Intro

While on vacation this summer, Zalman notified me that they had shipped me 2 heatsinks, the 3000CU and the 5000Plus. In this review, I will take a look at the Flower. In the box, was included: A heatsink, a fan mounting bracket, an 80mm fan, 2 bag's of screws, a tube of thermal paste, and a type of noiseless connector. I just want to notify everyone that Zalman hasn't designed their heatsinks to be THE best performers, but they do try to squeeze every bit of performance out of a very quiet solution. The first very noticeable, and a plus in my book, is that the 3000 uses an 80mm fan mounted along the expansion slots. It mounts right on top of the first 3 cards that are in the case. In my case, the processor is a bit higher than where the fan mounts, so I had to tilt the metal a little bit for it to fit completely over the heatsink.

Mounting is a story of its own, all motherboards are different. I used both a Biostar Micro-ATX Board, and an Abit KT7A. The Pictures shown are the 3000 mounted on the Biostar. As you can see, it is a tight fit around the socket. The clip isnt tight, but not easily accessible. Since the fins extrude outward diagonally, where you put your finger / screwdriver is in the way because of the fins. In my Enlight server case, there is a piece of metal in between the PSU and the processor socket, so you can remove the PSU and have the socket lugs facing you. The manual included with the 3000 didnt help too much, it gave instructions on mounting to a slotket. Now, i dont know how well these things perform on a slotket, but it cant be any better than what I got. Well, I gave it a whirl, stuck a screwdriver on the top of the clip, and pushed as hard as I could, as expected, the clip slid down the zif lug into place.

While this is supposed to be a fairly quiet HSF, which it is, anybody can see by the design of this bad boy that Zalman put their all into making this noise / performance ratio the best for the end user. The 80mm fan maxes at 38CFM, and in silent mode it is 28.0 CFM. Fairly decent airflow I think. In the tests, I also popped on a 42CFM Sunon fan to show a difference using a different fan. Now lets get down to the cold hard evidence, the flower sure is good lookin' but lets see how it performs.