ZALMAN CNPS12X 120mm Long Life Bearing High Performance Triple Fan CPU Cooler

Pros: I was on my journey to find a perfect CPU cooler for my new custom build PC. I started with liquid cooler Corsair 60H. I loved it a lot but the pumb failed in 3 days after I switched its fan to a pull set up. I decided to move to Corsair h110 and then h100i. They are really noisy. I wanted to have a really quiet comp as I will use it most of the time at night. I lost my hopes until I saw ZALMAN CNPS12X. It is really quiet, extremely quiet! I stress-tested my build and it is still very quiet without even the resistor cable. The temperature stays the same like when I used my Corsair h110/h100i. The blue led on the cooler is a nice touch.

It has 3 fans. 2 on the side for suck in the cold air, and 1 in middle exhausts the hot hair. I installed corsair AF 120SP QE on top of my case to suck out all the heat and this set up work really well.

It comes with ZALMAN ZM-STG2 thermal gease. This is a grade A thermal compound.

Cons: It is HUGE!!!
It can be either good or bad depending on user taste. It has blue print of its size, so make sure you do some measurement of your case and motherboard 1st.

You really need low profile RAM as the cooler will stay on top of your RAM and very close to it.

Installation is a pain. It took a lot of practice (I applied and reapplied thermal paste to find the best 4 times in 1 night) . It can be installed in less than 5 minutes.

Other Thoughts: I hope ZALMAN's engineer could come up with a better way of installation. Unless you have a motherboard out of the case, tt is hard to install. It took a lot of patient. My tip is use the fan as a guidance and use the long side of the screw drier comes with it to screw down. This way, you can install the cooler inside the case with graphic card and top fans installed. It is still hard to plug in the fan cable to if you want to use the plugs in the middle of your motherboard as the graphic card would block the view.

Pros: Very quiet.
Cools like a boss.

Cons: Absolutely massive.
Very heavy.

Other Thoughts: Works great and is super quiet. 4 eggs though because the thing is so large and heavy.

If you plan to buy this, be sure that any heat sinks on your RAM are low profile.

Also, the weight of this thing really made me nervous at first. It wouldn't be a big deal if your motherboard is sitting horizontal, but standing it up in a tower made me worry that it would bend the motherboard and damage it in some way. Been running fine for 6+ months though, so the weight is probably not a real issue.

Pros: 3 fans. 6 heatpipe design

Cons: mounting, fans dont run fast enough

Other Thoughts: I got this on a shell shocker to make it about 40 bux with rebate. I have an amd system and am using a ZALMAN CNPS9900ALED it keeps my CPU at 32 and after a heavy gaming session it is no higher than 38c. Installed this cooler thinking it might make it a tad bit better. With this one i had to mount to the back of motherboard i couldnt use the existing bracket like i did with the 9900. Turned it on and let it break in for a couple of days and now i run at 36c on idle and after gaming it is 45c BIG difference. so i took it off and put my 9900 back on it seems to me the fans on this dont run fast enough to lower temps alot. 1200 rpm on normal mode where my 9900 is 2000 rpms on normal mode. If i had to do it all over i would of bought another 9900 as a back up but am planning on building an intel rig and will use this one on it.

Pros: Does the job excellently and gorgeously.
Quiet CPU fan, and even quieter than my 200mm case fan.
Blue LED ( not brighter as my case fan)
Giant built with good appearance. (totally fit into my NZXT phantom full tower case)
Easy installation ( I mean to myself as a PC builder(not an expert), but for sure not the easiest one in general)

Cons: A little pricey but worthy.
Not recommended for small built (mini case and micro ATX mobo)

Other Thoughts: overall, it is a very satisfied CPU cooler i ever owned. Before i bought it, i did not expect it works this quiet with triple fans, but now, it proved to me that it works silently.

Pros: It is fantastic on my AMD FX-8350. It was overheating with the stock cooler and another aftermarket cooler with three heat pipes...

Cons: I have a Crosshair V Formula-Z MB and I had to modify one bracket due to the heatsinks on the board... No big deal just cut a inch off one side which removed the Intel screw mounts

Other Thoughts: I love this heat sink its big and quiet.... and very cool I've had no higher than 32c....

Pros: 1) lower temps by 5 celsius compared ro my previous fan. The notorious Noctua DH-14
2) quiete.... Definitely quiete than the Noctua
3) low temps
4) blue led
5) 0% chance of a leak
5) 6 direct touch heat pipes
5) looks amazing
6) fits perfectly

Cons: 1) takes forever to install, it is possible. Believe me... I usually figure things out easily. This is really hard to install. But it's fun. And it gets done. Don't give up , eventually ull figure out to use the ball at end to screw it in... Wtvr.... I did my research before I bought this beast. I'm talking measurements.... Luckily, zalman has very precise and exact measurements available online.
( Not exact measurement just an example )
What I ended up having to do-
I had g-skill trident-X 2x8 ram.
The ram was like 5 cm taller than the fan allowed to be. But I read further on ther site, that removing the heatsinks from the fan will take away 6cm from the rams height. Leaving 1cm between the fan and the ram.... Well I bought the ram. And thought that theoretically if I took off the heatsink. It would fit..... And it did!!!!! Hooray :). I then concluded, the ram doesn't need a heat sink if its directly under a kick balls fan? I love this fan. Best fan on the market.

Other Thoughts: Do research before u commit!!


My Noctua Dh-14 died after 6 months of cool air( i kinda broke it, by accident) So.... I decided. Even tho it could've lived longer if I didn't break it. And even though it kept my CPU at low temps and worked well. I said "maybe, ther is a better fan". So I did a lil bit of research here n there, looking at comparison. But 1comparison no one had was the zalman vs. Noctua. There was Thermaltake vs. zalman. With zalman winning. And Thermaltake against Noctua. With Noctua winning. With zalmans speak desine, blue led, triple fans..... Why not?
And so I purchased the zalman.

Pros: I built my latest computer with low noise as a primary concern and this fan has worked out brilliantly! It just touches my RAM and it leaves 1/4 inch of head room in my IN WIN H-FRAME case. So, so quiet and does it's job well. Not too hard to install.

Cons: I wish these fans would leave the tiniest bit more room for RAM (if I had used all 8 slots, there's no way the closest sticks on each side would have fit).

I had to spend a lot of time 'measuring' the inside of a case from an image to be sure it would fit. This thing is pretty big (though lower profile than some fans I looked at) so don't assume it will fit in your case.

Other Thoughts: Really happy I went with this fan. The others I was looking at wouldn't have fit with the RAM or the case. I was concerned that this had a slightly higher dB rating (volume), but in action it's so quiet that it doesn't even register for me.

Pros: Looks awesome in my HAF-X case!
Quite as could be.
Keeps everything nice and cool.
Did I mention it looks amazing in my HAF-X case?!

Cons: This would only be a con if you had a small case but BIG!
The instructions with this awesomeness suck.....no I mean really suck.

Other Thoughts: I got this being afraid this massive cooler was going to make me have to buy different RAM like some of the other reviews. I installed it with not that much space between the cooler and the ram but still space. When this thing is running full throttle I can barely here any part of it at all. All in all i would recomend this cooler to anyone with a case to support it.

Pros: A.) My CPU is the coolest sensor in my system (27 C idle), all other sensors (SABBERTOOTH X79) are in the 30s. Never thought that would happen...

B.) Actually fits into a 4U Server case (rackmount for audio/video production, it's in my livingroom not a server closet)

Cons: The way it shifts over to the side has it almost touching the back of the video card (I mean by like 5mm). Plus the shift doesn't seem to be for any reason (at least not on this board)

Other Thoughts: I was about to get the D-14, but after looking at stamping holes in my case lid to make it fit I saw this cooler. Got it and love it.... Plus it looks cool (but my case tucks away the visual awesomeness)...

Pros: This cpu cooler is overkill for most users and at its standard price may not be worth it. It is extremely quiet even on its "normal" setting. Chances are one of the fans you already own will be louder than this thing. I don't have many results I can present, but it is keeping a overclocked fx-6300 (4.6ghz) under 50C at load. It has triple fans and looks great in my opinion.

Cons: The reviews are true this thing is a monster. If your RAM has heat spreaders this could be cutting it close. not only that your case may not be wide enough to fit this beast. MEASURE EVERYTHING BEFORE BUYING. I was lucky and did a quick measure and it turned out okay but it cut it close. I managed to change to this from a stock heatsink without removing my motherboard but I don't think that will be the case for most of you.

Other Thoughts: I purchased this on sale, it is overkill for my system and at standard price may not be worth the investment. I got mine very cheap with rebates (still pending) and Promo deals and instant savings. If all goes right I will have picked this up for under $40. If it isn't on sale you may want to look elsewhere, however it still will do a great job regardless.