When you look back upon the days when CPUs had heatspreaders built onto them, heatsinks weighed a couple of dozen grams and a single 20mm fan was more than enough cooling, it seems unlikely that within a scant few decades we would be cooling our processors with a chunk of aluminium weighing a full kilogram. With the advent of the Core 2 family, we now see stock coolers weighing in excess of 500g and heatsinks like the Zalman CNPS10X Extreme that Steve recently reviewed now weigh over 900g and sport 120mm fans. The CPMS10X Extreme is not for small cases, it stands 5″ by 4″ by 6.3″ though on the plus side it will fit on any modern AMD or Intel processor. Check out this Gold Award winning heatsink in Steve’s full review.
“This heatsink exceeded our expectations and its universal compatibility will make it even more appealing to high-end users and other PC enthusiasts looking for a strong air cooled heatsink solution. The layered fin array and black-pearl nickel plated coated definitely added to its asthetics and overall craftsmanship. The unique fan controller is definitely a staple for Zalman and one I’m sure they will continue to produce in future heatsink products.”Here are some more Cases & Cooling reviews from around the web:
- Noctua NF-S12B FLX Case Fan Review @ Legit Reviews
- GELID Silent Spirit CPU Heatsink Review @ OCModShop
- XILENCE Black Hawk COPPER CPU Cooler @ X-bit Labs
- “Alpine Wind”: Alpenfoehn Brocken CPU Cooler @ X-bit Labs
- Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus CPU Cooler Review @ Hardware Canucks
- GELID Solutions Low Speed Optimized Silent Fans Review @ OCC/A>
- Thermaltake DuOrb Extreme @ Legion Hardware
- Thermaltake V1 AX CPU Cooler @ Bigbruin
- Kingwin XT-1264 @ PureOverclock
- GELID Xtreme & GC2 Thermal Paste @ Bjorn3D
- In Win X-Fighter Mid-Tower Case Review @ High Tech Reviews
- NZXT Beta case @ Neoseeker
- In Win AMMO Review @ Hardware Bistro
- NZXT Panzerbox Classic Series Mid-Tower @ Techgage
- Xigmatek Midgard @ techPowerUp
- Chieftec Aegis CX-05B-B 11-Bay Steel ATX Mid Tower Case Review @ ThinkComputers
- Cooler Master Gladiator 600 @ Gamepyre
- Thermaltake Element G Computer Case @ APH Networks