Zalman ZM-80HP Impressions

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Juad
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Joined: Fri Sep 27, 2002 1:38 pm

Zalman ZM-80HP Impressions

Post by Juad » Fri Sep 27, 2002 2:00 pm

Hi everybody,

Let me introduce myself in a few words. I work in a dutch computer store that's trying to get those darn pc's quiet. We usually work with zalman and enermax products and sell these in pc's on a regular basis. No more smalltalk. I actually have something decent to post:

It's about the zalman ZM80 fanless heatsink for geforce 4 ti cards. The ZM80 consists of 2 aluminium blocks with a heatpipe connecting them.
Go here for some pics : http://www.zalman.co.kr/english/product/zm80-hp.htm

On to the impressions:

Installing the ZM80 isn't hard. It just takes some time and patience. Removing the original fan on my msi ti4400 was really easy. The next step is to install a small block that functions as a spacer on both sides of the card. The heatpipe comes between these blocks and the bigger aluminium plates. It takes some time to figure it out but there isn't much that can go wrong. Note that because of the big heatsinks it takes up an extra pci slot.

The performance: great. It's really really quiet(doh!) and cools great. I just ran 3d mark 2001 se for an hour and I didn't burn my fingers when I touched it. Can't say it's cool but that's why they call it a heatsink! It's doesn't get nearly as hot as those passive heatsinks on GF2MX cards. The heatpipe also works like a charm. The aluminium plate at the back get's almost as hot(or cold) as the one on the front where the gpu is.

Conclusion: A great product and it completely solves the problem of noisy vga cards.

Overall impresions:
Installation B-
Performance B
Noise level A+++++++++++++++++++++++++(fanless!)
Price B+
Looks A+

Jolt
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Post by Jolt » Fri Sep 27, 2002 3:52 pm

very nice!

good to hear that, seems like the vga cooling bit is solved for my silent system at least ;)

chiahaochang
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Re: Zalman ZM-80HP Impressions

Post by chiahaochang » Sat Sep 28, 2002 9:50 am

Juad wrote:Hi everybody,
Conclusion: A great product and it completely solves the problem of noisy vga cards.

Overall impresions:
Installation B-
Performance B
Noise level A+++++++++++++++++++++++++(fanless!)
Price B+
Looks A+
That's great news. Thanks for the info.

Do you have any idea if it will fit onto the ATI Radeon 9700s?

Gerwin
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Post by Gerwin » Sun Sep 29, 2002 3:38 am

Do you have a www-address to your shop? Would be convenient for me to purchase my stuff closer to home :-)

shunx
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Location: Vancouver

Post by shunx » Mon Oct 07, 2002 2:42 am

I really like it but I think it is not available in North America yet.

Tulip
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Location: Reinheim, Germany

Post by Tulip » Mon Oct 07, 2002 8:33 am

Here is probably the first review of the ZM-80HP in Germany, and they didn't like it at all, but then they are also more interested in performance than silence. It just seem strange that Juad's review should be SO different from this one !!!

http://www.hartware.de/review.html?id=261

shunx
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Location: Vancouver

Post by shunx » Mon Oct 07, 2002 3:49 pm

hmm, 20C above stock at full load...

Ausone
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Post by Ausone » Wed Oct 09, 2002 8:37 pm

I think it is not available in North America yet.
It is available at:

http://www.frozencpu.com/
http://www.sharkacorp.com/

shunx
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Location: Vancouver

Post by shunx » Wed Oct 09, 2002 9:21 pm

I would buy it now if it wasn't for the review that states a 79C GPU temperature under load. I think there's something wrong with that.

What do you guys think?

quokked
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Post by quokked » Thu Oct 10, 2002 12:17 am

79°c under load????? OUCH! :shock: my Geforce DDR was at 60°c with a the stock cooler, personally I'd stick 80MM panaflow L1A @ 5v on top of the Zalman if it's running that hot depends on the card u're running though I got me a radeon 9000 Pro and my case temps have dropped by like 5c or so depends on your card I think if u want to run the Zalman ZM80HP :)

Red Dawn
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Location: Stockholm

Post by Red Dawn » Thu Oct 10, 2002 4:22 am

Doesn't the article state somewhere that the card they're using to test the zalman heatsink on is a heavily overclocked one?

miker
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Post by miker » Thu Oct 10, 2002 7:42 am

I would think that the 79C under load is a load of crap. Note also that they said the idle was 76C. There's no way that's right. I bet they messed up the install or something.

shunx
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Location: Vancouver

Post by shunx » Thu Oct 10, 2002 4:33 pm

miker wrote:I would think that the 79C under load is a load of crap. Note also that they said the idle was 76C. There's no way that's right. I bet they messed up the install or something.
Yeah I suspect they might have installed it incorrectly. Another review suggests a rise of 10C over stock: http://www.nokytech.net/dossier.php?lire=51&page=1

Zalman has a reply about the issue:
http://board.member.cgiserver.net/Crazy ... ackdepth=1

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