Zalman CNPS6500B-Cu Pentium 4 Heatsink Review

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The Zalman CNPS6500B-Cu is frankly one of the largest Pentium 4 heatsinks on the market, weighing in at 898grams. That is frighteningly close to 1 kilo! Bu, putting the high weight factor aside, all that copper, and all that surface area conspire to make one very effective low noise heatsink.

With the CNPS6500B revision Zalman have changed around how the heatsink mounts to the Intel Pentium 4 processor. In the past, the heatsink was attached via a series of screws and nuts which basically meant that you had to first remove the entire motherboard from the case before you could install the heatsink.

That is a pretty labor intensive job just for a heatsink, so Zalman went back to the drawing board as it were and came up with a very simple set of plastic springy clips which latch into the existing pentium 4 heatsink retention mechanism and hold the CNPS6500B-Cu in place.

The mounting system works well, but with that much copper on the processor it is still a good idea for first remove the heatsink before transporting your computer around.

	Heatsink Specsheet: Model: CNPS6500-Cu (52) copper 0.5mm thick fins. Fan: 92mm case-mounted Fan Dim: Power Cooler 25x92x92mm, 2500RPM, 12V, 3.36W FHS Dimensions: 115x94x65mm Weight: 898 grams Surface area: 3400cm2 Thermal resistance: 0.28C/W Machine milled base Made & Sold by: Zalman Tech Co. Cost: ~$55USD Sold By: www.zalmanusa.com

Basics on the Noise Reduction System

The easiest way to improve the performance of a heatsink is to increase the amount of air moving through its fins. This is not the best way to improve a heatsink, but it is the easiest, and most common method.

To this effect, computers have been increasingly getter louder and louder. In most situations we are apt to grin and bear it - tucking the computer under a table or putting headphones on and turning up the music. This is where Zalman steps in with their "CNPS" acronym for "Computer Noise Prevention System." In addition to the large 92mm fan that comes with the CNPS6500B-Cu, they also include the FanMate 1. The FanMate 1 allows you to further decrease the degree of noise generated by the fan, by lowering the amount of voltage it receives, and in turn how fast it rotates.

The Fan Mate 1 is rated to handle fans drawing 6W or less (via a three-pin power connector), and will output from between 12V to 5V depending on where the dial is set. The flower heatsinks comes with a 92mm fan on a adjustable armature. The mounting arm attaches to the case by using the first three slot card screw positions and a 25cm long fan wire plugs directly into the motherboard to offer RPM monitoring.