In order to demonstrate the installation process for 11X Extreme we are installing the cooler on the Intel LGA2011 socket.

The first step for the installation process with 11X Extreme is to remove the plate which sits above the baseplate. Once this is removed the mounting brackets slot in between the top of the baseplate and this additional plate. Care needs to be taken when fitting the mounting brackets, they must point outwards and the ends are dipping down towards the baseplate. As soon as the mounting brackets are fixed its then time to apply thermal paste to the CPU and place the cooler over the socket. For LGA2011 this cooler has no stand-offs unlike many other coolers, the mounting screws simply pass through the bracket and into the mounting holes on the motherboard socket plate. In order to secure each of the four screws the provided wrench must be used. This is the part of the installation which we encountered some difficulties. Due to the size of the wrench and arrangement of the heatsink, tightening the screws up is very fiddly, furthermore the wrench is slightly too loose for the head on each of the screws; combine this with poor quality screws and the heads on the screws soon become defaced and difficult to tighten/loosen.

We actually spent many hours trying to get the cooler attached to the motherboard and we were quite concerned that rounding the heads off the screws would present big problems trying to get 11X Extreme off our motherboard. Unfortunately two of the screws suffered so much damage the wrench simply turned/slipped inside the hole and so our trusty dremel was required to make an incision, thus allowing us to use a flat-head screw driver to remove 11X Extreme.

The installation aspect of any CPU cooler is one that should be easy and leave you with complete confidence in the product, sadly for Zalman and for the 11X Extreme things couldn’t be further from this statement.