14 DAY TRIAL // As consumers well know, every central processing unit comes packaged with its own cooling mechanism. Usually though, this cooler is nothing but a regular heatsink with a small spinner on top. For mainstream users, this is more than enough, but enthusiasts and hard-core gamers often find that they want more than just the stock performance of the processor. This leads to overclocking and, thus, to higher temperatures.
To make sure that these consumers have the means required to optimize their systems in whatever way they wish, without ensuring the sudden premature death of their PCs of course, hardware makers have created many series of specialized cooling solutions. Zalman is one such developer and actually owns some very unusual designs. The OMEGA is one of them, and the CNPS9900A MAX cooler demonstrated at Computex is all set and ready to have it assist in some serious tweaking.
The product measures 94 (L) x 131 (W) x 152 (H) mm and weighs 730 grams. It has a very unusual shape, with two circular fin arrays, each on one side and the other of a large 135mm fan that boasts an FDB ball bearing. It should be noted that previous Omega coolers, the CNPS9900A LED and CNPS9900 NT. had a 120mm spinner instead of this 135mm model. The fan used here has a rotary speed of 800 to 2200 RPM (rotations per minute) and a sound output of 18dBA to 43dBA. Finally, the base plate, the heatpipes and the fins themselves come with a black nickel plating.
The CNPS9900 MAX has not been given a price yet, but it will be bundled with the ZM-STG2 thermal paste. As for compatibility, Intel LGA 775 and LGA 1156 CPUs are supported, as are socket 754, 939, AM, AM2+ and AM3 chips from Advanced Micro Devices.