Article by: Joe Anderson (Hardware Reviewer)
Edited By: Nathan Glentworth (Owner / Head Editor)
Product was submitted by: Zalman
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PRODUCT COMPOSITION
A heavy white carton keeps the contents secure and the glossy finish and graphics give the potential customer most of the needed information to make an informed purchase. Hopefully, review sites like Tweaknews can provide the rest.
Inside, the cooler is packaged in a plastic clamshell box with the mounting solutions and manual. A new mount design promises easier installation, particularly for AMD users, as we'll see in a bit. As always, the manual is very complete and augmented by video tutorials on Zalman's website.
PRODUCT PICTORIAL AND WALKTHROUGH
At just a shade over 5.25-inches tall, the 5X is relatively compact for a tower cooler and the three-6mm copper heatpipes are arranged in the aluminum fin array in an interesting pattern. With the fins wrapping around two sides of the 92mm fan and the black plastic endcaps, the 5X looked vaguely familiar. After rummaging around in the lab for a while…
…I found a Zalman CNPS8000 (circa 2006.) While there is definitely a resemblance, the 5X sports more heatpipe/fin interface and a different orientation. After looking back at the cooling performance, I hope that the 5X improves on the 8000 in this respect as well. We'll see.
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