ZALMAN'S FANLESS GFX COOLER WITH ADDED FLEXIBILITY (Zalman ZM 80C-HP)

Member Name: monkey_daz

Product:	Zalman ZM 80C-HP
Date:	18/06/09 (41 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Silent. Optional fan for "hotter" cards. Zalman try to help install. Improved mechanical rigidity.

Disadvantages: As with all fanless VGA coolers it is a tricky install.

This is the second-newest (I'm not sure there was a B, but there is definitely a D!) version C of Zalman's fanless graphics card cooler. It has two major improvements over the ZM80-HP (1) Includes brackets to brace between the two main solid heatsink blocks. (2) There is an optional fan that can attach to it to allow use of higher power graphics cards.

So we have all the usual benefits of Zalman's fanless cooling: zero noise level, great cooling, solid build quality. However, due to the improvements it is now much more physically rigid and so less likely to damage your graphics card and yet also much more flexible in terms of the range of graphics cards it can support. It is also grey rather than gold coloured which in theory should mean its better at dissipating heat.


Installation is made as easy as possible by Zalman thanks to the feet clamp brackets that allow the cooler block to be mounted to virtually any graphics card with fixing holes on its PCB. They give you a free screwdriver to aid installation and the only other tools you will need will be ones to remove your existing heatsink/fan assembly. Putting thermal grease on between the heat pipe and heat-sinks can be a bit messy but if your attempting this install chances are you have dealt with thermal paste before on CPU's.

The optional fan (not included usually) is one of Zalman's ultra-quiet low RPM fans designed to keep noise to a minimum. For many applications it is not even required but it's nice to know that if you upgrade your graphics card you can still use this and just add the fan.

I only tested one of these once and as such do not have any long term reliability data but I can only imagine it to be better than the original which I have had years of happy results with.

Summary: A larger range of supported graphics cards makes this very flexible. Excellent build quality.

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