*NEW* Aerocool VM-101 silent VGA cooler

tay · Post by **tay** » Wed Jun 09, 2004 12:54 pm

Check it out at SVC here

Its a pretty strange design IMO. Please add any interesting things you notice, heres what i found found.
- how the hell does this fit? it seems miles taller than it should be.
- fins angled up towards the CPU/PSU and in the direction of airflow out of the case where we are likely to have a large fan pulling some air.
- too much heat concentrated with CPU and chipset heatsink nearby
- compatibility with large heatsinks??? (Thermalright XP-120

) or ZM-47 chipset heatsink?
- works with nvidia cards! Good alternative for the notoriously incompatible AC VGA silencer however.
- better than Zalmans? Certainly has the potential to be.

acaurora · Post by **acaurora** » Wed Jun 09, 2004 6:20 pm

If you ask me, it doesn't look as if it makes as much contact as the Zalman one does, therefore possibly does not cool as well as its competitor. Also, I forgot where, but there is a pic of Zalman's upcoming passive GPU cooler that is more streamlined than the first model, and looks pretty cool too (blue metal, similar to reserator).

The zalman cooler wraps entirely around it, or at least looks like it. Maximum contact = maximum thermal cooling, IMO.

Post by **Rusty075** » Wed Jun 09, 2004 6:22 pm

All that matters is contact with the core..and the core is always the same size. What else would the Zalman contact?

acaurora · Post by **acaurora** » Wed Jun 09, 2004 6:28 pm

The RAM? Don't want the ram sizzling, now do we?

I'm not very knowledgeable about GPU cooling. I am just going off my belief that the more contact/coverage, the better the cooling. Maybe I'm wrong, I probably am.

Post by **Rusty075** » Wed Jun 09, 2004 6:53 pm

The zalman does not contact the RAM. It does "cover it up", but it doesn't actually touch it. Which, if anything, is worse.

acaurora · Post by **acaurora** » Wed Jun 09, 2004 6:58 pm

oh. Eh, well, hopefully the new coming Zalman will do a better job. It looks slimmer, plus it's that cool metallic blue *drool

Post by **Rusty075** » Wed Jun 09, 2004 8:06 pm

Not likely.

The RAM isn't always in the same place from card to card, nor is there always the same number of RAM chips, so it would be a compatibility nightmare to make an aftermarket cooler attach to the RAM. Where one card has a RAM chip, the next card may have a 10mm high cap.

Which is why no aftermarket coolers have integrated RAM cooling. Some kits have separate RAM heatsinks that you thermal-tape to the individual chips. (Zalman's VGA waterblock comes with 8 RAMsink)

acaurora · Post by **acaurora** » Wed Jun 09, 2004 8:09 pm

ahhh i c. Well, since the stock X800XT/Pro doesn't even have heatsinks over their ram chips, then I suppose that th eneed to cool them with aftermarket ones won't be a problem, since there wont be any need

Post by **Rusty075** » Wed Jun 09, 2004 8:12 pm

True, but if you look at the design of stock VGA coolers, you'll see that they usually throw the exhaust air sideways, so it blows across the RAM (at leats partially)

Take away that airflow, and the RAM can get a little toasty. But if you're not OC'ing the card, its not an issue.

ChucuSCAD · Post by **ChucuSCAD** » Wed Jun 09, 2004 8:17 pm

In a stock configuration there arn't really any graphics cards that I can think of that require ram sinks. As Rusty pointed out the GPU fan usually pushes air over the ram to supply cooling.

However once you remove the stock cooling this airflow is cutoff. It has been mine, and others on this forums experience that you still don't have to add ram sinks even when this airflow is removed, under normal conditions. However if you are OCing then I would suggest a nice set of ramsinks.

chucuSCAD

_Nickel_ · Post by **_Nickel_** » Thu Jun 10, 2004 11:17 am

The first review of a German hardware site (twinsbyte.de) is very positive. The cooler is mounted on a Geforce FX 5900 LX BIOS modded to 5950 Ultra speeds. The GPU temp during Windows with the stock cooler was 44C and with the VM-101 it was 42C (they said they had a "good case ventilation"). When they turned the case fans off the GPU temp rose to 50C during Windows. Apparently it is very hard to measure the GPU temp with the diode under load as the temp drops rapidly when you leave a game/benchmark.

I think that the VM-101 performs better than the Zalman Heatpipe because it has a much larger surface area (cooling fins vs. solid 2 aluminum blocks).

Tobi-Wan Kenobi · Post by **Tobi-Wan Kenobi** » Sun Jun 13, 2004 8:29 am

A bit late but I want to point out that the new Zalman (zm80D-hp) ships with RAM-sinks.

greeef · Post by **greeef** » Tue Jun 15, 2004 5:25 am

The cooler features nickel plated aluminium fins and superconductor pipes for that extra shiny finish. the fins and backing plate are designed in a "Thunderbolt" theme, giving the cooler it's stylish looks.

Really? superconducting pipes eh?

Post by **Rusty075** » Tue Jun 15, 2004 6:54 am

greeef wrote:Really? superconducting pipes eh?

That is an accurate use of the term superconducting.

They conduct heat at a rate in the range of 1000% faster than any solid material could. So yes, they are in fact "superconducting"

You're thinking of superconduction as it applies to electricity...which is a more complicated thing to achieve.

Cerb · Post by **Cerb** » Thu Jun 17, 2004 6:30 pm

_Nickel_ wrote:The first review of a German hardware site (twinsbyte.de) is very positive. The cooler is mounted on a Geforce FX 5900 LX BIOS modded to 5950 Ultra speeds. The GPU temp during Windows with the stock cooler was 44C and with the VM-101 it was 42C (they said they had a "good case ventilation"). When they turned the case fans off the GPU temp rose to 50C during Windows. Apparently it is very hard to measure the GPU temp with the diode under load as the temp drops rapidly when you leave a game/benchmark.

I think that the VM-101 performs better than the Zalman Heatpipe because it has a much larger surface area (cooling fins vs. solid 2 aluminum blocks).

Using the card's own ability, it is extrmely easy to measure the temp of the card under load for the last 10-15 min. Rivatuner makes it dead simple. Would have been good to see such results

.

However, it's not hard to believe it can compete with the Zalman, and definitely looks easier to install. If a few reviews getting load temps pop up, it may prove to be a better one to get--though I have a feeling the ZM80D isn't going to fair badly.

jinu117 · Post by **jinu117** » Fri Jun 18, 2004 12:04 pm

acaurora wrote:The RAM? Don't want the ram sizzling, now do we?

I'm not very knowledgeable about GPU cooling. I am just going off my belief that the more contact/coverage, the better the cooling. Maybe I'm wrong, I probably am.

Actually my past experience with Zalman indicates it traps heat which heats up memory more than it should. This design seem to avoid that problem tad better (not to mention much better heat dissisipation area. Only thing is... My Lian-li pc v1000 would have it upside down rendering it useless

tay · Post by **tay** » Fri Jun 18, 2004 2:48 pm

jinu117 wrote: Actually my past experience with Zalman indicates it traps heat which heats up memory more than it should. This design seem to avoid that problem tad better (not to mention much better heat dissisipation area. Only thing is... My Lian-li pc v1000 would have it upside down rendering it useless

doh!!!! How do you liek the case otherwise?? Do the thermal zones work compared to your previous case?

I agree about the memory sitting under a hot sink with the zm80s btw. Looks like you can install very low ramsinks if you can find em for these anyway.

jinu117 · Post by **jinu117** » Sun Jun 20, 2004 12:59 am

tay wrote:
jinu117 wrote: Actually my past experience with Zalman indicates it traps heat which heats up memory more than it should. This design seem to avoid that problem tad better (not to mention much better heat dissisipation area. Only thing is... My Lian-li pc v1000 would have it upside down rendering it useless
doh!!!! How do you liek the case otherwise?? Do the thermal zones work compared to your previous case?

I agree about the memory sitting under a hot sink with the zm80s btw. Looks like you can install very low ramsinks if you can find em for these anyway.

Awesome case. Cools extremely well. Only better solution would be noisy massive air wooshing sound case. (even totally open space seems to be same thing for this case

I see maybe 1c temp diff between side panel open and not) Only potential problem is the lack of headroom between CPU socket and divider from PSU depending on your MOBO. And potential dust stack up.
Another minor problem would be the size of PSU limitation...
Very sturdy well designed. Dynamet would be totally useless on this. Also, it is very unlikely to be able to make the case much quieter than it is in stock form due to all the air intake holes... (at least there is no aluminum buzz.... its quite heavy compared to antec cases which uses thinner aluminum....) Think it uses even thicker aluminum than Cooler Master ones.

Nowhere_man · Post by **Nowhere_man** » Sun Jun 27, 2004 4:36 pm

"Thunderbolt" styling does it for me

Seriously, I wonder if it would co-exist with the XP-120?

pandamonium54 · Post by **pandamonium54** » Sun Aug 01, 2004 8:45 pm

Has anyone tried this cooler on the Abit NF7-S v2? Or, a Zalman northbridge HS modified NF7-S?

I just opened my P160 to look at my NF7-S v2 and get a sense for the compatibility of the Aerocooler. Right now I've got a Zalman C heatpipe cooler and there's about a 1cm clearance between the current VGA heatsink and the NB heatsink.

greeef · Post by **greeef** » Mon Aug 02, 2004 4:19 am

Rusty075 wrote:
greeef wrote:Really? superconducting pipes eh?
That is an accurate use of the term superconducting.

They conduct heat at a rate in the range of 1000% faster than any solid material could. So yes, they are in fact "superconducting"

You're thinking of superconduction as it applies to electricity...which is a more complicated thing to achieve.

Cool! I didnt know those pipes counted as superconductors, thats brilliant!

I've got a superconductor!

Post by **Rusty075** » Mon Aug 02, 2004 6:13 am

And if you had a Mac, you could say that you had a "Superconducting Supercomputer"

NEW Aerocool VM-101 silent VGA cooler

NEW Aerocool VM-101 silent VGA cooler