Zalman is a name that we’ve all heard by now. They are pretty much the only company producing low-noise yet well performing aftermarket heatsinks with any real success. Their heatsink design secret is pretty simple – HUGE surface area. From the ‘flower’ style heatsinks to the orb-style coolers, and now on to a hybrid of the two, they all share the trademark thin-fins to maximize heat dissipation without needing a whole lot of airflow.
But less noise means less airflow, and less airflow means less performance. Despite Zalman’s success, they haven’t quite been able to really crack the high-end enthusiast/overclocker market dominated by Thermalright heatsinks combined with Delta or Vantec high CFM fans. With the CNPS7000A-Cu Zalman seems to be trying to take their low-noise philosophy to the high-performance arena. Let’s see if they succeed. The thin-fins look deceptively light, but they add up! The 7000A-Cu really surprised me with its weight. It is packaged quite well in a hard, formed plastic container.
Opening up the package reveals a wealth of extras. There is mounting hardware for Socket A AMD mobos, P4 mobos, and the new Athlon 64’s. It also comes with a bit of Arctic Alumina thermal paste, some paper washers, a nice installation manual, a fan-speed controller, a case badge, and some silica gel…which I was tempted to eat. Thank God for warning labels!
The heatsink itself is huge, about the size of a CD-ROM in circumference. For tight cases where the PSU is right on top of the mobo the 7000A-Cu may not fit. Also, at 773 grams the 7000A-Cu is well over the maximum limits specified by AMD (300g for XP’s, 450g for A64’s) and Intel (450g). Take care when moving a computer with this beast installed… The base comes lapped to a mirror polish, but if you run your fingernail across it you can feel the ridges of the many fins compressed together to form the base.
Taking apart the heatsink reveals a pretty simple construction. The many fins are clamped together in the center between two aluminum blocks, then lightly machined, then folded open. The fan is screwed into a bracket, which also holds the clip used to mount the heatsink.
Here’s the specs for the Zalman fan with the included fan-speed controller. As you can see, it’s quite quiet. One should note that most dB measurements are taken three feet from the fan. If you run your PC right next to you it will sound louder. Then again, most case fans are louder than this anyway, so it doesn’t really matter
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Fan
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Silent Mode
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Normal Mode
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Rotational Speed
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1350 RPM ± 10%
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2400 RPM ± 10%
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Noise Level
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20 dB ± 10%
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25 dB ± 10%
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Bearing Type
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2 ball
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The installation of this heatsink was one of the most difficult things I’ve had to do with my PC in a while. It makes me wish I had eaten the included silica gel earlier…perhaps violent stomach cramps would have made the install seem easier by comparison! The first major hurdle was the clip. On the Zalman website it gives a few warnings about motherboard compatibility on the product page. Well, I encountered one of those compatibility issue on the test mobo – some capacitors were in the way of the mounting clip. Since the clip is made out of some hardened steel it was terribly difficult to cut and file. In the following pics you can see how close the mounting clip comes to the caps on my mobo, and the result of trimming the clip.
Great, now that that’s done I can install it! Well, this heatsink is mounted via the four mounting holes on AMD boards, and that means we have to deal with the dreaded motherboard removal. For air-cooling pros like myself, that means cutting a whole bunch of zip-ties that are keeping my case tidy, uninstalling everything, mounting the clips, and putting it all back together. Fun!
But I know what you’re thinking. “That’s not enough fun for me, I’m hardcore!” Well, you’re in luck because one of the screw-holes in the included mounting hardware wasn’t threaded. For the layman: there were no screw grooves in the hole, it was perfectly smooth. After a little work (and by ‘a little’, I mean ‘a lot’) I managed to force-drive a sacrificial screw into the mounting clip to create threads, then mount it to the mobo. After putting it all back together, here’s the results:
Testing
I tested the Zalman CNPS7000A-Cu against a Dr. Thermal V77L modded with a Vantec Tornado fan (aka Dr. Thermal Extreme SE). For those unknowing, the Dr. Thermal mod is a top tier performer (look it up if you don’t believe me). I compared the Silent Mode of the 7000A vs. the V77L with the Vantec fan 7volt modded (a method of undervolting the fan to reduce noise and airflow), and them put both heatsinks to full blast and compared those temps.
The Silent Mode test compared performance at both stock speeds (62.8W) and overclocked to the chip’s maximum limit (1886MHz @ 164FSBx11.5 with 1.81vCore – about 90W of heat output). The Full Mode temps were measured during overclocked mode only, since at stock there’s no reason to run a heatsink in such a way. Both heatsinks were freshly installed with a new layer of Arctic Silver 3, and temps were measured via the mobo’s in-socket thermosistor. While not entirely accurate, the temps are presented to compare against each other and therefore measure the relative performance of the heatsinks. My test bed is as follows:
- AMD Athlon XP-1600 AGOIA-Y 0213
- MSI K7T266 Pro2 mobo
- 512MB PC2100 generic (uses Samsung chips)
- Gainward Golden Sample GeForce4 MX440
- 60GB IBM Hard Drive
- Chieftec/Chenming case with four 32CFM case fans
In the Silent Mode comparison the Zalman CNPS7000A-Cu is inaudible over the noise of the case fans, video card, and northbridge coolers. If your system is low noise, this will fit right in. The modded V77L wasn’t especially loud when 7volted, but it could be heard. In regards to performance, the Zalman didn’t lag far behind:
During the Full Mode tests, the Vantec Tornado SCREAMED. I can’t believe I used to run my PC like this – and with two 68CFM Delta case fans as well! It was amazingly loud now that I’m accustomed to watercooling. On the other hand the 7000A was just barely audible with the rest of the case fans going, and this is with me sticking my head in the case with the door off. I was very surprised to see that while the noise amounts differed greatly, the temps were very competitive!
Conclusion
Great package, surprisingly good performance, but a potentially horrible installation. I’m an optimist, so I’m willing to say that most Zalman mounting clips will be threaded, but none the less it was surprising to see all the great craftsmanship and then find unthreaded screwholes. I also highly recommend you check your mobo for compatibility before ordering this heatsink. While it can be made to fit, nobody outside of the enthusiast market will be willing to go through all that trouble. Also, the large size of the heatsink may make it incompatible with some systems.
Installation issues aside, this heatsink kept within a few degrees of a 60+dB blaster heatsink-fan with much much much less noise! This is the first air-cooling solution I’ve seen that has successfully blended low noise and high performance. Even the Full Mode is silent by overclocker standards, and for the average Joe type of user the Silent Mode is truly quiet. I give this heatsink a 6.5/10 only because of the potential installation and compatibility issues, but for compatible mobos the install should be much smoother. Thanks to Sharka Corporation for sending this heatsink my way!
Pros
- Very low noise
- Very good performance
- Mounting hardware for all modern processors
- Fan-speed controller
Cons
- Potentially difficult install
- Will not fit in all systems
- BIG heatsink could be a problem
- Somewhat pricey at $49.99