This heatsink was announced in the month of December, but it has not been until now that it has become available and the first performance tests show performance that equals or exceeds the best heatsinks on the market current. In addition, it is compatible with all Intel and AMD processors except Threadripper, since you already know that the TR4 socket has special dimensions.
Zalman CNPS20X Features
| Zalman CNPS20X | |
|---|---|
| Dimensions | 140 x 170 x 165 mm (without fan) |
| Weight | 1,300 grams |
| Maximum TDP | 300 watts |
| Type | Double tower |
| Heatpipes | Six 8mm |
| Fan | 140mm TDB |
| Speed | 800 – 1500 RPM |
| Noise | 29 dBA |
| Air flow | 61 CFM |
This is a heatsink that as you can see boasts of dissipating up to 300 watts of heat, and it does so based on a good handful of new patented technologies (which we explain below) and based on brute force in true Noctua style: it is a heatsink very large and heavy, with a large dissipation area allowing the "hottest" processors to be easily managed.
A technology-packed heatsink
As we said, this is a heatsink that achieves incredible performance based on new technologies, such as the so-called «Interactive Heatpipe Transfer Design", Which has to do with the arrangement of your heatpipes. Instead of being in direct contact with the processor's IHS, in the Zalman CNPS20X the heatpipes are located in a network that according to the manufacturer multiplies by 20 the heat transfer.
On the other hand, they incorporate other technology that they have called 4D Stereoscopic Corrugated Cooling Fin, and which has to do with the shape of the aluminum fins, which, in theory, creates up to 350 individual air tunnels that maximize the air flow that the fan pushes through them, thus maximizing the surface of these in which heat dissipates, improving efficiency.
Finally, the fan is also special and has the technology Dual Blade Impeller, which consists in that its blades are double so that the air is pushed in a straighter way, generating great static pressure and again promoting better heat dissipation in the aluminum fins.
Performance that fears the greatest
We told you that the news is not the announcement of this heatsink, it is already on sale and of course the first performance tests have already started, tests that have shown that it is not only automatically positioned as one of the best processor heatsinks of the market, but it calls into question the hegemony of the brands that until now held the top positions in terms of performance.
In the graph above you can see the performance of this heatsink against others such as the DeepCool Castle 240EX or the Noctua NH-D15, dissipating the heat generated by an AMD Ryzen 9 3900X by doing the 7Zip stress test (which is worth as an example as any other, because it is about comparing its performance with other heatsinks).
In this test, with the 4.1 GHz processor and the fan at only 1,000 RPM, the Zalman CNPS20X is crowned the best of all; even by overclocking the processor and raising its frequency to 4.25 GHz, again this Zalman heatsink shows up better than all the others, improving by 2.9 degrees the temperature of the huge Noctua NH-D15. It is not saying little.
