ZALMAN'S FIRST FANLESS VGA COOLER IS HIGHLY RELIABLE (Zalman VGA Heatpipe Cooler ZM80-HP)

Member Name: monkey_daz

Product:	Zalman VGA Heatpipe Cooler ZM80-HP
Date:	18/06/09 (12 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Noise leve. Price. Zalman have made installation as easy as possible. Performance.

Disadvantages: Still a tricky install. Thermal grease can be messy. Weight. Bulky.

I have one of these on an MSI GeForce 4 Ti graphics card and it has been going strong now for about 7 years. This is in what I call my "work" PC which I use for personal business so I need it to be quiet. There are still many computers in use which can benefit from this cooler so if you are thinking of buying one, well done! If you are looking to buy one of these now you can probably get it for as little as £5.

Removing the fan and replacing it with something like this is the only true way to completely silence your graphics card. This one is a bit of an older model but works very well. It is quite bulky, having large solid heat-sinks on both sides and very heavy. However, this has not caused me any problems.

The installation is fairly tricky. You have to remove the factory fitted heatsink and fan first which is usually a case of popping out the plastic rivets/clips holding it on. I recommend using a small blade screwdriver for this but be careful not to damage the graphics card. With the Zalman design you essentially mount one of the small blocks to the GPU (marked FRONT). This is done using the amazing little sprung clamp feet things, that mean you can fit this to virtually any graphics card with holes in it. The next step is to clamp the heat pipe in the other small back (marked BACK) and the large heatsink also marked BACK. Then you fit this whole thing onto the GPU block. You have to put thermal paste everywhere the heat pipe comes into contact with the heat-sinks as you go along but assuming you don't put too much on its quite easy and mess-free. Zalman even give you a free screwdriver with the kit which allows you to assemble everything.

This has now been improved upon twice by Zalman and competitors such as Arctic Cooling offer similar products so if you cant find this one available I'm sure the newer ones would fit.

A final word of warning: Always check that your graphics card is compatible with the cooler before buying! Since this is an older model, you might have to hunt around for the information.

Summary: For older graphics cards this is perfect and represents good value for money and high reliability.

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