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REVIEWS OF THE LATEST HARDWARE AND SOFTWAREW
e did not expect this. When we
fi rst got our hands on Zalman’s
CNPS9300 AT, we assumed the
company had pulled a “Honey, I Shrunk
the CPU Cooler” on its fl agship product, the
bulky CNPS9700. That’s certainly true if you
consider the tale of the tape: The CNPS9300
is 80 percent smaller than its big brother, and
its total thermal dissipation area has been
nearly halved, from 5,490cm^2 to 2,583cm^2.
Logic only dictates that this cooler should
perform far worse than the Zalman CNPS9700.
But the built-for-silence CNPS9300 AT nearly
matches its big brother’s performance—as
well as that of our top cooler, Thermaltake’s
DuOrb (reviewed July 2008).
Since it eschews the CNPS9700’s fan
controller in favor of a four-pin motherboard
connection, the CNPS9300 AT’s fan can be
controlled through the BIOS or by using autility such as SpeedFan. We
welcome the change, as it’s
much easier to adjust the cooler
via a soft ware application than
by opening your case and turn-
ing a knob.
Cranking the CNPS9300 to
full throttle elicits a loud whirr,
but it allows the device to match the quieter
DuOrb degree for degree. Letting the BIOS
automatically decide the fan’s speed drops
the device’s cooling power by about fi ve
degrees; however, it is much quieter when set
on auto mode.
The CNPS9300 still relies on a tiresome
and frustrating installation mechanism. The
backplane requires motherboard removal,
perhaps the least irritating part of the pro-
cess. The cooler’s mounting bracket barely
fi ts atop the voltage regulators of our EVGA680i motherboard. And the amount of force
we applied to the screws on the CNPS9300’s
retention bar to affi x it to the mounting
bracket had us seriously concerned about the
welfare of our processor.
Because of the CNPS9300’s installa-
tion shortcomings, the DuOrb remains
our reigning cooler of choice, despite its
gargantuan size. We love the performance
Zalman has achieved with its mini-cooler.
Attaching it to our CPU is where we start to
sweat. – D A V I D M U R P H YZalman CNPS9300 AT
Big power in a tiny package
Zalman is keeping the current
black-fan version of the CNPS9300
for now but hasn’t ruled out making
an LED-fan version that matches the
CNPS9700’s look.92 | MAXIMUMPC | OCT 08 | http://www.maximumpc.com
Best scores are bolded. Idle temperatures were measured after an hour of inactivity; load temperatures were measured after an hour’s worth of CPU Burn-In (four instances). Test system
consists of a stock-clock Q6700 processor on an EVGA 680i motherboard.BENCHMARKS
CNPS9300 AT CNPS9300 AT Thermaltake Stock(Smartfan) (100%) DuOrb Cooler
Idle (C) 39.5 32.5 35.0 46.0
100% Burn (C) 56.0 51.5 51.0 70.0VERDICT$50, http://www.zalmanusa.com8
Amazing performance
for its size; fan adjust-
able through the BIOS.The installation
process needs to be
simplified.VZALMAN CNPS9300 ATHELLBOY