A great cooler does not have to be a noisy one. Zalman’s latest AM2 cooler isn’t noisy, but is it great?

AMD processors have a pretty good reputation as being relatively cool. This doesn’t negate the need for large air coolers, but it does allow for quieter setups if that’s what the user chooses. In my personal HTPC, Zalman CNPS9500 LED doesn’t even turn it’s fan on until the Athlon 64 3500+ hits 38°C, which it does occasionally, but not all the time.

The Zalman CNPS9500 AM2 (provided by our buds at Crazy PC) we’ll be looking at today doesn’t change the formula all that much from their previous CNPS9500. In fact, it’s the same cooler except it’s AMD only, but with a new clip designed specifically for the AM2. NVIDIA was showing these off at a press event a few months back, and while we didn’t get much in the way of numbers back then, today we will.