Pros: -looks fly as no other my friend
-this thing is truly massive and awesome
-beautiful design
-tower of coolness in both senses of the word
-very efficient at pulling the heat off of the chip and transferring it to the other heatpipes
-good temps with no fan
-zalman is pressed on every fin of aluminum
-black chrome
-nice mounting hardware

*see other thoughts

Cons: -difficult to mount, takes patience
-comes with unnecessary plastic insulators on the sides
-of course you now have to work around that massive tower of coolness
-mounting hardware is not labeled
-instructions are not clear (enough)
-packaging could be better, when mine arrived, my mounting hardware was outside the box
-lil bit pricey for me

Other Thoughts: mine's mounted on a intel socket, no problems; for me anyways.

to note, yes, you can move the cooler around while it is mounted. however, you can only rotate it. i could not "slide" the cooler around on the chip. but that came to benefit me when putting the pc back together, as i mounted this bad boy in a mini tower. if you can slide it around, i would guess it's because you have mounted it wrong. you can blame the ambiguous instructions.

also, it is quite scary on the final steps of installing; be sure to hold the thing steady so it will not fall over!

another note: little stickers for intel socket, padded stickers for amd. also be sure to look closely to the pictures, they're basically the instructions, not the text.

take the extra off.

at first, i was thinking "i don't like this, i've made a mistake."
lemme tell you; it looks 10x better without it, showing off that beautiful black chrome and those ten heatpipes. and i'm sure that it's not helping to cool. you won't be throwing away the zalman name you paid for too, as it's pressed on every fin.

i have an open-air pc. i'm sure that's affecting my temps. being mounted in a mini-tower, i also have one fan very close, pulling, and a top mounted psu, also pulling like two and a half inches away.

i'm getting temps in the 30's range (Celsius) doing easy work like internet browsing. on prime95, i was surprised; it maxed at around 85 degrees when it had been running a torture test for about an hour.

micro atx board owners, be ready to sacrifice all but two pcie slots

my gpu seems a lot louder now

Pros: -Does cool a 95w CPU pretty well. (with added fan my a10-7850k was reading around 20 to 30c)
-looks awesome
-fits normal RAM beneath its tower of coolness

Cons: -Pricey
-large.
-its really big
-Install process is a bit of a nightmare.
-need special 140mm screwdriver for installation.
Other thoughts explains my own and other reviewers mistakes.

Other Thoughts: - Both one star ratings for this cooler for overheating are from customers with Phenom II processors...... Many of the gaming worthy Phenom II are 125watt power consumption. I would assume they are seeing the temperature problems because their processors power consumption is too high.

THIS COOLER IS ONLY RATED FOR COOLING 95watt or less CPUS!

Maybe I am wrong, in which case I would suggest improper thermal paste application/cooler mounting or faulty cooler unit.

- This cooler does indeed properly mount to an FM2+ despite what the two star review says. I had it mounted atop an a10-7850k. It will only feel loose for the first few hours until the thermal compound sets and is properly burned in.

With my a10-7850k I was able to get as low as 20/25c at idle and 30/40c at full load at stock speeds with the additional optional 92mm fan. Thats almost as good as my (liquid cooler) cooler master seidon 120 atop an i5 4670k

- It is important to note that AMD A series APUs DO NOT read correctly on many monitoring applications.

I had initially given this cooler a poor rating for running High temperatures of 80c+ until I found out that my a10-7850k was being read inaccurately by Speccy. A-tuner and MSI Afterburner give relatively correct temperature readings.

-For the price I would still suggest an AIO water cooler unless you absolutely need the silence of this cooler.

Pros: Looks awesome and runs silent.

Cons: There were a few steps in the instructions that could have used a bit more clarity. Also, I'd like to have known before buying it that I would need either an extra long Phillips screwdriver or a low-profile S-shaped Phillips tool, such as the one I had to borrow to tighten this thing down to the motherboard.

Other Thoughts: I have a top-mount power supply case (midtower) loaded with a full ATX motherboard, one optical drive, and one hard disk drive. My video card is a simple fanless one-slot PCIe in the first slot just underneath the CPU cooler. I have no case fans - The only fan is the power supply fan. I ran my Phenom II x6 1055T at full load and it maxed out at 79 degrees Celsius, which is only 8 degrees beyond AMD's maximum temp. for this CPU (71 degrees Celsius). Right now, with just a couple tabs open, and couple text files open in Notepad, it's idling around 36 degrees Celsius. You'll need a Phillips with a shaft that is about 6 inches long - The clearance is tight; otherwise the handle of a standard screwdriver would not get in the way.

Pros: Ton of heatpipes

Cons: The bracket system is shoddy and won't hold the cooler in place, it can actually slide around the top of the processor.

This cooler does not work on a Phenom II

The system ran so hot that it would freeze and hang, run much slower than usual.

High price for this cr ap

Other Thoughts: I initially was attracted to the heatpipe concept with no fan, but now see that the heatpipes are good, it's the "fanless" part that sucks.

Even the instructions say that you should mount a fan for a socket 2011 & 1366

Manufacturer Response:

Dear valued customer,

We sincerely apologize for the issue. Please contact our customer service e-mail support.usa@zalmanusa.com or via toll free number 1-888-925-6266 for further assistance.

Thank you.

Best regards,

Zalman USA Customer Service

Pros: My CPU idle temperature is around 50C and it's silent. This PC will mostly be idle and file serving doesn't really tax the CPU. The silence was the goal so it has been accomplished.

Cons: This thing is a beast, but it did fit. Needs a very, very long screwdriver to install, and was pretty tricky. The mounting feels lose and you can wiggle the huge thing a tiny bit, but it is cooling the cpu regardless.

Other Thoughts: If you want quiet, this is an investment that certainly achieves that goal.

Pros: Aesthetically, it looks very pleasing in the case once its finally mounted, and it is designed well in the respect that it manages to be so massive without impeding on peripherals.

Cons: The reviewer who mentioned steady continual temperature increases until shutdown hit the nail on the head. In my case I am sure that it has something to do with not mounting with the socket FM2 properly. This thing really is MASSIVE, installation in a uatx case is not for the faint of heart, althought I dont imagine installing it in a regular case would be much different. Marketing should state that an extra long precision screwdriver is needed to install this cpu cooler.

I was practically giddy about this heatsink to be the centerpiece of my HTPC which I was aiming at making as close to 0dBa as possible. (Rosewill Fanless silent powersupply, HIS fanless silent video card, and I was hoping this Zalman CPU cooler but unfortunately that will not be.

A tight enough seal cannot be generated when mounting to the cpu with what Zalman provided, at least for a FM2 socket. It fits far too loose to the point to be able to move around slightly which Im sure does nothing good for heat transfer.

Other Thoughts: Just hoping I at least get my $10 rebate from them and that Im not instead given the run around.

Manufacturer Response:

Dear valued customer,

We sincerely apologize for the issue. Please contact our customer service e-mail support.usa@zalmanusa.com or via toll free number 1-888-925-6266 for further assistance.

Thank you.

Best regards,

Zalman USA Customer Service

Pros: As advertised, this cooler makes absolutely no noise.
Works fine for my purposes.

Cons: It was a lot bigger than I expected.

Other Thoughts: It performs on par with a stock CPU cooler. However, I don't think this is for a overclocked user. It performs quietly for those who need a quiet office.
Overclocked computer users are likely gamers. They could possibly edit HD videos.
If you are one of those, don't get this. Your setting probably requires a loud noise anyway from games or even other fans on the case.
Otherwise, great product.

Pros: Looks good and doesn't crowd peripherals, even on a Micro ATX board.

Cons: Does NOT cool the CPU. I have mounted this multiple times and continually get the same result: climbing CPU tems until shutdown.

Other Thoughts: I run my AMD phenom at stock settings and have great airflow in my case. I was really looking forward to have a quiet pc.

Manufacturer Response:

Dear valued customer,

We sincerely apologize for the issue. Please contact our customer service e-mail support.usa@zalmanusa.com or via toll free number 1-888-925-6266 for further assistance.

Thank you.

Best regards,

Zalman USA Customer Service

Pros: No Noise whatsoever! About the same price as a Noctua air cooler, but noiseless.

Cons: Runs a little hotter than the Noctua, idling at 40, gaming at 55-60. The Water cooling system that would match this is the Antec Kuhler 620. Definitely beats the Corsair h50 though.

Other Thoughts: Get this if you don't trust water cooling systems not to leak.