final step is to apply a tiny bit of thermal paste to the processor and then rest the cooler on top. With a pair of screws, lock the clip in place by alternating which bolt you thread in. You never want to thread in one screw all the way while leaving the second one up in the air.

Plug the fan in and your installation is complete. The way you orient the heatsink will depend on the layout of your motherboard and where some of your components are. Since I won't be using a case, there's no need for me to worry about the orientation. I currently have the fan blowing air over the MOSFETs and memory sticks, but that decision is up to you and there's no right or wrong method only a better or worse situation.

With the installation in place, it's time to set up the rest of my computer and being the benchmarking.

Page 6 : Performance

The testing of a CPU cooler is pretty simple. I'll first leave you with the system details:

I started the test out by going into the BIOS and monitoring the temperatures for five minutes after the cooler was installed. This was to make sure the unit was properly mounted. Once that was done, I booted into Windows and stressed the system using two instances Stress Prime 2004. I let this run for 12 hours and then turned off the computer for another 12. After that, I loaded up an instance of the Asus system monitoring software for temperature readings and fired up another two instances of Stress Prime. After three hours of testing, I took the CPU and motherboard temperatures. I shut off Stress Prime and let the system idle for three hours before taking the readings again. I followed this procedure three times over three days and averaged the results afterwards. The room temperature was a balmy 25C for all tests.

Here are the results:

The Zalman CNPS 9500 AT had the best result compared to any of the other coolers I've used. It shaved off nearly 10 degrees from the stock cooler while the system was under full load. I was quite surprised to see the motherboard temperatures hovering lower than the other coolers. With the OCZ Tempest, MST-9775 and the stock cooler, the air flow is directed towards to the processor. Once again we see Zalman produce another stellar product that beats the competition with ease.

Unlike the other CNPS 9500 variations, this is the only model to come without the FanMate 2. It instead uses PWM to control the fan speed. At times the cooler was very quiet, during idle conditions, and the fan would pick up once I fired up Stress Prime. By no means would I consider this cooler loud, but it was audible. If Zalman can manage to squeeze in a 120mm fan into their next design, we could see not only a stellar cooler, but once so big it probably wouldn't fit inside any regular ATX box!

Page 7 : Conclusion

I'm sure many of you came into this review knowing that Zalman would be a top performing. I guess it is no surprise that they did perform much better than the competition.

Much like all the other Zalman products around, it completed its task extremely well without creating very much noise. This awesome cooler follows a design we have never seen before but will certainly be mimicked and copied in the future.

The performance of the cooler validates exactly what has been printed on the top of the box, a photo I intentionally kept out from the package page.

What came first was cooling a hot processor quietly, followed by cooling it effectively. The CNPS 9500AT will not be the best cooler in the world, we will see other products outshine it, but you can't beat it in terms of a performance to noise ratio.

The only problem with this cooler and all other Zalman products is the high premium you need to pay. The $63USD may be too much for some to bare, but fine engineering never comes cheap.

Advantages

Great performance
Quiet
Zalman continues to re-engineer the heatsink with new designs
Small foot print but large volume occupation

Disadvantage

Fairly expensive
Only supported on Socket 775 machines

Overclockers Online would like to thank Zalman for making this review possible.