Excerpt: Zalman is a name we have all heard of whether your first thought is the Reserator passive water cooling tower, their fans or even there ever growing range of heat sinks
Conclusion: The Zalman CNPS9900 Max offers good performance and a very attractive design. We do wish the fan was a bit quieter, and the cooler installed easier.
Pros: Great looking design, PWM controlled 135mm fan, Compact size that offers plenty of room for RAM clearance, Fan adapter for quiet operation, LED fans, Light weight, Pol...
Cons: A tad noisy under normal operation, Double sided tape melts onto PCB
Summary: When Zalman released the CNPS10X line, we expected the long-lived flower heatsink design to walk off into the sunset for a well-deserved retirement.
Conclusion: OK, so that’s how I got really interested on testing the Zalman CNPS9900 MAX, as Zalman had some very convincing features including 3 heat-pipes being equivalent to 6
Summary: Whatever the reason, we’re pleased to welcome Zalman back into the top ranks of air-cooling. Our only complaint concerns the tricky installation process—Prolimatech’s...
Pros: Top-tier performance; quiet; good looks; less sharp than its predecessor.
Summary: With the CNPS9900 MAX, Zalman made another attempt to show that its copper fin ring type heatsinks are still competent in handling thermal loads of today's CPUs, and
Pros: Decent Performance, Plenty of directed air "spill" that cools northbridge heatsink and VRM, Support Intel and AMD sockets, Fixed fan, no fan-installation steps, Perfec...
Cons: Price needs to be lower, Some installation steps complicated, Fan very loud at full-speed, Unique fan, can't get a spare one after the included one's life runs out, No...
Conclusion: Please remember that these test results reflect our experience with each cooler on a specific motherboard, with a specific processor, BIOS revision, and test programs.