FRONTPAGE Zalman CNPS9900 Max Heatsink Review

The Zalman CNPS9900 Max heatsink based on a unique looped style heatpipe design looks great, but can it contain today’s overclocked heat monsters CPUs?

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Love the review!
About the fan, why not use zipties or something else to just attach additional fans to each end, instead of trying to remove the center one?

Thanks for the review. Zalman needs to be a little more competitive with their pricing, and they would have a WINNER. It performs well, drop the $$ and more people would notice.

Well, If I did that, the center fan would impede airflow if the tied on fan would be much higher in airflow. Plus, with the 9900 Max, the looks are at least as important as the performance, if not more. This heatsink is more aimed at the person who wants very good looks more than outright performance. Zalman has some other heatsinks that seem to be aimed more at the ultra high performance realm than the 9900. And even with the stock fan, the performance isn't bad. As long as the buyer realizes that they are paying a bunch of money for the looks, there is no problem.

And thank you for the review complement!

@ SeanDude05, I happen to agree 100% about Zalman's pricing. The high end air cooling market is simply too competitive for Zalman's pricing. I will say though that Zalman has some of the best fit and finish on the market though.

Thanks for an excellent review! I actually own one, having bought it from NewEgg last month. I concur with your comments about bling appeal and fit and finish... it is almost a work of art. I have it mounted in a Zalman GS1000 black case, along with 4 Zalman chassis fans. I am a newbie to overclocking and your review has reduced my fears about temperatures. I have an Asus P6X58D-E mobo, 12 G OCZ Gold DDR3 and a Core i-7 960. I used the Asus o/c utility XMP and currently am running at 4.1 Ghz with my temps avg mid 40* range under light load conditions... when pushed my temps are running upwards of 65* and I was getting very nervous, however your review shows higher temps and you don't seem worried about cooking your CPU so I guess I'm safe! My next project will be cutting a hole in my side case and putting in a window so everyone can see my jewels at work! (NOT!) Thanks for a great board. I am looking forward to getting some insights into overclocking from the brains in your community!:

You are very welcome Windjammer, and welcome to the forums.

As for temps on your 960, these procs run on the hot side of what we used to see and I don't worry personally until I see temps running past 80 C for long lengths of time. And on my test system, I have seen temps get to 100+ C while testing heatsinks without damage. The processor has some internal safeguards built in that will shut the system down if things get too hot.

Works with AM3+?

In the near future I am going to be building a new system based around an Asus Sabertooth 990FX RS2.0 and I plan on using an AMD FX8350 Processor with it and my question is will the Zalman CNPS9900 MAX CPU Cooler be able to work with this combination? My case has plenty of room, Zalman Z11, and I won't be doing anything too crazy but I want something better than stock to keep the CPU cool while not looking too terrible or interfering with my Graphics or Ram.