Zalman's jet engine-inspired CPU cooler hits the shelves — striking design lands in Korea for less than $60

Korean cases and cooling specialist Zalman Technologies has released the jet-engine inspired Zet5 CPU cooler to retail. According to Korea’s Quasar Zone, this appealingly curvy cooler has been released on its home turf with a special offer. The black model with be marketed at 77,00KRW ($55.60) and the white model for 79.000 KRW ($57.00), with prices expected to rise after August 25. First impressions are that enthusiasts will be paying a premium for the unique design. We expect that those prices include 10% VAT for locals.

We saw the Zalman Zet5 CPU cooler at Computex in May and noted that the new lineup (which included a smaller Zet4 and Zet3) was a complete revamp of the firm’s dated CNPS9000 series of circular tower coolers.

The flagship Zalman Zet5 stood above its brethren with five nickel-plated heatpipes and its range-topping rating, which suggested it would be capable of handling CPUs with up to 200W TDP. As a reminder, the Zet4 is rated to 180W, and the Zet3 for 150W. They all share the same design language, but Zalman prunes back fans/heatpipes for cheaper, lower TDP models.

(Image credit: Future)

(Image credit: Future)

(Image credit: Future)

(Image credit: Future)

(Image credit: Future)

Shifting focus back to the Zalman Zet5, in particular, and Quasar Zone shares some tasty packaging and unboxing images to give a good idea of the retail experience. It had samples of both the black and white Zet5. In the box, you appear to get a manual, mounting hardware (naturally), a small tube of ZM-STC10 thermal paste, and a promotional pass of some sort.

We also enjoyed seeing the Zalman Zet5 posed on Jet Wing style presentation stands by Quasar Zone. We saw similar at Computex. Remember that once it is in your case, it won’t look quite as aerodynamic, though. Looking at it top down, fitted to a CPU, it isn’t quite so eye-catching.

In summary, Quasar Zone’s unboxing and hands-on time seems to have been dominated by the resident photographer. It hasn’t yet delved into the all-important aspects of performance that a $50+ CPU cooler has to meet up to, to be deemed worthy. There’s some top competition for simply air cooling a CPU in 2025, and some models can do a great job for a fraction of this price. Having said that, we hope Zalman Zet-series samples start to arrive in the West shortly.

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