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Zalman has been chilling CPUs for many years. They have produced a wide range of cooling products. Some that make the enthusiasts drool, like the Zalman Reserator XT, and some that do a great job cooling while not burning a hole in the pocket (for our international readers, that means not costing too much :) ). Zalman recently sent us the new CNPS9300 AT that they tout as an "ultra quiet" cooler. We were glad to slap it on our test bench to see how it performs. Not only are we going to check on the acoustics, but we want to see if this still offers the same chill to our CPU that most Zalman products offer. Stick with us to find out.
| Model |
|
| Compatibility |
|
| Heatsink Dimensions |
|
| Heatsink Weight |
|
| Heatsink Material |
|
| Fan Details |
|
| Cooler | Weight |
| Cooler Master Gemini II | 847g |
| Thermaltake Big Typhoon | 813g |
| Thermalright True Black 120 | 790g |
| Zalman CNPS9700 | 764g |
| Thermalright Ultra 120 | 745g |
| Asus Lion Square | 730g |
| ZEROtherm Zen FZ120 | 670g |
| Gigabyte Rocket 3D II | 640g |
| ZEROtherm Nirvana NV120 | 638g |
| Thermaltake V1 | 637g |
| TT DuOrb | 598g |
| Scythe Katana 2 | 535g |
| Zalman CNPS9500 | 530g |
| OCZ Vendetta | 530g |
| Asus Triton 77 | 505g |
| Thermaltake MaxOrb | 465g |
| Stock Intel Cooler | 460g |
| Zalman CNPS9300 AT | 407g |
| GlacialTech Igloo 5610 Series | 373g |
To start with, this is one of the lightest coolers on the market, even lighter than the Intel stock cooler. We are glad to see that Zalman didn't buy in to the 'more is better' mentality. We learned with some of our recently reviewed products, that weight is simply not an indicator of performance.
In the package, we got the standard Zalman installation brackets, including a bracket for the backside of the mobo. The simple user's manual provided plenty of information to get this little HSF installed.