Zalman CNPS8900 Quiet
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An advancement of the aforementioned flower-style coolers, Zalman’s CNPS8900 Quiet wraps two heat pipes around copper fins to improve thermal conductivity.
A universal socket support plate uses the LGA 1150/1155/1156 and 1366 plate as a spacer, and includes a piece of plastic to serve the same purpose on other platforms (Intel LGA 775, AMD AM and FM interfaces).
Zalman’s CNPS8900 Quiet is the only cooler in today’s comparison to use a direct-contact heat pipe design. Once hailed by many firms (and several reviewers) as a giant step forward in cooler base design, its proven benefits are typically reduced material cost for the manufacturer and weight. After smashing the contact surface flat, Zalman sands it smooth.
Zalman uses shoulder screws to keep its CNPS8900 Quiet mounting brackets away from the motherboard’s surface, but doesn’t include screws for LGA 2011. Unlike several competitors, the company doesn’t appear eager to push undersized cooling onto oversized processors, and we can understand that sentiment.
