| Zalman VF3000A VGA Cooler |
| Reviews - Featured Reviews: Cooling | |||||||||||||
| Written by Bruce Normann | |||||||||||||
| Friday, 10 September 2010 | |||||||||||||
Zalman VF3000A Video Card Cooler ReviewZalman is one of the oldest names in PC cooling products, and they've had some star performers over the years. They have always had a line of graphics card cooling products that compliment their CPU coolers. The GPU cooler market is more stable, and much less diverse that the CPU marketplace, for a number of reasons. Zalman has been a strong and steady presence as the power density of graphics processors has been steadily rising. There is a lot of competition on the OEM front for GPU cooler design, as manufacturers try to differentiate their products in the video card marketplace. It's one of the key design elements that we look for at Benchmark Reviews when we review a graphics card. Into this power struggle, Zalman has just launched a whole new product line of aftermarket coolers that will work with a wide variety of VGA products. Today, we're going to look at the VF3000A model, which is specifically designed to mate with the reference design for the ATI Radeon HD 58xx series of graphics cards.
Manufacturer: Zalman Tech Co. Ltd Full Disclosure: The product sample used in this article has been provided by Zalman Tech Co. Ltd. ZALMAN VGA Cooler FeaturesMaterial in this section is based on data supplied by Zalman Tech Co. Ltd.
VF3000A Specifications
VGA Cooler Compatability
Enough about the specs, I'm sure what you really want to do is take a closer look at this cooler. Then you'll want to look at our test results, for sure. Keep clicking next, and you'll find what you need. Closer Look: ZALMAN VF3000ALet's get to the heart of the matter, right now. THIS is the view that you want to see, admit it! I know the top view is attractive and all, but this one tells you what you need to know. Take a look at those five 6mm heatpipes running through the sizeable copper block with the mirror finish. Then look at how much surface area there is for the heatpipes to transfer heat to the aluminum fins. Can you think of a better way of extracting a couple hundred watts of heat from 334 square millimeters of silicon? Yeah, I know - liquid cooling. I've been tempted once or twice, but I always balk at the expense, complexity, and risk. Air cooling is still at the sweet spot of cost v. performance, and the nice thing is, it's a big fat sweet spot with room for a variety of products.
The VF3000A is aimed at the high end of the graphics card spectrum, the HD 58xx series from ATI. While it is currently not the biggest, baddest, hottest GPU around, it was for almost a year until the Fermi introduction in mid 2010. Like most products aimed at PC enthusiasts, these Radeon GPUs get overclocked a lot, and some people found out the hard way where the thermal limits were. The HD 5870 reference cards in particular had a nasty pattern of overheating the VRM section, and there was no real good way of monitoring the temps of those devices, so it happened without warning in many cases. The Zalman VF3000A is specifically targeted to work with reference design cards and to alleviate the VRM heat problem. This has some potential drawbacks for the second generation cards as we'll see later, but I'm sure this product is going to make a lot of reference card owners happy.
The VF3000A is a tall product that sits a good distance above the ATI board. The cooler's heatpipes and fins are responsible for removing heat from the GPU, that's their only task. There are separate heatsinks for the memory and MOSFETs on the board, and they sit in the airflow from the two 92mm fans at either end of the shroud. In order to allow for adequate component clearance, and perhaps some contingency for other products, the fins don't extend down all the way to the board surface. While this is good for cooling all the peripheral board devices, the downside is that the VF3000 is larger than a true dual-slot cooler. It takes up about two and one half slots, once installed on the graphics card. I'll get into detailed measurements in the Installation section a little later, but for now, just think about whether this is going to affect you. It will not be an issue at all for some, and it will be a deal breaker for others.
The fan shroud is a little "over stylized" in my opinion, I could do without the REO Speedwagon wings and all the extra slots and relief cuts in the aluminum. But hey, I'm a Bauhaus guy, and my opinions on industrial design aren't always welcome. Still, as regular readers know, I'm a fan of everything that is anodized blue, red and grey, so it gets extra points for the anodized finish. The shroud also does a good job holding everything together in a rigid unit and provides for mounting of the two fans on a very open plastic subframe.
The fan wiring is consolidated into one lead with a 3-wire electrical connection, and it exits at the rear of the card, furthest away from the I/O plate. It has a standard 3-pin fan connector and will support fan speed monitoring with its tachometer output on the white wire. Most video cards use a smaller connector of slightly different design for their internal fan headers, so there is little chance that you will be able to plug the VF3000 cooler into the graphics board, and retain the use of the on-board fan controller. Some enterprising soul could probably re-terminate the connector and get it to work, but I'll leave that exercise to someone better suited to it than I. There is 280mm (11") of cable provided, which was plenty to reach at least one of the fan headers on my motherboard. The wiring is a little more complicated when the FAN MATE 2 fan controller is used, but it generally improves the cable reach, rather than hindering it.
The fans feature clear blades which are enhanced by blue LED lighting when the VF3000A is operating. The intensity of the LEDs increases and decreases with the voltage supplied to the fan connector, there is no separate wiring for them. The fan blades have ridges molded into them for some aerodynamic purpose. I'm not up enough on my fluid dynamics to know exactly what they do, but since they're on the back side of the blade, I'm guessing they reduce noise. They break up the airflow in a similar way as the notches you see on the edge of some fan blades; other suppliers use dimples for the same reason. Zalman promotes a reduction in "Switching Noise" for these fans, which is usually most evident when running non-PWM at reduced voltages. Since these are standard DC fans and their speed can only be controlled by varying the DC voltage, they are susceptible to this phenomenon. In my testing I never heard any noise that sounded like it was related to this issue; with other fans it sometimes sounds like clicking, at other times like low growling. I ran the fans at all different speeds, but mostly at the lowest and highest, using the supplied controller. Zalman specifies the speed range as 1300-2500 RPM, but I measured 1500-2700 RPM using the monitor function built into the motherboard. We've loooked at a few details on the Zalman VF3000A already, but click on over to the next section and we'll break it down even further. There are some details you don't want to miss! ZALMAN VF3000A Detailed FeaturesI'm an engineer, and I spent a good portion of my career building things, so I tend to look very close at the little details of a product. It's where I see the personality of a company coming out, because you can always tell which things they pay a lot of attention to, and also the things that get a pass. One of the things that impressed me when I reviewed my first Zalman VGA cooler was the quality of the machined screw threads. It sounds like such a simple thing, but I've been a victim of the infamous "wood screw video card assembly technique", and when a product screws together with precision and ease it's very noticeable to me. I wasn't disappointed when I assembled the VF3000A; it had exactly the same quality I experienced in the past.
This is the core of any processor cooling product: the mounting base, where the copper meets the core. Theories abound about how it should be designed and manufactured. Direct touch or fully encased, flat or convex, textured or mirror finish, thin or thick, nickel plated or bare, aluminum or copper. All these options are currently represented by different products in the marketplace. The amazing thing is that there are some very successful products in every category. In this case, Zalman continues with their design thread of using a large, split copper block that's a couple millimeters thicker than the heatpipes which are encased between the two halves. With the VF3000 series, they've expanded the size of the block to accommodate the larger GPU cores that are most in need of top-notch cooling.
The VF3000A has a very definite mirror finish. This Soviet-era pin is reflected perfectly in the copper base. I focused my lens on the reflection, not the pin, and the focus is sharpest towards the bottom of the reflection where every small detail is visible. Place this surface on an ATI Radeon HD 5xxx series processor, where the GPU die packaging has a surface like glass, and very little TIM is needed, which further improves heat transfer. In the background you can see one of the threaded mounting posts in detail, along with a rubber O-ring that takes up a little bit of slack in the mounting process and also acts as an insulator.
The whole next section will discuss installation, but I need to show some of the other details now. Here are the eight memory heatsinks that are included with the Zalman VF3000A kit. One of them is larger than the others, because there is a voltage regulator located near one of the DRAM chips on the ATI reference design. I installed the cooler on a non-reference board from PowerColor, and there is no device there, so the big heatsink hangs over the edge quite a bit. It doesn't interfere with anything, but it is not as securely mounted as the other seven. his is one area where I think Zalman can expand the market for this kit. If they can include just one extra of the small RAM-sinks, it would help those without reference design boards.
It was a bit difficult to get the memory heatsinks positioned exactly on the DRAM package, but my eyesight isn't as good as it once was, so blame me. Once they're stuck on there, there's no possibility of lifting off and relocating them. You have to get it right the first time, and as you can see above, I missed a bit in the aft direction on this one. The heatsinks were a little heavier and thicker than some other units I had left over from another project, and of course the red aluminum matches everything else in this ATI-colored world perfectly. So far, after a couple weeks of usage and some tough stress testing at extreme temperatures, the adhesive is holding fine. For the record, I can also say the same for the similar DRAM heatsinks that came with my two year old Zalman VF900-Cu cooler, which has been running pretty much 24/7 since I installed it.
There is a dedicated heatsink provided for the MOSFETs in the primary VRM section, and it is also designed specifically for the ATI reference card. On my non-reference board, the mounting holes on the red-anodized aluminum extrusion didn't line up, the overall size was too large, it interfered with other components, and it probably would have shorted out some of the surface-mount components in the area. I ended up substituting some low-profile forged copper memory ramsink parts from Enzotech, which fit perfectly on the four small DrMOS devices on this card. The PowerColor PCS+ is a second-generation card, so I expected some inconsistencies, and fortunately I was able to work around them. The installation instruction from Zalman recommend running without this heatsink on HD 5830 cards; most of them follow this second-generation design, since ATI did not issue a reference card for the 5830. There was no way I was going to stress test an overclocked HD 5870 without some serious cooling on the VRM section, though.
Everything that is needed to install the cooler is included, plus a FAN MATE 2 controller which can be mounted inside the case, or on the outside. The ZM-STG2M Super Thermal Grease that is supplied won an "A" rating in the Benchmark Reviews 80-way Thermal Interface Material Performance Test, so naturally I used it for all testing. It was only 0.5 C off from the very best performing TIM in the test, which is bordering on an insignificant difference. It has a moderate viscosity and was easy to work with. The foil packaging was just as easy to use as the syringe applicators that many of the TIM compounds come in, and it was a simple matter to tape up the opening once I was done using it. The plastic thumb nuts have metal threads molded in them, and I really like them for a number of reasons. As any mechanic can tell you, it's easier to slide the card down onto protruding studs than it is to line up a hole in the board with a similar hole in the mounting plate. The Zalman method is much easier, especially since there is a tiny blob of TIM on one of the surfaces that you're trying not to smear in any one direction during assembly. Secondly, it is very easy and natural to use both hands together to tighten two thumbnuts on opposite corners at exactly the same time, rather than doing the X-pattern - ¼ turn method, one screw at a time. Speaking of assembly tips... Now that we've seen everything there is to see in the VF3000A kit, let's see how it all fits together. ZALMAN VF3000A InstallationThe installation process went smoothly, with the exception of areas on my second-generation board that were not compatible with the supplied heatsink; namely the VRM section. The differences between the reference design and the later boards designed by the AIB partners is significant. The interface of the main heatsink and fan to the GPU was perfect, as that is an area that has been constant on every Radeon HD 58xx series board since day one. It's important to realize that this cooler is designed specifically for the first generation Radeon HD 5870 and HD 5850 video cards. It also works on HD 5830 cards, but most of them are patterned after second generation designs, so you may lose some functionality. This is completely explained in the installation instructions.
You can see from this view how open the entire assembly is, after it's all put together. There is a lot of exposed area on the board, which means all of the smaller devices have a bit more room to breathe, and they all probably run just a bit cooler as a result. This is a marked contrast to the reference card which is closed up tighter than a drum; well more like a rectangular pipe, I suppose. The color scheme is obviously all red, all the time. I had a choice of 5870 boards to install the VF3000A cooler on, and this one was the clear favorite. The cooler looks like it's shifted towards the top more than it actually is, due to the height factor, which we'll look at more closely now.
From the side, you can see the amount of vertical space between the cooler and the card. It's a tight packaging job to fit those five 6mm heatpipes in there, each with a u-turn so that it can run the full length of the cooler. Many other designs do that U-turn in the horizontal dimension, or as close to it as possible, to minimize the height penalty. Those coolers give up some heat transfer capability between the heatpipe and the fins, though. The VF3000 has approximately 11,200 square millimeters of contact area between the heatpipes and the aluminum fins. The PowerColor unit, which is no slouch in the cooling department as we'll see later, only has about 7920 mm2 of contact area. But, we all should recognize by now that one number or one design feature does not automatically define cooling performance. It's a balance of factors, some of which you can't even see!
From the top side, it's easier to see the clearance between the various heatsinks on the memory chips and Power MOSFETs and the main set of cooling fins. It may look like a lot, but I had to buy special low-profile heatsinks for the MOSFETs, which are just 9mm tall. The standard type is 14mm tall, and they wouldn't clear the lower part of the VF3000A fin assembly. You can also see the space taken up by the thickness of the fans, which are both 15mm wide and 92mm in the other two directions.
I've spent a fair amount of time detailing the reasons why the Zalman VF3000A is taller than a typical dual-slot cooler, and in this view you can see by how much. It's at least two and a half slots wide, but not quite a full three slots. Given the amount of heat these high-end GPUs produce, the size of the fans needed to cool them, and the massive amount of surface area consumed by the aluminum cooling fins, it should be pretty obvious from this view how silly it is to try and pump all that heat through those eleven small slots. You can read more about this folly in my Final Thoughts.
For those who absolutely need to know exactly how tall this cooler is, here's the image for you. By my reckoning, it sits just about 50mm above the surface of the board it's mounted to. That's about 15mm taller than a normal two-slot cooler, which usually tops out at 35mm higher than the board. For me, the additional height is a complete non-issue, but I understand that for others it is most definitely a problem. The arrangement of expansion slots on your motherboard is not something you have a lot of say over, especially if you already own the board. Sometimes you can move cards to another open slot, but with the mix of PCI, PCI-Express and the 1x, 4x, 8x, and 16x versions of PCI-E, sometimes there's only one way to position the boards you've got. Well, we've put in all this work examining the Zalman VF3000A, and assembling it. Now it's time to test it. We'll start the next section by describing our test methodology, and then examine the results. Cooler Testing MethodologyTesting cooling performance of a component is not that difficult, but it is time consuming, it requires attention to detail, and also a suitable infrastructure. It takes a long time for component temperatures to reach steady state. They'll get to within a degree or two within 10 minutes, but they continue to climb, almost imperceptibly, for 3-4 times that long. It's not that any one component is getting that much hotter; it's the combined effect of all the components feeding off one another that causes the slow rise to the final maximum temperature. Then you have to account for the effect on the room temperature. Most rooms will heat up during prolonged stress testing, especially small rooms that are not located near the HVAC thermostat. So, for this article, I did all my testing downstairs, in a larger room that has the A/C thermostat located on one of its walls. It wasn't a pretty site, but it meant that I was able to keep the ambient temperature constant during long test sessions, and from day-to-day. These test results are not going to be consistent with my earlier tests with this hardware, since all of those were done in a small room upstairs that generally runs about 5C hotter than the downstairs in the summer. For the load tests, I used a mix of applications that I've used for benchmarking in the past, and I'm very familiar with how they stress individual components. No one application gives the maximum load in all circumstances, and I was looking for instances where one component performed better or worse than the norm. I also wanted to give each product a good workout and let the TIM settle, so I did a lot of test runs that you won't see here. I settled on the old standby for temperature testing, FurMark, for the official comparison test results. It really is one of the most reliable and consistent programs out there for GPU stress testing. With FurMark, the rest of the system components have almost no effect on the GPU temps, besides their contribution to the localized ambient temperature inside the PC chassis. The load temps reported here are the maximum each GPU reached during testing, even if it settled down to a slightly lower temp under steady state conditions. All the coolers were tested with the same hardware and software configuration. Cable management was optimized for each test, based on the PCI-Express connector layout on each video card. Test System Hardware
Benchmark Applications
Test Support Products
VGA Cooler Test ResultsAll temperatures are reported as measured by FurMark in degrees Celsius, and the ambient temperature for all tests was between 23C and 24C. Let's look at the results for idle temperatures first. The idle results reflect the lowest standard clocks that ATI runs on the Radeon HD 5xxx series of video cards. Under normal 2D conditions, the GPU loafs along at 157 MHz on the GPU core and 300 MHz on the GDDR5 memory. The core voltage is also reduced by each of the on-board PWM controllers at these low speeds. Here's a table showing how the two cards compare. The ASUS EAH5870 V2 idles at a higher voltage, slightly over 110 mV higher than the PowerColor PCS+ AX5870. At full tilt at the maximum 3D load, the difference between the two cards is much smaller, less than 15mV.
GPU Core Voltage at Varying Clock Rates At idle, all three coolers keep the GPU below 35C, and there is only 2 degrees separating them. In the case of the stock coolers, I let the fan controller on the card adjust the fan speed. The PowerColor set the fan to 11%. Unfortunately, due to the simple 2-wire DC motor controller, I can't tell you the actual RPMs produced, only the percentages that were reported in GPU-Z. The ASUS controller set the blower wheel spinning to 21%, which registered 1000 RPM in GPU-Z. I set the Zalman fans manually, using the supplied Fanmate controller to the minimum setting, which yielded 1500 RPM.
The results are very close, are between 8 and 10 degrees C above ambient, and all three cooling solutions were essentially silent at these low fan speeds.
These load results are at the stock Radeon HD 5870 clock speeds of 850 MHZ on the GPU. For each card/cooler pair, the red bar with the higher temperature is the result with the fan running either on automatic, or at the minimum setting. The PowerColor fan controller pushed the speed up to 40% under load, the ASUS ran at 34% - 2200 RPM, and I kept the Zalman at the lowest setting on the Fanmate controller, which was 1500 RPM. At low speeds, the Zalman VF3000A beats out both stock cooling solutions, based on the strength of its large heat pipe/fin assembly, I have to assume. Fan noise was most noticeable on the ASUS, with its blower wheel construction, less so on the PowerColor single fan, and the Zalman made the least noise of the three, even with two fans running. I like to run my GPUs a little cooler than that, and it was hard for me to sit there and watch them cook at low fan speeds, so I turned them up to 100% as soon as I could. Temperatures generally dropped by 10 degrees with the fans on high, and I breathed a little easier, especially for the ASUS card. If there is a downside, it was noise. The ASUS blower at 100% is spinning at 4350 RPM and is very loud and unpleasant, with a lot of higher frequency harmonics in the noise signature. The PowerColor fan was noticeable at full speed, but much less obnoxious, and the Zalman was again, the quietest of the three. At 100%, its two 92mm fans were spinning at 2700 RPM and were no louder than your average case fan.
If you're not unlucky, there is an extra 100 MHz of overclocking headroom available on the Radeon HD 5870 GPU. So, I took advantage of the situation to see how well each cooler handled 950 MHz of ATI's finest. With automatic (or low) fan speeds, the PowerColor and Zalman coolers each gave up an additional 3 degrees, with the Zalman VF3000A turning in the best performance, at 72C. This is despite the fact that the Zalman was still running at its lowest setting of 1500 RPM, and the controller on the PowerColor card bumped up the fan by 10%, to 44%. The ASUS fan controller kept the GPU at the exact same temperature as it was at 850 MHz, by raising the fan speed to 36% - 2370 RPM. Turning the fans up to 100% again, gave some much needed relief on temps. This is really the acid test for these coolers, as this is where most serious gamers are going to want to run their cards at - maxed out. The PowerColor and Zalman coolers tied for temps, at 63C. The difference between them is noise, plus the fact that the VRM section was probably running cooler on the Zalman, with one of the two 92mm fans blowing directly down on that area of the board. The ASUS won the temperature test, but fails big time on the noise profile; at 4350 RPM, it's screaming like a salon-grade hair dryer. I turned it down to 70% to see how that worked, and it helped some. At 3850 RPM, it's still the loudest and most annoying of the three fan solutions, and the temperature of the ASUS rose to 62C at that speed. Temperature wise, this is roughly equivalent to the other two cooler's performance, but the other two still win convincingly on noise points. To sum up, the Zalman matched the PowerColor PCS+ cooling solution on temperature, was noticeably quieter doing so, and delivered better cooling to the VRM section of the board. The downside to the aftermarket solution is the loss of automatic fan control. While I am not satisfied with the stock fan profiles of either card, they can be tweaked with software to behave exactly how I want them to. The manual controller that is supplied with the Zalman VF3000 also gives me complete control at all times (as long as I'm in the room), but I have to set and reset it by hand every time I want to make a change. Fortunately, the noise of the VF3000A is so low, I think I would just set it at 100% and forget about it. Cooler is always better in my book, and if I don't have to pay an acoustical penalty, why not keep the card as cool as possible, all the time? The ASUS is my choice if I absolutely want the best cooling performance, and the fact that I have run that particular card at GPU speeds over 1 GHz is a solid testament to that. I accept the fact that it makes a racket, even though I wish it didn't. If you want to verify that sentiment, take a look at the specs for the fan I have on my CPU cooler; that'll tell you everything you need to know. VGA Cooler Final ThoughtsThe race for maximum power dissipation has been going on between CPUs and GPUs for some time now. For awhile, we all needed to cool our memory sticks, but with DDR3 DRAM that seems to have subsided a bit. The problem is that the form factor for video cards has never really been updated to reflect the massive power requirements of modern top-dog GPUs. Aside from going from single-slot to double-slot coolers, the rest of the environment hasn't changed much. Think about all the ventilation capacity which is available in the vicinity of the CPU, that's used to effectively remove all the heat dissipated there. There has always been a rear-mounted fan, and a large number of gaming cases now add a top-mounted exhaust fan, which instantly takes away the hot air from the CPU cooler. Some setups have enough airflow in this area, that they don't even need a fan mounted directly on the CPU cooler.
Now, think about where the graphics card is, and how much directed airflow is happening in that area. Look at that narrow I/O plate on the back panel and compare the tiny vents on there, competing for real estate with three or four video connectors, with the 120mm, 140mm, and 200mm diameter fans pulling air straight from the CPU cooler. And here's the kicker: for every VGA cooler that's on the market, there are probably fifty CPU coolers, and there's another fifty waiting to be released the next year. Oh, and what's the number one factor for gaming performance, the computing power of your graphics card? How backwards can you get? Your graphics card is living in the pits while the CPU is lounging in the cool breeze on the top bunk. It's no wonder that there is such diversity in GPU cooler designs; the engineers have an impossible task and they're throwing out every design idea they can think of, hoping one will be the magic bullet. If it wasn't so much fun to watch, it'd be depressing... Zalman VF3000A ConclusionThe Zalman VF3000A performed well in temperature tests, equaling the PowerColor and ASUS V2 cooling solutions. Both of these cards got high marks as OEM attempts at improving upon the reference design, and the Zalman easily beat both of them when fan speeds were low. At full fan speed, the ASUS cooled down the GPU about 4C lower, but at a horrible cost in noise. The Zalman excelled in the noise department, both in volume and tone. While I didn't have a reference cooler to test with, my prior experience with them says that they are going to behave much like the ASUS cooler, i.e. capable, but noisy. I am planning to keep this unit running at 100% fan speed all day and night, because there is absolutely no reason not to. It's that quiet! I know some folks are hyper sensitive to fan noise, so the FAN MATE 2 fan controller that's included might be a welcome addition, but I personally don't need it. There's no doubt that some thought went into the appearance of the VF3000 series, and for each model that is optimized for a particular series of graphics cards. Hence, the red anodized fan shroud for the VF3000A, which is destined for ATI products only. Just because I prefer a more industrial chic style of design, doesn't mean that this is not an attractive product. I know the copper is going to oxidize faster than any form of nickel plating, but I'm pleased that Zalman chose to stay with bare copper for the mounting base and heatpipes. I hate the idea of paying for plating that actually hurts performance. The LED fans are a nice touch, and overall, I have to say that it looked right at home in my AMD system, the one with the red-anodized Lian Li case.
Construction is one of Zalman's strong points as a company, their products always seem to be well made, with a lot of attention to detail. It drives me crazy when I take something apart and find mangled screw threads, but it gives me joy when every single thread starts true and runs down precisely, without a hitch. The mirror finish on the GPU mounting block is also impressive, and I appreciate the full copper construction of the block. Functionality is a mixed bag only because I didn't use this cooler on a reference design card. I couldn't use the supplied heatsink for the VRM section, and I wasn't going to let those MOSFETs drive themselves to an early death, so I had to improvise. I can't really mark a product down because I used it in an application it wasn't designed for, though. With a little bit of effort in the accessory kit, the VF3000 could be made a bit more universal, and I hope Zalman takes up the opportunity to make the ATI edition work just as well for the Gen. 2 cards as it does for the reference design. Value is always a tough proposition for VGA coolers. I mean, the card already comes with a cooler, and you have to take that off, throw it away, and then spend an extra sum of money to make it better? It breaks my frugal heart. But... if I had a hot-running Radeon HD 5870 reference card, I would surf over to Newegg, put in an order for this cooler, and spend the $54.99 gladly. Of course, there are always other retailers that might be selling this VGA cooler for less. The reduction in noise, the cooler temps in the VRM section, and the possibility that I may just be saving my $400 video card from sudden death, would force me to pull the trigger and purchase an aftermarket cooler. It's a tougher call for some of the second generation HD 58xx cards, as many of them have had their weaknesses exorcised by the AIB partners and their design teams. Helping in the value equation is the fact that this is a turnkey solution, everything you need is included. Some competitive products come without fans, for instance. On the flip side, I'm sitting here wondering how this cooler would perform with some bigger, high flow fans on it. I bought my first Zalman cooler about two years ago because I couldn't stand the grinding noise that my brand new 8600GT graphics card was making. It was just a side benefit that it reduced my GPU temps, even at the lowest fan speeds. At full speed, it was still quieter than the OEM cooler, which was from a very well respected vendor, BTW. Here I am with the same situation again; the overwhelming advantage that the Zalman VF3000A brings to the table is the ability to provide top tier cooling with less noise. I know it's out of character, but I would like to see a no-holds-barred edition with bigger fans, just to see how much untapped potential this heatpipe-fin arrangement has. Pros:
|
|||||||||||||
Comments
The second "F" in VF3000F stands for Fermi. I can't find it in distribution in North America, but it is for sale in Asia right now.
I don't see the need for it on the GTX 460, personally. If you want the best OEM cooling for that chip, buy the MSI Hawk.
Oh wait, I think there are thousands like me. LOL
i purchaise zalman vf 3000 idle 25 celsius full load 45
Not saying it can't be done, but it's not a job for the inexperienced. OTOH, you know there's only one way to get experience... [%^D