A closer look

Zalman heatsinks invoke a sense of nostalgia. To many who have followed the CPU cooler industry for long enough, it seems like tower-type coolers with aluminum fin towers have overtaken Zalman's copper-fin tunnel type CNPS (Computer Noise Prevention System) design, on coolers such as the CNPS 9500 and CNPS 9700. The CNPS 9900 is essentially an evolution of this design, with a radical change in the positioning of the fan. From the CPU base emerge three heat pipes, which make an omega (Ω) shaped loop each. Nickel-plated copper fins propagate along the loop making up the fin array, where all the heat is dissipated to air.

Between two such fin arrays, is nested a large 135 mm LED-illuminated fan. The two arrays are dissimilar in size. The array from which the fan draws in air is thinner, only one heat pipe loop passes through it. The fan blows air onto the larger array, through which two heat pipe loops pass through.


The 135 mm fan stays nested between the two arrays. You can detach it for cleaning by pulling out the four screws on the base plate. It is illuminated to a bloody-red color. Visually it should suit motherboards with black+red color schemes, and one or more AMD Radeon graphics cards well.

The fan uses a standard 4-pin power header that allows PWM-based speed control. You can also place the RC7P cable, which is an intermediate cable with a resistor, to slow down the fan using voltage drop.


Zalman CNPS 9900 uses three nickel-plated copper heatpipes. The manufacturer is claiming to use a new composite inner wall of the heatpipe that combines a sintered metal layer with axial grooves to improve a heat transfer by a rated 50%. Here, take some salt.


The CNPS 9900 uses a nickel-plated copper base plate which has a mirror finish. Our sample came with quite some fingerprints.