Zalman shows elegance in waterblocks

THERE WERE TWO things not on display yet at the Zalman booth that caught my eye, a new waterblock and radiator setup, and the new fan coating. Of the two, I can't say which is prettier, but they both are all you would expect from Zalman, elegant and beautiful.

The first one is the new waterblock and radiator. You may be familiar with the older Reserator1 series of radiators, tall cylindrical one. They are supplanted by the, wait for it, Reserator 2, a much more conventional automotive radiator shaped device.

OK, that one is not a stunner in the looks department, but what it plugs into definitely is, the new water blocks are immensely beautiful. Pictures don't do them justice, they are enough to make you stop while walking through the din and dancing women of Computex. Basically, the heatsink is gold anodized, and there is a gold ring visible around the bottom of the block. It is really sharp, and pictures simply don't convey those details. If you can catch a look at one in action, I would highly recommend that you take a long look. You can see an older blue anodized NB cooler next to the newer gold CPU coolers.

The other two are a coating on an old theme, the familiar Zalman vertical wheel cooler. This one, called the Ultra Quiet CPU Cooler CNPS9500 AM2 works with all AM2, 754, 939 and 940 pin AMD CPUs. The coating is a pearlescent shiny black, and once again pictures don't do it justice.

There is also a GPU version called the Fatality FC-ZV9, it is the normal CPU cooler, anodized pearl black, and topped off with a red LED lit 80mm fan. It was barely out of the packing crate when I ran into it, so I can't tell you what it looked like running, but since it is Zalman, I would give it the benefit of the doubt.

The stuff so far at the Zalman booth, at least the parts they had uncrated when I got there were updates of some already good products. There was not much completely new, but the staff said that would be there when the show opened. We'll have to wait a day to see what tricks they still have. µ