A new gamma-camera architecture named HiSens is presented and evaluated. It consists of a parallel hole collimator, a pixelated CdZnTe (CZT) detector associated with specific electronics for 3D localization and dedicated reconstruction algorithms. To gain in efficiency, a high aperture collimator is used. The spatial resolution is preserved thanks to accurate 3D localization of the interactions inside the detector based on a fine sampling of the CZT detector and on the depth of interaction information. The performance of this architecture is characterized using Monte Carlo simulations in both planar and tomographic modes. Detective quantum efficiency (DQE) computations are then used to optimize the collimator aperture. In planar mode, the simulations show that the fine CZT detector pixelization increases the system sensitivity by 2 compared to a standard Anger camera without loss in spatial resolution. These results are then validated against experimental data. In SPECT, Monte Carlo simulations confirm the merits of the HiSens architecture observed in planar imaging.