Just bought a Zalman VF-700CU and figured some folks might want to read another sim-driver's opinion of it.
First off, the VF-700CU is an all copper heatsink/fan combo which replaces the stock HSF on pretty much any vid card. Being copper, it is one
heavy mother with large radiating copper fins sticking out over a 140º arc, and smaller ones down near the AGP slot. The stock cooler on my 9800 Pro conked out because it was designed by a Mongolian sheep herder. After the usual Newegg review, I sprung for the VF-700 all-copper unit. Zalman makes a somewhat lighter aluminum/copper version that runs a tick warmer. And I do mean a tick. It also comes with spare parts (extra O-rings, screws) in case you lose something. Plus it has eight RAM heatsinks you can stick on the vid card's RAM chips. I didn't use these as the fan is so big it blows air on them all anyway.
Mounting the thing is a snap, but getting the old HSF off the bloody 9800 required wire cutters. It was held on by small plastic clip pins, and the clips had to be cut off.
Warning! Attempting to remove the stock HSF on your video card might damage the thing, and it
will void the warranty! Be especially careful if you need to cut the mounting clips in order to dump your stock HSF on the vid card. You might cut through a resistor, capacitor, or something else that is VERY IMPORTANT! So be
careful with the cutting! Cleaning the old thermal goo off can be accomplished with rubbing alcohol and cotton swabs.
Right, back to the guts! Getting the Zalman mounted is pretty easy. Four thumb-screw type mounting "bolts" actually hold the beast down. Take the male pair and run an O-ring on each one, then slap 'em through the original mounting holes. Add another O-ring once they're through, and screw the female bolts down. Finger tight is fine, but I went a little further and made sure the things were
tight. Screw on the back brace plate with the supplied hardware and you're done with the back. For the front, throw a
small glob of the supplied grease (or Arctic Silver) down on the GPU itself. Drop the beast in place and screw it down. You'll need tweezers to get the screws down through the fan and into their mounting holes. I checked the contact between HSF and GPU before locking it down and found the contact was near perfect. On the GPU I had placed a glob about the size of a pinky finger-nail, and that was spread out all over the GPU with some being squeezed out the sides.
Locate a spare 4-pin Molex (12v) connector on your power supply's 5v rail and plug in the supplied wiring harness. You can use three of the other plugs for extra fans that use a standard 3-pin fan connection. White plugs are 5v, gray plugs are 12v. Or in Zalman-speak: "White plugs are Silent Mode, gray plugs are Normal Mode."
When you try to drop the video card back in you'll notice two things right off the bat. First, your vid card is now three times heavier than it was. Second, this HSF unit is so damned big it crowds out anything in the PCI slot just below your PCIe or AGP slot. It is HUGE! The lower brace of copper fins just barely clear the mounting slot, while the large upper fan of copper nearly touches the top of the card! Anyhoo, get it seated, pick your throttle setting (5v or 12v) and crank the rig.
I noticed a few things right away with the 9800 back in and humming. Where a high-pitched whine used to be is mere silence; there is no sound. Though a baritone vibration can now be felt at the case sidewall. One pleasant surprise was the lack of any heat. On the stock HSF supplied with the 9800, you couldn't touch it without burning your finger. It got THAT HOT! This copper unit reached "slightly warm" after flying a trio of dogfights in LOMAC. Most of the time, my VF-700 is about the same temp as my processor's HSF to the touch. Slightly warm to mildly hot depending on what I'm doing. And that is using the 5v plug!
To make sure the VF-700 was working right, I ran a torture test. LOMAC on Max detail level with AF 2x and FSAA at 2x in a six-plane dogfight lasting about twenty minutes. Granted, the frame-rate rarely climbed above 15, but nothing crapped out. If something had, the GPU would've melted down and I'd be running a back-up 9200 card right now. Nothing over-heated, tripped an error, or set off any alarms. Previously, running LOMAC beyond 30 minutes would trigger various graphical errors such as snow falling whenever I looked South. Haven't seen that glitch yet!
Conclusions are thus:
Pros: Your video card will be COLD. Any prior heat problems you may have had will mostly be gone. The VF-700 comes with all the hardware you'll need, plus extras in case you lose something. And the 7-year warranty isn't exactly something to sneeze at. Newegg wants $30 plus shipping; a steal considering not only how well it cools but how much cheaper it is compared to a new video card. As if that wasn't enough, it'll mount to pretty much any card out there. From the Radeon 9200 all the way to the X850, and nearly every nVidia card, too.
Cons: She's
B I G, large enough to require a free PCI slot below your chosen mount. Not because it needs an exhaust vent, but because the fan and copper fins stick out so far. Need a visual? Look at your graphics card. This unit will go from top to AGP/PCIe slot and cover most of it width-wise. Plus it'll stick out a little further than whatever stock cooler you've got.
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Flakbait [Delta6]
