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Zalman CNPS9500 AM2 Review September 19, 2006 Jake Lenin22 Ratner |
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Summary: Looking for a new heatsink/fan unit to go along with your new AM2 Athlon 64 CPU purchase? If so, you may be interested in today's review of the Zalman CNPS9500AM2. It's built entirely from copper and has 3 heatpipes for better cooling, and is also decked out with LEDs and runs nearly silent. See how it compares to AMD's stock CPU cooler in this article!
 Introduction | Page:: ( 1 / 5 ) |
The bottom line is that getting a powerful CPU upgrade on the cheap has never been easier. For added performance, many enthusiasts will then push these budget CPUs even further with a little bit of overclocking, making that sub-$250 purchase even more of a deal.
But what if you want a little more cooling to go along with your overclocked AM2 CPU than the stock AMD cooler provides? That’s where aftermarket cooling manufacturers like Zalman come in. Often times these aftermarket coolers can not only do a better job cooling the CPU, they can also do so while running much quieter than the stock CPU cooler.
With AMD CPUs selling for so little, we wanted to take a look at one such cooler, the AM2-compatible version of Zalman’s CNPS9500.
Zalman Tech is all about noise, the lack of it in fact. They were founded in 1999 and have stuck to their CNPS, or Computer Noise Prevention System ever since. Zalman manufactures air cooling for the CPU, GPU, and chipsets, quiet and silent power supplies, as well as an array of water cooling parts.
Zalman’s CNPS CPU coolers began with the 2000 and 3000 models. It was an all-aluminum (2000) or copper/mixed (3000) design with fins sticking up in an elliptical shape from the base. After that, the 5000 model was reshaped, with fins coming from a central core out to the sides forming a circular shaped cooler. Both designs had a fan blowing down or away from the fins. The Zalman CNPS6000 shifted back to the design of the 3000 but was larger and had more fins. Then the 7000 and 7700 were introduced. They were a new design, the flower shape. From a small base, fins spread out and up, forming an almost cone like shape with a fan at the top. The 7000 had a 92mm fan, and the massive 7700 had a 120mm fan. This design has been copied with moderate success by companies such as Thermaltake with their Orb series coolers, Pentagram, and others. Let’s take a look at the evolution of Zalman’s CPU coolers:
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Now let’s look at the new cooler from Zalman, the CNPS9500 AM2. The CNPS9500 AM2 is largely based on Zalman’s CNPS9500 LED, sporting an all-copper design, only it ships with a new clip that offers native support for AMD’s new AM2 socket.
| A Closer Look | Page:: ( 2 / 5 ) |
The Zalman CNPS9500 is a totally different kind of cooler. The new fashion of design is heatpipes. CPUs are becoming more and more powerful, and even though die shrinks (smaller process size) reduce the CPU’s size and voltage, the heat concentration rises. Zalman employs six heatpipes – physically 3 heatpipes – that start on one end of the base, rise up to form a figure 8 and end at the other side of the base. This is why the nickname for the cooler is called the Aero Flower. There is a 92mm fan carried over from the 7000 series cooler with 2 green LEDs in the center cooling the fins as they take heat from the heatpipes.
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This cooler is silver colored, which is probably nickel plating to distinguish it from the Socket 939 and Socket 775 flavors of the CNPS 9500 LED. Performance is the same for all the coolers, the only difference being the mounting process. The base is polished, something not often seen on even the best coolers. Most bases are well milled, but Zalman takes the extra step to polish the base, ensuring even better contact with the CPU. The mounting mechanism is extremely primitive, but effective. It is a lever, meaning one side of the lever attaches to one end of the mounting bracket, the middle of the lever presses the cooler down, and the other end is manually affixed with force to produce the pressure needed to affix the cooler to the CPU.
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Installation
Installation is as easy as 1-2-3 for this cooler.
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First, make sure the lever is sitting on the small protrusion at the top of the coolers base. Apply thermal paste onto the CPU, a small rice grain drop in the middle of the CPU’s heatspreader works best. Next, place the cooler down and secure one side of the lever carefully. This should take no strength. Next, take the side of the lever with the thumb press and move it down to the mounting bracket. This takes a bit of force as you are applying pressure to the middle of the cooler’s base. When both sides of the lever are secure, you may either use the included FAN MATE 2 fan controller, or plug the cooler’s 92mm fan directly into the motherboard.
| Test Setup, Test Methods, Test Results, and Noise | Page:: ( 3 / 5 ) |
Test Setup
AMD AM2 3000+ in two modes (Stock – 1.8GHz 1.35V) and (Overclocked – 2.7GHz 1.55V)
Foxconn C51XEM2AA
1GB Corsair XMS2 PC2-8500
ATI Radeon X1900XTX
Hitachi 160GB SATA
Antec Sonata 2
Antec SP2.0 450W
Test Methods
“Idle” is defined as letting the CPU sit inactive with 0% utilization for 30 minutes and recording the average temperature in degrees Celsius achieved. “Load” is defined as running Prime95 (Small FTTs) for 30 minutes and recording the average temperature in degrees Celsius achieved. Temperatures were taken from nVidia’s nTune program, as well as a calibrated thermal probe on the CPU to achieve the highest possible accuracy. Noise was measure with a digital SPL meter from .5m away.
Results
| CPU Temp Results | |||
| Stock 1.8GHz 1.35V | Idle (degrees Celsius) | Load (degrees Celsius) | Delta T (degrees Celsius) |
| AMD Stock Heatpipe Cooler@Auto | 34 | 47 | 13 |
| Zalman CNPS 9500 50% | 31 | 41 | 11 |
| Zalman CNPS 9500 100% | 31 | 41 | 11 |
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| CPU Temp Results | |||
| Overclocked 2.7GHz 1.55V | Idle (degrees Celsius) | Load (degrees Celsius) | Delta T (degrees Celsius) |
| AMD Stock Heatpipe Cooler@Auto | 38 | 64 | 26 |
| Zalman CNPS 9500 50% | 35 | 58 | 23 |
| Zalman CNPS 9500 100% | 34 | 55 | 21 |
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| Noise (dB) Background - 19dB | |
| AMD Stock Heatpipe Cooler | 40 |
| Zalman CNPS9500 50% | 31 |
| Zalman CNPS9500 100% | 44 |
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| Ballistics Report | Page:: ( 4 / 5 ) |
Pros
Good Performance: The Zalman CNPS9500 is an important asset especially for overclocking. At full load and overclocked, it managed to shave off 9 degrees Celsius off of the stock cooler’s performance. Even when not overclocked it managed to pull ahead by 6 degrees Celsius.
Quiet at Low Speed: The Zalman was audible at low speed, but it still performed very quietly at only 31dBa, equivalent to light whisper at the other side of large room.
Effective Design: The Zalman is relatively small compared to its 3rd part competitors. Also, unlike the 7000, and particularly the 7700, the 9500 has no mounting problems and doesn’t cover or make contact with anything on the motherboard.
Easy Installation: With minimal parts, and a clever and simple lever mounting mechanism installation took about a minute, from taking off the side panel, to putting it back on the case.
Easy Fan Speed Control: The Fan Mate 2 provides easy fan control. It’s small and completely plug and play.
Cons
Hi Speed has minimal effect: Even though the cooler spun twice as fast (and produced much more noise), cooling didn’t improve at all at stock speeds, and even at overclocked speeds it only achieved 3C less, and 2C less Delta T over low speed.
Price: for such performance, $50 online isn’t much a bargain. There are other aftermarket coolers from Scythe, Thermalright, Thermaltake and others that outperform this cooler for about the same amount, if not less. We’ll cover those coolers in a roundup later on.
| Final Verdict | Page:: ( 5 / 5 ) |