Zalman CNPS12X Is A High-End CPU Cooler

We first laid our eyes on the Zalman CNPS12X in June of this year during the Computex fair, and after all this wait, the Korean company has decided to go ahead and make this new high-performance CPU cooler official. 

This latest Zalman creation resembles a great deal previous solutions built by the company using well known omega-shaped design that was extremely popular before the arrival of tower-type CPU heatsinks.

On a closer inspection however, one notices that the CNPS12X is actually a double-tower type heatsink, with as series of ring-like aluminum fin stacks attached to it to resemble Zalman's old-school coolers.

Six direct contact heatpipes are embedded into the base and draw the heat away from the CPU heatspreader and into the aluminum heatsink.

These provide a total air contact area of 9.6 sqaure meters and are cooled by no less than three 120mm fans based on a Zalman design, making the CNPS12X weight no less than 1kg (2.2 pounds).

In their default operating mode, the fans work at speeds between 850 and 1100 RPM, and produce 22 dBA of noise.

Those who require more performance from the Zalman cooler can put the fans into a special high-speed mode that increases the RPM to speeds between 950 and 1200, but also the noise level to 24 dBA.

Zalman CNPS12X is comptible with the current AMD AM2, AM3, AM3+, FM1 sockets as well as with Intel's LGA 775, 1366, 1156/1155 CPUs, and will also work with the upcoming LGA 2011 motherboards for Sandy Bridge-E processors.

The Korean company hasn't made any official information available regarding the pricing of the CNPS12X. We also don't know when the CPU cooler is expected to make its way into retail. (via TechPowerUp)

Posted in: Hardware, News, Preview