A Closer Look
At first glance the Zalman CNPS 10X Performa is a fairly typical 120mm tower cooler, aluminum fins crimped onto five U-shaped 6mm heatpipes. It comes with a 120mm fan with the capability of adding an additional fan.
At 152mm tall, the 10X Performa has a fairly low profile for a 120mm cooler, much lower than the 10X Extreme’s 160mm height.
A closer look shows the primary difference from other coolers, around the center part of the radiator, the fins are wave-shaped. Besides aesthetics, this also adds to the fin surface area, and creates some wind turbulence too.
The top of the cooler is stamped with the Zalman 10X logo to add a little to the looks of the cooler.
The heatpipes are configured in a staggered fashion and buffed to a high shine.
The upper part of the base is aluminum, holding the pipes tightly against the actual base surface which is solid copper. The base is very shiny, but not lapped.
The big deal of the CNPS 10X Performa is the adapter included for speed control, the Zalman RC24P. I’ve seen other adapters that included a resistor, which is the best way to limit voltage, but they have always included a small resistor that gets very hot….which is what resistors do. The large 1 watt resistor on the RC24P is plenty large enough to dissipate lots of heat and shouldn’t get hot at all. This is such a simple answer to the problem I don’t know why no one has done it before.
The 10X Performa includes hardware for use with Intel LGA 1366, LGA 1156, and LGA 775, and also all AMD sockets built in the past several years. It also includes hardware to install a second 120mm fan.
