Zalman's 9000 series of heatsinks is rather unusual and unique to the brand.

The general principal is a series of copper blades arranged in a circle around a fan, making a tunnel through which the airflow passes.

Each of these heat-exchanging blades is connected to the others via a pair of heatpipes on this model, which is also connected directly to the surface of the heatsink.


The 92 mm fan features seven blades whose points turn inwards, which is powered by a four-pin PWM connector.

The advantage of this system is that it allows for more precise control of the fan speed than with a regular three-pin power supply.

Because it's only 92 mm across, the fan keeps the size of the whole heatsink in check and it's possible to use it in a small computer--a heatsink like this is definitely a direct competitor of something like the Noctua NH-U9B, for instance.

Excellent Cooling

It seems that Zalman's ambitious design has paid off, as this heatsink gives a very powerful performance.

Whether you've got a dual- or a quad-core processor, you can be assured that the CNPS9300 AT will keep the inside of your computer nice and cool.

In fact, in some tests it even achieves the difficult feat of outperforming the excellent Noctua NH-U9B.

As ever, the flipside to such excellent cooling is noise from the fan.

Even at its slowest speed, this Zalman makes more noise than the Noctua does running at half of its maximum capacity.

What's worse is that the noise produced by the fan is a sharp whistle, rather than a low hum, which, to our ears at least, is more noticeable and more irritating.  

The faster the fan turns, the louder it gets, of course, and when it's turning at full speed, the heatsink is just about unbearable.