ZALMAN IS DOING some really interesting things once again, and has one really innovative product that no one was expecting. As usual, the physical design is above and beyond the call of duty.
Zalman would not be Zalman without some nice coolers, and this time there are two CPU and one VGA cooler to talk about. On the CPU side, there is the CNPS9900MAX, an update to the older CNPS9900 line. This one is anodized black instead of copper colored, has a larger 135mm fan, and three heat pipes. It will dissipate 280W, so enough for most people and some pretty heavy overclocking as well.
Stand up and be cool
The CNPS5X is a lifted CNPS8000, air flows perpendicular to the CPU rather than down on it, but the two are otherwise identical. This improves efficiency a lot, and actually looks quite a bit better. Like many cars that don’t look like much in pictures but look really good in person, the CNPS5X is better when you have it in front of you.
Last up is the VF3000 line of VGA coolers. There are three of these card length twin fan coolers, VF3000A, F and N. In case you haven’t figured it out by now, the A is for DAAMIT 58xx cards, the F is for Fermi and the N is for Nvidia, specifically the GTX28x line. The VF3000F also has an additional full sized heatsink plate that goes between the card and the raised fins of the cooler’s main body. I wonder why they would need that? If you have seen a recent high end MSI GPU, you have probably seen this cooler.
Zalman was also one of the first to make a 3D monitor, the Trimon, several years ago. For a number of reasons, mostly driver related, it didn’t go very far at the time even though Zalman did everything right.
3D done right
Now, with the new interest in 3D, Zalman is right there with the right tech, polarized 3D glasses. You can get a Trimon in 21.5″ and 24″ versions, and all of them are 1080p screens. Lets hope this takes off, compared to the pretty awful shutter systems out there, this is a much better choice.
Next up are notebook cooler pads, and Zalman’s come in black and iWhite. There are three, a large one with a massive center fan, the 3000, a medium sized 2500 version with two small fans in the feet, and a smaller one with a big center fan.
The reason the 2500 does not have a center fan is that the space is occupied by a HD bay. Yes, Zalman took a pretty dull product, and made it quite useful. Slide a 2.5″ HD in, and when you put your laptop on the cooler and plug it in, you get more storage and a USB hub. Toss in a few BASH scripts and Rsync, and you can have a slick backup system and a cool crotch at the same time.
Then there are fans, Zalman has two new ones, ZM-SF3 maglev fan and the ZM-F1 FDB not maglev fan. As you can see, the SF3 has ‘shark fins’ for performance and noise reduction, and since it is a maglev fan, you can pull it apart to clean the hair and dust off of it. The F1 has fluid dynamic bearings, tech first brought to mainstream geek awareness via Seagate’s 10K RPM drives. Both are rated at 150K hours, so that should be enough to see out your grandchildren’s fan needs.
Finnish fans
Saving the coolest for last, we have the Zalman CPU power meter. This little device is just what it says, sits between the 4 or 8 pin CPU power feeds, and gives you a readout on the front of your PC. This could be extremely useful for OCing and testing.
One of three filled
Best of all, you will notice that there is space for three readouts. In the near future, Zalman will be releasing an additional unit for VGA power draw readouts. Doesn’t that sound like a useful tool? Best of all, the main unit will only cost about $50 when it is released, VGA meters are not yet priced. Neat.S|A
Charlie Demerjian
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