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Zalman VF-900 is amazing! (X800 mini review)

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veryhumid

Member
Joined
Apr 22, 2004
Location
New Hampshire
I can't believe I waited so long before buying this! I know it's not quite powerful enough for the big cards, (it's actually a pretty small heatsink) but for my x800 it is working great so far. I just put together the comp in my sig, the card is an ati refurb (came with 3-year warranty for $79!). It plays source, fear, etc at 1280x1024 with filtering very well at stock clocks.

Anyway, it's been about 84F in my room these days (that's about 29C). So I bought this cooler to deal with the horrible temps with the stock cooler:

Stock cooler 44% idle: 51C
Stock cooler 44% load: 76C

Stock cooler 100% idle: 45C
Stock cooler 100% load: 69C

The install of the cooler was very easy and very staightforward. The mounting system is solid, and the memory sinks were small but they stuck on well. The base is a mirror. I've got to hand it to them for that. All this for $33 is a bargain in my book. I used AS5 spread with a razor blade.

VF-900 100% idle: 39C
VF-900 100% load: 51C

That's much better! Load temps were created using the 3D view in ati tool. ATI tool was also used for temp monitoring. I have the zalman at 100% because it's not loud at all, plus the excess airflow will blow over the mem sinks.
 

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nice temp drop there! i need to uprate the cooling on my 7900gt. its idle at like 51C atm (30C in my room at atm)
 
Damn I should have bought the zalman instead of the ATI silencer.

Sure the silencer works well but its kinda garbage quality wise.
On my silencer the fan bearing make a loud noise on startup and sometimes out of no where when I'm playing and the design doesn't let you dust out the setup that well at all.

The zalman on my CPU has been brilliant.
 
Those are nice temps veryhumid....
BTW I did not catch how big is that fan?
I replaced 80mm fan on Vf700-cu and also get nice performance,speed and silence with it...so I'm courious about this one :)
 
I don't, just stock cooling. Which isn't too bad just loud 45Idle 51-55Load. My load was 3hours of NFS:MW at the highest settings
 
Gorki said:
Those are nice temps veryhumid....
BTW I did not catch how big is that fan?

I'm not really sure. Seems to be between 60-80mm.

Internal said:
Sure the silencer works well but its kinda garbage quality wise.
On my silencer the fan bearing make a loud noise on startup and sometimes out of no where when I'm playing and the design doesn't let you dust out the setup that well at all.

I was tempted because you can pick them up for around $20 now, but it's not really competition for the zalman. It's nice that the hot air gets exhausted outside, but I don't feel it's an efficient way to move air over a heatsink, blowing from the side of the fins like that.
 
dicecca112 said:
I get mine tomorrow, I'll let you know how it does
WENT FROM 45 IDLE and 55 LOAD

to

39 idle and 44 Load

well worth the investment, I mainly got it because my stock cooler was load. And now this rig is damn near silent, my roomamte will thank me
 
Very nice temps. I'm thinkin about gettin one to throw on my buds 7900GT. I just got a x850PRO that can be flashed to VIVO...stock temps were like 44C Idle & 63C Load, I put it under water (MAZE4), now its down to 27C Idle & 33C Load :)
 
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