The heatpipes sit in special grooves cut out in the copper base plate and are soldered to the base:
The copper base in its thinnest spot beneath the heatpipes is a little less than 3mm.
The base finish quality is superb. It is just a tiny bit away from mirror-shine:
The copper plate is ideally even: the thermal compound imprint on the glass surface as well as on the processor heat-spreader was impeccable.
ZEROtherm ZEN ZF120 is equipped with a beautiful completely transparent fan with seven blades. The fan measures 120 x 120 x 25mm:
The fan allows PWM rotation speed adjustment. The supported RPM rate is from ~1100 to ~1800RPM with 59.5CFM airflow and 19.5~31.4dBA of noise. The manufacturer doesn’t reveal the type of bearing they used for the fan and its MTBF. However, since there were no stickers of any kind on the fan rotor, we couldn’t find out this information on our own.
Before installing the fan onto the heatsink, you have to stick two shock-absorbing strips to it (the strips have one sticky side):
They serve the same purpose as the silicon strips of the XIGMATEK cooler: reducing vibrations and improving the acoustic performance.
The fan itself is fastened with two wire clips that catch on to the holes in the cooler heatsink at the top and bottom of it:
The clips hold the fan very firmly in place, unlike the clips of the Thermalright Ultra-120 eXtreme cooler.
Even with the fan, ZEROtherm ZEN ZF120 doesn’t look bulky and weighs only 690g, which is not that much according to today’s standards:
