hello good people welcome back to some quarantine content this video is gonna
be interesting and you may be wondering why well we have two coolers from
Zalman I know right Zalman so this is the CNPS20x
the big boy the duel tower design Kimmy and this is the CNPS17X
I hope I got that right anyways these brand-new coolers sort of popped
into the radar when we started catching a few videos and articles having them
shown either matching or beating some of the most popular air coolers available
on the market today and yes that does include the Noctua NH-D15 and the U12a
so fun popular request we finally have them here so can these new CNPS models
really beat the best of the best even during quarantine everyone here was
anxious to see the results like really really anxious since Zalman has more
than 20 years of cooling experience and they have some pretty big claims about
these coolers too but does that really matter
let's find out after this power up your PC with be quite straight power Levin
platinum series featuring 80 plus platinum efficiency a fully modular
design high-quality Japanese capacitors and a silent wings fan that's optimized
for air flow and silence choose be quiet and your components will thank you
alright so let's start at the top of things with pricing and like most
high-end air coolers these will burn a hole through your pocket the CNPS20X
is $100 u.s. so the same as the Noctua nh-d15 Chromax while the CNPS17X is
$70 which hits somewhere between the Noctua u12s and the U12a or aligned
perfectly with the u14s now for the purpose of this video I'll be addressing
these colors as the CNPS20X and these CNPS17X now for the looks well opinions about
that will be super personal I like to stealth approach not to a be quite in
sight take with their coolers but if you want something with RGB then Zalman has
you covered or if you don't like all that bling you can just turn off the
illumination in your motherboard software both these coolers have very
similar designs with the CNPS17x being much more compact it uses a pretty
traditional design with a very interesting open frame
140 millimeter fan for size comparison it's a little bit bigger than he knocked
to A U12 taking a look at the fin array Zalman created what they call a 4D
corrugated design that leads to a more efficient airflow through the aluminum
fins so the fans don't have to produce as much static pressure
oh and that copper area is just aluminum with a simple electroplating but it does
look pretty cool the 5 heat pipes run down into a base that's polished to a
mirror finish now about the CNPS20X well it's basically a super-sized CNPS17X with
dual cooling towers and a pair of fans instead of five heat pipes it uses six
slightly larger ones that run up into the fins and from a size perspective
it's comparable to the Noctua NH-D15 but it's also a bit taller one of the
things I really want to focus on are the unique fans zelmans using here and of
course the RGB will be the first thing you will see the elimination comes from
an area in the middle which is super bright and it's kind of impossible to
show the individual LEDs on the center but it's also kind of painful to look at
as well the light then spills into a four clear plastic area there's a couple
of issues here first of all the NCPS20X and the CNPS17X use a non-standard mounting
mechanism so it's impossible to switch them out for higher performance fans
also you'll need to mount them onto fan guides yourselves and that involves a
bunch of small screws a ton of flimsy plastic and some metal Clips it's a
total total pain in the butt guys speaking of installation prepared to be
completely overwhelmed here because when you open the box and start taking out
the hardware there are tons of small bits and pieces that are needed to put
these coolers together and none of the bags are labeled so that just adds some
confusion like I said just a single fan needs a lot of pieces but that's just a
tip of the iceberg especially if you're using an AMD or lower end Intel system
or a Zed or H series motherboard let's start with mounting this on an x2 9 on
board since that's the simplest sorta first up you screw in for standoffs and
then mount a cross plate with four bolts now you can either do this vertically or
horizontally depending on the configuration you prefer just watch out
the plate has holes for all intel socket and both positions will actually fit on
a 26-6 system but only one will allow you to properly mount the cooler just
make sure to use the outer holes and everything will go fine the next part is
the same for every installation on AMD and Intel you'll need to carefully align
the screws with these threaded studs which is pretty straightforward on the
CNPS17X since they're easily accessible now for the CNPS20X you'll need longer
Phillips head screwdrivers and the screws are magnetic so threading them
between the towers is a complete or a total pain in the butt to be more
transparent not only that but shame examine for not including a screwdriver
with $100 cooler like pretty much everyone else does after that it's just
a matter of mounting the fans and dealing with the mess of cables coming
out of them remember each fan has two wires one for the RGB illumination and
the other for running the fan itself moving on to AMD mounting and this is
where things get even more complicated and the first thing you'll need is the
world's most complicated backplane basically this one component is made to
fit in three aim for and all non HTT Intel motherboards to actually make it
compatible with any platform you'll need to slip in these small plastic side caps
and vertical nuts the next step is to apply what Zalman calls they're loading
block which is a sticky pad that makes sure the backplate doesn't kind of fall
off and it sort of gets a flush installed to the motherboard if you
thought the process was overly complicated
check this out guys you will need to install or tiny washers screw down the
standoffs position the cross brace and secure that in place guys at this point
I was wishing for a Noctua or be quiet process finally you just have to
screw down the heatsink and that's it so with all of that being done
what about clearances well both coolers have fan clips and that can easily be
used for avoiding PWM heat sinks and taller memory but there is a bit of a
problem here as you can see even with the shortest memory I have here it
causes the fan to be pushed far upwards that'll certainly cause a problem for
some cases and it's something to keep in mind and now the moment that you've all
been waiting for the results now just a friendly
minder for folks who are wondering about our testing methodologies I'll leave a
link in the description down below that goes through every single detail step by
step you're welcome kicking things off and oh my both coolers actually post
some of the best numbers we've seen it's actually amazing to see the SMT necks
keep up with a bunch of dual fan designs while the s20 axe takes a crown and even
overcomes the d15 one thing I wanted to keep your eyes on is how the CNPS17x
stacks up with the U14s since both of those are single fan 140 millimeter
designs that cost about $70 at default fan profile they're pretty quiet too but
it's obvious that the CNPS17X needed to ramp up at speeds a bit higher to
compensate for its smaller size then CNPS20x on the other hand is really really
impressive guys pushing fan speeds to a thousand rpms shows some interesting
results with the CNPS20x improving over the stock test while the CNPS17X
actually sees higher temperatures the reason for that is pretty simple
that the default fan speed profile the smaller cooler ended up running over a
thousand rpms while the CNPS20x ran below that speed the noise readings
proved the situation even though the CNPS20X takes the crown in temperatures it
does start getting quite a bit louder but seriously to the naked ear it's
literally just as loud as the D15 and that's pretty impressive the CNPS17X on
the other hand not too great since it got beaten by the U14s in both
temperature and noise in this test bumping up to full speed and the
improvements aren't really all that worth a while personally I think this is
because both coolers were already operating near their peak efficiency at
stock CPU speeds so pushing more air through them wasn't going to do that
much so this is the first sign of concern as Zalman fans start heading
above 1,200 rpms the amount of noise being produced increases exponentially
and that's likely due to their unique design the Noctua coolers are clearly
superior here now before I get into the overclocking results I do want to
quickly sum up the stock CPU results because zelmans performance on our 1080
HD can be used as a great representation on how the CNPS17X and the CNPS20X would
stack up on lower wattage processors for example I'm sure that the results will
be very similar to these on a Ryzenn 9 3950X or a 9900K but
overclocking me 10 and a exe separates the men from the boys and I should also
mention that this pushes thermals above what these smaller CNPS17X is weighted
for well the first shock is the SMT next held on for all of its life and actually
cooled the CPU to a point where it didn't throttle but what I want my
processor regularly chugging along 101 degrees probably not on the other hand
the NCPS20x ended up beating the dark rock pro but the D15 started to pull
away with this one both coolers also started to get pretty loud with the
smaller one running at a hundred percent fan speed the whole time it's important
to note that the you 14s got similar temperatures but it's much quieter than
the CNPS17X the CNPS20X the bigger boy hits a point where it became the loudest
cooler in this test running the fans that at constant RPMs has the CNPS20X
delivering really respectable results but they're still not good enough to
pull ahead of knock to his beast and that CNPS17X well it's overwhelmed at
this point but that was expected the last test just repeats what we've
already seen and with that I think it's time to wrap this up so is the CNPS20X
the big boy ain't not too a killer well that actually depends on how you
look at things you see for lower thermal loads it actually ends up beating the D15
while operating at some more decibel levels but as you start to increase the
heat load the D15 sort of stays ahead while remaining quieter if you want
bragging rights for having the best RGB air cooler on the block this is it just
be mindful that Salman's competition is miles ahead when it comes to ease of
installation now what about these smaller CNPS17X I can't believe I
actually remember this off the top my head but anyways it offers overall great
performance and good acoustics as you know we haven't come across an air
cooler than offers RGB lining now if you don't really care about all the RGB
goodness and all that stuff and if you don't mind the color scheme or the way
how it looks you're actually better off with the Noctua u 14s I mean sure it's
that color that you'll have to get used to but for $70 it's an overall great
option but there's also these Scythe Fuma 2
that's around $60 which offers heaps of value provided that you can actually
find one on sale so on that note I think it's time to wrap this up let me know if
you guys are interested or if you have any other air coolers that you'd like us
to check out we'll definitely add them to our testing
I'm Eva with Hardware Canucks thank you so much for watching stay safe and it's
been responsibly my friends