Premium Socket 939 Heatsink Round-Up

Reviews: Cooling

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Max Slowik
Kurtis
Sharka Corp
Aug. 29, 2006

Specifications

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Zalman CNPS9500

First Looks

The Zalman CNPS9500 is a good-looking slice of hardware - almost to the point where it's easy to want a windowed case. The polished copper blossom reflects the power-house nature of current computing while appearing delicate and precise. Also, compared to some of the other coolers in this round-up, it's significantly smaller and lighter. For the gangsta in all of us, it's got mad bling blue lights up in tha fan.

Specifications

Dimensions (L X W X H): 85 X 112 X 125mm
Material: Pure copper
Weight: 530g
Dissipation Area: 3,698cm^2
Fan Voltage: 5-12v
Current: .35a
Max. Power: 4.2w
Bearing Type: 2-Ball
Fan Speed: 1,350-2,600rpm
Noise: 18- 27.5dB +/- 10%
Connector: 3-Pin

Taking a Closer Look

The CNPS9500 comes with a hefty bundle of mounting hardware, most of which the Socket 939 owner isn't going to need. Always a relief, it uses the stock retention equipment, so the motherboard isn't going to need to be removed to install the heatsink, unless the board has a non-standard "push-pin" retention bracket. Another nice thing: if the motherboard's retention bracket runs horizontally, the Zalman CNPS9500's install clip rotates on the base of the cooler to accommodate.

The base has a fairly flat surface. To the touch of a fingernail, it feels slightly ridged from the lapping process, and the reflection is warped in an arc, presumably from a rotating polishing disk. The Arctic Silver also didn't wipe clean easily, which indicates that the surface is rough enough that the compound needed to fill in many gaps.

Like all Zalman products, the CNPS9500 comes with a Fanmate rheostat, which provides the option to run the fan from about 11.5 volts down to about 5 volts for complete manual control of the cooler's fan speed. For the record, the LEDs in the fan are regulated along with the voltage, so at lower speeds the lights are less bright.

Install

Hitching the Zalman CNPS9500 up to the motherboard is very simple, though not necessarily easy. Once the clip is oriented and shoved through the heatsink's heatpipe array, it needs to be screwed into the retention bracket's backplate. Because the clip is designed to both pivot on the heatsink's base and flex to provide downward tension against the CPU, it squirms around on the base while it's being screwed in. A long screwdriver would minimize the problem; the handle gets in the way if the board is in the case with a power supply above the cooler and a video card below it. Once it's installed, the heatsink has a little rotational leeway, which is bothersome for two reasons. If a curing compound is used, the movement might break the thermal bond, and if it rotates so that the clip is a hair's breadth from a heatpipe, the vibration from the fan will make the two rattle against each other.

In Use

The Zalman CNPS9500 is a little more than delicate in use: it's unstable. Unlike the older CNPS heatsinks, where each petal joined together to form the base, the CNPS9500's fins are separately soldered to the heatpipes and have relatively small moorings. Except when it's running at seven volts or less, it seems that the fan projects its vibrations across the fins. It's a sound that stands out from that of the other case fans and even other 92mm fans and has much to do with the heatsink design itself.

It's disappointing compared to its predecessors. In order to compete with the other high-end heatsinks, Zalman has sacrificed acoustic performance for better cooling. But heat-wise, it's a contender.

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Page 4 of 12

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Page 1: Introduction
Page 2: An Overclocking Primer
Page 3: The Contenders & Testing Methodology
Page 4: Zalman CNPS9500
Page 5: Zalman CNPS9500AM2
Page 6: Scythe Ninja Plus+
Page 7: Scythe Mine
Page 8: Noctua NH-U12
Page 9: Thermaltake Sonic Tower
Page 10: Thermaltake Mini Typhoon
Page 11: Overclocking & Temperatures
Page 12: Conclusions & Final Recommendations

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