OMG! The Zalman VF900-Cu Rocks!

I just installed this puppy on my Volt Modded GT7900, I ***** you not, Peak load temps went from 94C to 58C. The ambiet temps might be a little lower from when I hit the 94c, but that scared me enough to upgrade, and this thing works! Highly reccomended. I might bump my voltage up a bit more now and see if I can top the current 630 Clock I am at right now.

Here's a link for the pix.. http://www.zalman.co.kr/usa/product/view.asp?idx=192&code=013

I wonder, would this void the warranty?

OnDborder said:

I wonder, would this void the warranty?

Click to expand...

I would read the fine print of my card's warranty before implementing an aftermarket cooler. Some card manufacturers are clear that a modification will void the warranty.

ralniv said:

I would read the fine print of my card's warranty before implementing an aftermarket cooler. Some card manufacturers are clear that a modification will void the warranty.

Click to expand...

this is why you keep the old cooler and some crappy white thermal paste around if you ever need to RMA...

Did you notice a difference in noise? I am getting this cooler for my B-day, mainly in the hopes of reducing niose. The stock cooler on my 7900GT is unacceptably noisy.

KillrBuckeye said:

Did you notice a difference in noise? I am getting this cooler for my B-day, mainly in the hopes of reducing niose. The stock cooler on my 7900GT is unacceptably noisy.

Click to expand...

It is alot less noisy than the stock cooler, yes. I could never hear my stock cooler though over my exhaust fans so I can't tell you how much quieter it is. This machine is my "hardcore" machine, I have another silent PC I use to download while I sleep Etc.

It has a fan speed control module that comes with it, you can go from I think 1200 RPM's >30Db to 2600 RPM's ~40DB.

FrostyTech has a great review of it here http://www.frostytech.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=1980 This write up is the main reason i bought it, he rates it as the best cooling VGA card cooler and the third most silent at the slowers speed settings.

nd4spdbh2 said:

this is why you keep the old cooler and some crappy white thermal paste around if you ever need to RMA...

Click to expand...

Yea, there are no mods you make to the card that are not reverseable. It would be easy to RMA this thing no questions asked.
It does come with 8 ramsinks to cool the memory also though .. so if you were to RMA, you would need to clean the sticky crap off the memory. No biggy.

almstsobur said:

Yea, there are no mods you make to the card that are not reverseable. It would be easy to RMA this thing no questions asked.
It does come with 8 ramsinks to cool the memory also though .. so if you were to RMA, you would need to clean the sticky crap off the memory. No biggy.

Click to expand...

Bah, that's too much work. You overclockers are crazy . Probably not the brightest thing to say on these forums.

I just installed my VF900-Cu on my 7900GT, and I'm very happy with the reduction in noise. Even with the fan at full speed, it's much quieter than the stock cooler. However, I didn't notice any change in idle temps. Idle temp is 38C with the stock cooler and 38C with the Zalman with the fan on medium. I've heard the Zalman helps most at full load, but I haven't had a chance to test yet. I guess 38C at idle is pretty good to begin with, so maybe I shouldn't expect too much there.

Question for you guys: how are you getting temperature readings under full load? Is it enough to just alt+tab out of a game (after playing for a while) and look at the temperature reading from the nVidia control panel?

I use this to monitor temps. http://www.guru3d.com/article/nvtemplogger/294/1/

I just run ATI tool's little spinning box for a good long time while I have the control panel/nvidia temp monitor up. There is another non-full screen graffic thing I use with a bunch of spinning globes ETc, but I can't think of the name right now (I'm at work)

I need to check out that logger linked above though, looks like good stuff.

You not going to get much lower then 38C on air, depending on your ambient temps. Any form of air cooling is always going to have a limit to how low it will go based on the principals of ambient tempature and air cooling alone. That said, you will notice a dramatic decrease in load temps, trust me. Any way you look at it, 38C is very low for a GPU that produces the heat that a 7900 does.