Zalman files for bankruptcy... oh, crap!

[fleshconsumed]

Out of curiosity, do you have a name for that old case, or any links to products reviews for it with pictures? I'd like to have a look at that.

As far as their HSFs went, the CNPS9700 caused a bit of a stir, but it got beaten out by stuff like the Tuniq Tower 120 and what have you. It never really was best-of-breed and sold more on its looks and brand than anything else. I can't think of anything relevant they've released since then.

You need to go a little further back in time. Zalman's first truly innovative HSF was CNPS7000. Zalman previous CNPS 6000-CU heatsink got beaten badly by the thermalright, but the 7000 series was top notch. The CNPS7000 was the first flower heatsink that zalman ever made and it was the one that actually stirred things up a lot. It was one of the few heatsinks that managed to cool even the hottest CPUs with minimum of noise and in an age when motherboards could not control fan speeds it came with adjustable fan speed controller allowing you to slow the fan down to your liking.

I started my quiet pc journey around that time in 2003. Prior to that our primary choice of heatsinks was Golden Orb, contrary to what the AT review says, that heatsink was insanely loud, as in you cannot believe just how loud it is. For the first rig that I bought with my own money I purchased CNPS7000CU, some 80mm Panaflo fans, and Enermax Noisetaker PSU. When I first turned that thing on I was blown away because I could hardly hear my computer at all.

The CNPS7000CU was one of the first HSF that was extremely quiet without sacrificing performance. That's the heatsink that started it all. I don't think people realize just how much they owe to Zalman. Zalman did not invent quiet computers, but they almost single handedly pushed quiet computing into masses, they made people realize that you do not need delta fans to cool your PCs, that with the proper components you can cool your PCs and do it quietly. The CNPS7000 was just one of their many quiet products, they had the Reserator, they had fanless TNN300 and its bigger brother TNN500 cases, they had FanMate single fan controller, they had ZM-MFC1 multi fan controller, they had quiet GPU heatsinks (VF900-CU), they even dabbed into passive GPU cooling with ZM-80 and VNF100, they were making Quiet PSUs all the way back in 2002, they even dabbed into decoupling HDDs from the PC case.

Zalman was the company that made quiet computers cool as opposed to delta screechers. Prior to Zalman the common perception was that loud computers are fast computers. Zalman was one of the companies that bucked the trend and said no, fast does not mean loud. We owe them a big thanks for pushing quiet computing into masses.

That said, Zalman did stagnate a lot in the last 5-7 years. They made a huge initial splash, but eventually they've been bested by their competitors. Their CNPS9000 series underperformed compared to Thermalright or Scythe heatsinks and shortly after that they decided to branch out into peripherals leaving their quiet computing core business to stagnate. Such a pity. Still, the Zalman name brings a lot of good memories back to life, I'll always remember them fondly.

 

[exar333]

You need to go a little further back in time. Zalman's first truly innovative HSF was CNPS7000. Zalman previous CNPS 6000-CU heatsink got beaten badly by the thermalright, but the 7000 series was top notch. The CNPS7000 was the first flower heatsink that zalman ever made and it was the one that actually stirred things up a lot. It was one of the few heatsinks that managed to cool even the hottest CPUs with minimum of noise and in an age when motherboards could not control fan speeds it came with adjustable fan speed controller allowing you to slow the fan down to your liking.

I started my quiet pc journey around that time in 2003. Prior to that our primary choice of heatsinks was Golden Orb, contrary to what the AT review says, that heatsink was insanely loud, as in you cannot believe just how loud it is. For the first rig that I bought with my own money I purchased CNPS7000CU, some 80mm Panaflo fans, and Enermax Noisetaker PSU. When I first turned that thing on I was blown away because I could hardly hear my computer at all.

The CNPS7000CU was one of the first HSF that was extremely quiet without sacrificing performance. That's the heatsink that started it all. I don't think people realize just how much they owe to Zalman. Zalman did not invent quiet computers, but they almost single handedly pushed quiet computing into masses, they made people realize that you do not need delta fans to cool your PCs, that with the proper components you can cool your PCs and do it quietly. The CNPS7000 was just one of their many quiet products, they had the Reserator, they had fanless TNN300 and its bigger brother TNN500 cases, they had FanMate single fan controller, they had ZM-MFC1 multi fan controller, they had quiet GPU heatsinks (VF900-CU), they even dabbed into passive GPU cooling with ZM-80 and VNF100, they were making Quiet PSUs all the way back in 2002, they even dabbed into decoupling HDDs from the PC case.

Zalman was the company that made quiet computers cool as opposed to delta screechers. Prior to Zalman the common perception was that loud computers are fast computers. Zalman was one of the companies that bucked the trend and said no, fast does not mean loud. We owe them a big thanks for pushing quiet computing into masses.

That said, Zalman did stagnate a lot in the last 5-7 years. They made a huge initial splash, but eventually they've been bested by their competitors. Their CNPS9000 series underperformed compared to Thermalright or Scythe heatsinks and shortly after that they decided to branch out into peripherals leaving their quiet computing core business to stagnate. Such a pity. Still, the Zalman name brings a lot of good memories back to life, I'll always remember them fondly.

Great write-up.

I remember them fondly in my A-XP and A64 builds (before dual-core). They were very unique in that they were extremely quiet, had smart-fans, but cooled about 90% as good as the 'big' coolers back then like the Tuniq towers that often were too big for a lot of cases. Also, they were pretty affordable too.

When I did builds for others, I often used the flower-style coolers they had and people commented on how quiet it was, even at full load. I even remember replacing some GPU heatsinks with their GPU flower coolers too. They rocked.

Unfortunately they stopped innovating and leading the cooling industry and others like CM and Noctua really became the leaders.

Lots of memories...

 

[Bradtech519]

Not good! I've always found zalman to be adequate/very good cooling in their CPU & GPU lineups.

 

[DrMrLordX]

Yeah I knew about some of their older sinks. I only mentioned the CNPS9700 since it was their last "good" heatpipe cooler. The CNPS10x and CNPS14x were supposed to be good, but they were never nh-d14/Silver Arrow good. Basically once the 9700 got knocked off by the Tuniq Tower variants, the Megahalems, various Ultra 120 variants, and suchlike, they were done.