Zalman CNPS14X Ultra Quiet CPU Cooler

Looking onto the CNPS14X from the intake side of the cooler you can see the six 6mm heat pipes get evenly spaced across the 45 fins. Also there is not a fan shipped for the front of the cooler, it's in the middle.

From the side you can definitely see the dual tower design. The U-shaped pipes have a thin stack of fins slid on them and the 135mm fan included with the cooler is pre-installed between them. That's right, not that it is a huge deal, but there is not a 140mm fan in this cooler, but I guess CNPS13.5X looks a bit funny.

The back of the cooler looks exactly as the front does, just this time we see the 4-pin PWM fan connection and wiring laying on this side.

Looking at it from the top, you first notice the black center cap that supports the towers spacing while also leaving room for the Zalman logo and CNPS14X seen on it. The fins have a very unique shape to them and all fins in the tower have the same designs embossed in them.

This shot was to show two things. One that the fins do in fact all have the designs embossed on them and the second was to show that there isn't solder on these fins, they are simply press fit over the pipes.

I was looking at how to remove the fan to show it to you and ran into the top plate that reminds me very much of the old 9500 I used to run. Back to the point, you don't have to remove these screws; there is a much simpler way to remove the fan.

Be removing the screws for mounting the brackets to the base, the entire top plate and fan assembly come right out. Do note that the top black cap must also be removed. Either way it shows the model number of this Zalman fan and it is clearly a 135mm by 25mm fan.

Since the top plate was out of the way, I thought I may as well give you a look at the sintered heat pipes as they are soldered to the copper base plate.

As for that copper base, well it is milled level, but the surface has fine curved milling lines from manufacturing. Also notice that the copper has gotten quite oxidized just in the time it took to arrive to me in the last month since its release.