Zalman CNPS10X Flex CPU Cooler Review

AMD System Installation

The AMD installation does have an extra step to it, but overall it is very similar to the Intel installation. To begin, you first have to remove the standard AMD backplate and retention ring as the Zalman cooler uses it’s own. The up side to this extra moments work is that the Flex can be installed in the proper East/West orientation and as we have said in the past, the extra hassle is well worth the effort if the pay off is a properly orientated cooler.


With this accomplished you simply have to grab the Zalman backplate install the bolts onto it. With this done, you then have to prep the Flex itself by installing the AMD brackets but once again with the exception of them being slightly different, the process is the exact same one as the Intel installation. Once the Flex and its backplate are set up for AMD rigs, the rest of the installation is literally the same as the Intel one. That’s to say it is downright easy to install this heatsink.


When it comes to potential issues on the AMD motherboards, things are not as rosy as they were with the Intel system mostly due to the proximity of the AM2+ socket to the memory slots. The issues we encountered are certainly not the worst we have ever come across but after such an easy time of things on our Intel 1366 system, maybe our level of expectation was set a smidge to high. In a nut shell, you probably won’t run into any issues with regards to your motherboard heatsinks unless they are very high.

What was disappointing was the fact that we had to move our ram from their “proper” locations and relocate them to the other two memory slots. Adding insult to injury and assuming you are only running two sticks of ram; our Noctua fan still touched the tops of our Mushkin memory even after we pushed it upwards! Admittedly our memory heatsinks aren’t of a standard height but they’re still a long ways away from packing the tallest heatspreaders out there. Honestly though, this is more an issue with AMD’s motherboard layout rather than a problem with Zalman’s cooler.