Finished Looks

The Zalman CNPS14X certainly looks good when mounted. It will, due in part to the aluminum and lack of flashy fans and colors, look good with a diverse range of hardware.


Clearance around the socket could, while okay, be better as the cooler does crowd the area around the socket's heatsinks. However, considering the cooler's size, this is to be expected. The cooler looks nice but the fan wires stand because they lack sleeving.


When it comes to memory clearance on LGA2011, Zalmans CNPS14X is nothing special. It covers the first DIMM slot on both sides. Depending on the heat spreader design of some memory modules, the second slot may also be problematic if using tall memory. If you are planning to purchase this cooler, stick to memory modules of a standard height to play it safe.


Zalman provided me with two ZM-F4 fans, so I will test single-, dual- and triple-fan performance. The CNPS14X is obviously huge once fully configured with three fans. It in fact completely takes over the top half of the motherboard.