ZALMAN CNPS9900ALED 120mm 2 Ball Low-noise Blue LED CPU Cooler

Pros: Crazy & unique look.
Big blue LED fan.
Versatile mounting.
Excellent performance.
Good price w/ rebate.

Cons: The all-copper design looks a little strange when everything else is blue.
The mounting process is a little tedious. I messed up once or twice to where I needed to reapply thermal paste. It comes with a special allen wrench so you can tighten the screws at an angle, but it was still pretty tricky. This is also my first aftermarket CPU cooler, so it's all a learning process.

Other Thoughts: I got this as a shell-shocker deal for $20 with rebate. For a $70 cooler, that's a good price no matter how you look at it. It looks really cool in my case, the LED fan matches my other fans, and its performance is exceptional. I definitely recommend this cooler if you can snag a sweet deal.

Pros: Been running this fan for a few days now. My temps are 5c cooler at idle, and 10c at load, then when I was using the stock fan. This fan is also much quieter then the stock cooler. I've read reviews involving people struggling to install this fan, but as long as the directions are followed, it shouldn't be a problem.

Cons: The last product detail picture is incorrect or out of date (the pic containing the brackets and mounting screws. For a better pic of the contained mounting hardware see
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835118074

Pros: Great cooler. I've had an earlier non-PWM version running in a AMD X4 rig for the past four years with no problems, still cool and quiet. I was willing to pay full price for that one and am still very pleased.

This model was just as easy to install on my new build, has PWM (so no more remote control!) and is running just fine.

Cons: My only qualm was the rebate.

I'm a rebate shopper. I found them useful as a youngster, as they allowed me to get things that I couldn't ordinarily afford. There has been a bit of a lul for me recently, as rebates have seemed to get smaller (value wise) and the Post Office has gotten more expensive, but compared to the average shopper I still do them quite often.

This is off-topic, but I saw a $1 rebate on a $5 item from a B&M store who's name is reminiscent of a certain fried potato product. Seriously? Stamp, paper, envelope, photo copy/scan, gas, travel time, waiting at the post office, printing the check/'debit card', return envelope, return postage. That all costs more than $1. Seriously.

To me a rebate of less than $10+ is often hardly worth the effort.

Even given that, I do 10 to 15 rebates a year for bigger ticket stuff that is sold on either Black Friday or, like this one, a random Shell Shocker (read Inventory clearance) that sends back $35 and makes the end price too good to be true ($9.99).

I've only had three rebates denied (they were PNY memory cards from like 2005) and that was b/c of a screw-up by a now defunct (but very patriotic) B&M computer superstore (don't worry I still got paid).

Having mailed in a hundred or more over the past decade, I know if they go to AZ, MN, NY, CA what kind of service I can expect to get.

I know that Antec are the best rebates and seem to show up a week or two after I mail the request.

What's I'm trying to say is, I've come to get a feel for how the grubby game of betting on people being lazy, forgetful, having a limited grasp of word problems, a lack of attention to detail, etc. tends to work. And I know that some companies (or their Rebate Fulfillment House) sit on the requests for MONTHS and MONTHS and MONTHS.

That's what I believe happens here.

Even after you navigate around the flim-flam tactics to deny the rebate (I got the first brush-back denial in more than eight years from these guys) and speak to a CS Rep (who, BTW, was quite cordial, accommodating and who did address the issue and correct the error in denying the claim), their process is still to take the full eight to ten weeks after they've approved the claim to just MAIL the rebate.

We all know that a bad experience draws out, what could be considered the worst in people, but I'm just taking the time to write this as a warning to be very careful with rebates for Zalman products.

Cross the T's and dot the i's. And be prepared for a LONG wait to get your cash back.

For comparison, in the time that this Zalman rebate's been pending, I've purchased, mailed and got $40 back from a Microsoft Windows 8 Upgrade (which I thought was lightning fast) and $50 from one of those Canon printer scam "get a free/low cost printer w/purchase of a laptop/tablet" (BTW, that's just the loss leader to sell you ink that costs $13,000 a gallon).

The Canon rebate arrived after less than two wee

Other Thoughts: See above. Great product and I'd buy again, but I'd be weary of the rebate.

Pros: Giant, large 120mm fan, all copper, keeps cpu cool

Cons: giant, sharp fins

Other Thoughts: 3930k at 32c idle, 68c under full prime95 load while overclocked (in a micro ATX, so not all that surprising). Most of the time keeps around 45-50c while gaming. 2011 kit provided by zalman, much easier to install then the standard 1155.

Pros: Quite, Powerful, lowers temps significantly. Got for a really good deal.

Cons: Heavy, Big, and somewhat difficult to install.

Other Thoughts: My CPU is the AMD FX-8320, and with stock fan, I was having temps around 40c Idle, and 55 with load. With this fan, I dropped idle to 33c (same temp as motherboard, only a few above ambient), and load went down to 45c. This fan is silent at idle, and barely noticeable at load speed. Make sure you have room, this thing is big. Installation wasn't the easiest, but it was my first time installing an aftermarket CPU cooler.

This thing is so quite, I can hear the hum of my monitors over the cooler.

Pros: Well, it does what's it's supposed to do. It keeps my phenom ii under 45C at load. I forgot to measure my stock cooler temp so I can compare, but I can at least tell that this new cooler is much quieter. It's not silent but noise is bearable.

Cons: While I was installing, I seriously thought about destroying this cooler. First of all, there is no clasp. That meant that I had to take out my motherboard which is a great pain. And second, the manual is a trash. Anyway, I really struggled to install this. I had to press the cooler REALLY HARD because those bolts wouldn't touch the nuts. It took me hours to attach the cooler to the motherboard, and while I was attaching it, I cut my hands in several places because of its fancy heatsink. It looks cool but it's sharp and it's kind of fragile so it bends easily. Anyway, this cooler is just too hard to install.

Other Thoughts: I forgot why, but I was pretty sure that I would get the clasps so I was very disappointed when I could find none. I thought I could easily install this using those clasps but oh well.

Pros: It cools nicely

Cons: I looked at many different coolers with the attachment pieces and such and read the horror stories of the install procedure of these Zalman coolers, this one shows the long clasp in the picture that all you have to do for an install is use the base that is already on the motherboard, put your new cooler on the cpu and latch the clasp VERY SIMPLE RIGHT, this would have taken 15 minutes tops from start to finish---I get this cooler in and none of the pieces in the pictures are in the box mainly NO CLASP!!!!!!!!!!!!
so now I am stuck with the choice of paying to return the item that has been (advertised incorrectly ) or contact Zalman to get the proper part (just one simple part) and wait who knows how long for that to happen or to install the cooler with the parts included, I choose the latter-because I have been a diesel tech for thirty years, how hard can a cooler be to install.
1st of all---without the CLASP I had to remove the complete motherboard and lay flat to get the four screws started on the corners of the fan because the lower bracket underneath the motherboard doesn't sit flat against the motherboard and the four corners of the fan sit about 1/8" away from the bottom piece that the screws go into (you have to flex each corner down to get the screws started)
2nd--the nice little Allen wrench with the ball end on it will not screw the bolts in to tighten the screws because of the quality of the hardware is as lousy as anything can be, I make my living working on Peterbilt trucks--This install hardware made me feel like I was working with parts from the five and dime store washing machine or something

after getting it all together the fan at low speeds has a slight wobble---I get the feeling this will fail at some point, a very lousy setup from Zalman, incorrect advertisement from them also.

Other Thoughts: I have had the 9500 model for 5 years and have been happy with it (IT CAME WITH THE CLASP)
I run AMD so I can't speak for the Intel install but an AMD is very simple with the SPRING CLASP LATCH

AMD 8350
ASUS M5A99
8-GIG @1600
GTX 650 TI

Pros: Keeps my i7-950 cool with a touch of overclocking.
Very quiet
Looks cool

Cons: Copper fins can be bent easily, handle with care

Other Thoughts: I haven't really pushed my i7-950 yet (I bought it used a few months ago), but I feel confident that the Zalman will keep it cool unless I go insane. The blu LED is noticeable, but not horribly bright or annoying. My desktop is in my bedroom, with a clear panel exposing the cooler to the room, and I can sleep no problems. I even let it run overnight and the sound doesn't bother me either. Overall, very satisfied.

Pros: Nice Design
Easy Set Up

Cons: Gets Dusty
Can easily bend or Dink copper blade if not gentle

Pros: Out standing cooling, quite, never had a problem with the ones I've owned.

Cons: Large, delicate, insane mounting.

Really, the mounting gave me the strong feeling that a team of geniuses spent millions over an extended period of time trying and succeeding in coming up with the most asinine mounting possible. Seriously poor. The instruction booklet was either written by someone who speaks English as a second language or should be given a broom to sweep floors and never touch a technical manual again. It was nearly useless. The diagrams and instructions were poor. The ridiculous double stick tape plasitc bracket would not work no matter which way I positioned it (there are really only four choices discounting rotating it). There was absolutely no way to include it and get the back plate to sit flush against the mother board. My thinking is that if you carefully followed the instruction manual, you could ruin your mother board. Maybe its different for an Intel build, mine is AMD based. I tossed it in the bin and all is well. FYI, I was building radios from scratch at 9 years old, as well as having been a tool and die maker. In addition I ran a computer repair shop and have built well over 100 custom machines.

Every iteration of this fan seems to get stupider in terms of how it is mounted. In addion to having to get creative on how to actually mount it, you have to be extra careful not to touch the copper fins: They bend like sticking your finger in warm butter, no fooling. The bizzar mounting makes sure you get lots of extra time and tries to do so.

All this is before you consider getting proper tension of the mounts to insure optimum heat transfer. The feed back you get with the screws is very vague. If you use the wrong screws you could crack your CPU.

Other Thoughts: I have three of these in machines I'm running now. They do a very good job but are overkill for most people most of the time. Have to knock off a star because the mounting is that bad, even if I'm the type that thinks perfromance is everything.

I got this version in with no damage to it or my system by being extremely careful. Even if, there has got to be about a 70% chance or so of doing some damage to your motherboard or the fan itself with the way it mounts. Again this build was an AMD so maybe Intels are different.

If you are new to computer building you might want to skip this one. Wait until you get a few builds under your belt so that you know what really is needed with respect to a CPU cooling fan.