[ad#review1016-top]I reviewed my first Zalman product quite some time ago, a VF-700Cu VGA cooler. I don’t remember exactly when it was, but I’m thinking probably late 2004, the geForce 6600GT AGP version had just been released. This was an awesome VGA cooler, and is an awesome VGA cooler. I reviewed the VF-700Cu, a few months later I reviewed the Zalman Fatal1ty FS-V7, the Fatal1ty version of the VF-700Cu, and later I purchased two more VF-700Cus. All four of these coolers today are in daily drivers belonging to members of my family. How many high performance PC products do you know of that are still being sold five years after their release? How many do you know of that are still being used daily five years after their purchase? It will fit many modern cards, I just read a user review where a guy put a pair on a Radeon HD 4850 X2! I still recommend this cooler.

Since then I have reviewed several other Zalman coolers, most recently the CNPS 9900LED CPU cooler. All of the Zalman coolers I have had my hands on had two things in common…all of them performed very well, and all of them had little to no resemblance to any other coolers on the market. I guess all of them were round save one, the VF-1000 VGA cooler.

Today I will be looking at Zalman’s latest product, the CNPS 10X Extreme CPU Cooler. Hmmm…10X doesn’t sound like anything Zalman. It doesn’t look like anything Zalman either, it is a 120mm tower cooler! Though, as you’d expect from Zalman, it really has little in common with other tower coolers.starting with five, yes, five heatpipes. There are other big differences too, as you’ll see. Read on to check out the Zalman CNPS 10X Extreme!

Specifications

Model: CNPS 10X Extreme
Application: Intel LGA 1366/1156/775, AMD Socket AM3/AM2+/AM2/940/939/754
Materials: aluminum (fins), copper (base)
Dissipation Area: 8544 cm2 (1324 sq in)
Heatpipes: 5
Fan: 120mm PWM blue LED fan
Fan RPM: 1,000 – 2,150rpm +/- 10 %
Noise: 20.0 – 39.0dBA
Fan Bearing: 2 Ball-Bearing
Nominal Fan Voltage: 12V
Fan MTBF: Over 50,000 hrs
PWM Fan Control: PWM Fan Auto/Manual Control
- Connector Type: 4-Pin only
Dimensions: 135mm(L) x 100mm(W) x 160mm(H) (5.3″ x 3.9″ x 6.299″)
Weight: 920g (1lb 14.45 oz)

Packaging

The 10X Extreme is packaged in a sharp looking hanging box with a window giving a glimpse of what’s inside. The rear of the box has some features listed.

Inside, the cooler is separated from the hardware by a cardboard insert. The cooler itself is well protected in a blisterpack. No hermetic sealing here.

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