Zalman ZM-80 on a modern card?

They make noise, too.

Moderators: NeilBlanchard, Ralf Hutter, sthayashi, Lawrence Lee

Post Reply
fjsc3
Posts: 25
Joined: Fri Oct 20, 2006 9:54 am

Zalman ZM-80 on a modern card?

Post by fjsc3 » Sat Jul 18, 2009 12:06 pm

hi all,
I have an old Zalman ZM-80 (reviewd here on SPCR) from 2004 lying around, still in the sealed blister pack. Never got around to use it.
Now I was considering buying a 2nd hand card on the cheap and replace the stock fan with the Zalman.

There are two important points that need to be satisfied:

1-at the time the ZM-80 was compatible with most PCBs and the way they fitted the stock fans. Will the ZM-80 fit a current Radeon card (I was thinking of something between a hd3650 and a hd4670)? Or would I have to do some serious modding, thus risking messing up the card?

2-Will it be able to cope with a low-midrange card's heat output? Worst case scenario hd4670. Or if this is too much, perhaps a hd3650 or hd4650?


thanks for reading.

cheers
Ze

psiu
Posts: 1201
Joined: Tue Aug 23, 2005 1:53 pm
Location: SE MI

Post by psiu » Sat Jul 18, 2009 5:24 pm

I think if you have the fan for it, a 4670 would be possible. I tried the ZM80-D with fan on an X800 GTO2 and it really couldn't handle it. I did run one fanless on a 9700 Pro for the last few years though and it's been fine in an adequately cooled case.

It might actually work on a newer card since there was some play in the setting of the heatpipe block over the core with the little arms. Only question would be if the core sits much higher or lower on the PCB away from the expansion slot or not.

edit: also, I don't know about the Nvidia cards but the newer Radeon cards don't have a shim around the GPU core. Could be risky trying to balance it on there and squeeze down without that in place.

fjsc3
Posts: 25
Joined: Fri Oct 20, 2006 9:54 am

Post by fjsc3 » Sun Jul 19, 2009 3:15 am

It seems that the X800GTO2 draws at least 55W. The hd4650 stays under 30W and hd4670 goes up to 47W. These numbers were taken from XBitlabs.

They actually have a picture of the pcb, mounting holes etc in their 03/03/2009 article. From the pictures do you think it would fit?
I would assume that since the passive cooler found on the Sapphire scs3 doesn't seem larger than the ZM-80, the Zalman should be able to handle the heat, no?

Since they cost roughly the same the smart thing to do is to just buy a passive cooled card anyway, but I was kind of excited with the idea of finally putting the ZM-80 to some use.

vincentfox
Posts: 271
Joined: Sun Oct 09, 2005 8:35 pm
Location: CA

Post by vincentfox » Wed Jul 29, 2009 11:14 am

I have a Zalman fitted to a 7600GT.

OK stop laughing I know this is "state of late 2006" card.

But my point is that the ZM-80 fits on lots of cards. Max power output on newer cards gets worrisome.

Techno Pride
Posts: 347
Joined: Tue Jun 03, 2003 12:57 am

Post by Techno Pride » Wed Jul 29, 2009 8:07 pm

Tried a ZM80A-HP on an FX5800 AGP with a Panaflo L1A @ 5v. Card died months later.

On a 8500GT PCI-E, card was fine fan-less.

fjsc3
Posts: 25
Joined: Fri Oct 20, 2006 9:54 am

Post by fjsc3 » Thu Jul 30, 2009 4:28 am

both a 9700pro and an 8500GT seem to draw somewhat more power than an HD4670 - especially the 8500GT.

I'm going to try it on a 4670. If it doesn't work, then I'll just get an Accelero S1 or S2.

I'll keep you posted.

fjsc3
Posts: 25
Joined: Fri Oct 20, 2006 9:54 am

Post by fjsc3 » Fri Aug 07, 2009 4:44 pm

well, it's kind of a moot point at the moment, since I found a cheap Artic Cooling Accelero S1 rev1.2 and used that on the 4670 instead.
Funny thing though is that I can't ascertain how good a job it's doing because it appears that the temperature diode is broken, but alas, it works.

I haven't given up on the ZM80 yet though. I'm going to get a second card for a smaller PC and try to use it on that card.

CoolColJ
Posts: 344
Joined: Thu Jul 10, 2003 11:58 pm
Location: Australia

Post by CoolColJ » Fri May 28, 2010 6:29 pm

Hmmm

I just got given a 4670. And I have an old Radeon 9800 with a ZM80 fitted with OP1 fan unused

I thought it might fit...

Post Reply