Zalman bills itself as the "quiet cooling solution" and they have a reputation for easy to use, reliable products. The CNPS 5700D ducted heat sink and fan combination demonstrates their innovation as well. The concept behind this unique design is as clear as the blue-tinted duct itself.
The inverted 65mm fan draws air upwards from the base of the cooler – pulling heat away from the CPU and the radial array of copper fins and blows it upwards through the duct. The duct can be swiveled to direct the warm air towards the nearest exhaust fan thereby efficiently dumping the surplus heat overboard rather than letting it drift around inside the case to heat up other components.
The fan can be set to operate in a "Silent Mode" which eliminates vibration and reduces noise to a mere 20dBA. The included Fan Mate controller lets you adjust speed to optimize and balance your fan's performance to your satisfaction. The built-in clip system lets the 5700D attach easily to the standard Socket 478 retention bracket of the Pentium 4 chip and the cooler can support those chips up to 2.8GHz.
Excellent Cooling PerformanceThe pure copper base, coupled with an air duct and high-density fins, maximizes heat transfer and dissipation. Plus, a large 80mm dual-ball bearing fan runs efficiently to deliver unparalleled cooling performance.
Adjustable Fan SpeedThe ZALMAN CNPS5700D-CU comes with a fan speed controller (Fan Mate 1) so you can fine tune the fan speeds for the optimum balance between cooling performance and noise level.
Pros: Under full load(about 76% CPU usage) it can keep my 3.4 Ghz prescott at 52.22degrees celsius with the fan speed at 1650 RPM's. (thats 120 degrees F) Thats almost no noise. If you want cooler temps, the manual fan speed control will let you throttle it up past 3000Rpm's, and that dropped it to 48.8 degrees C or 120 degrees F(under full load). At idle it kept temps between 37 and 39 degrees C,(around 100 degrees F) whether or not the fan speed was at 3000 Rpm's. When the fan is at full speed, it's still not that loud.
Cons: Its big. It fit it into my case with ease because I have a large case, however, I can see this being difficult for those with more compact cases.
Overall Review: This HSf doesn't have metal clips, but plastic ones that are not pressure clips. I haven't used this kind before, but it seems to be working okay. I also used Arctic Silver 5 on my HSF which probably resulted in slightly lower temps. Get the arctic silver people, its worth it.