Zalman ZM80D-HP with a Westy touch

[therealwesty]

Here it is! I got a Zalman dual heatpipe VGA cooler today and rigged it up with a YSTech TMD fan!

http://home.cogeco.ca/~cwest7/images/ZalmanTMD.jpg

I took some temperature readings at stock speed and got some nice improvements...

Stock Cooler:
Idle: 45ºC
Load : 75ºC

Zalman with TMD
Idle: 38ºC
Load : 58ºC

I haven't got to see if I can overclock any higher... I just got it together and was excited to get the pics up. I will let you all know if I can push it any higher.

<b>Edit:</b> I put a better picture up.. show's off the pipes more.

[PCgeek]

Damn foo those are some nice temps. I didn't think the heatpipe heatsinks performed so nicely. Work on the thread name though :p

[Nova]

oh god thats so beutiful :), and as for "some" improvement, almost 20C on load diff is quite some improvement if you ask me :) *thinks about getting one for a card he doesnt even own yet*

nice tweak btw with the fan you stuck in there :)

oh btw, did i mention how beutiful it looks :)

[TranceJunkieXL]

Damn foo those are some nice temps. I didn't think the heatpipe heatsinks performed so nicely. Work on the thread name though :p
What're you talking about PCGeek? My single heatpipe performed same as stock without the fan and overclocked a considerable number of MHz higher with one blowing on it.
BTW Westy, using the TMD rather than Zalman's probably improved it's cooling power even more.;)

[in54n3]

lol that looks so cool

[PCgeek]

I never really looked at any reviews or any temp readings with the Zalman. Its just that the design doesnt look that efficient... but apparently it is lol

[therealwesty]

Thanks for the replies guys! I got a little better overclocks on both the core and the memory with the new cooler.

Stock Cooler:
Core - 570MHz
Mem - 582MHz (1164MHz)

Zalman & TMD:
Core - 580MHz
Mem - 600MHz (1200MHz)

I haven't got any great new 3DMark scores yet because I am having some trouble with my NB cooling... once I get that leveled out we'll see!

[Sadistic]

I like it, just would have mounted the fan in a diff spot. instead of the top I probably would done the GPU side of the sink, offcenterd to let the max amount of air possible from the fan hit the center of the GPU side. Is there some backstory to this choice of setup?

[therealwesty]

Do to the way the cooler assembly attaches to the GPU the fan is actually blowing directly onto the block that is making direct contact with the GPU. As well, with the fan positioned like that there is good air movement around both the cooling plates to maximize the effect of the heat pipes. The GPU is actually buried under about 1.5" of aluminum if you were to look straight at it from the front of the card. I don't think the fan on the front directly over the GPU would be nearly as effective, especially since the folks at Zalman spent a lot of time designing this cooler to share the heat among both plates as much as possible.

[JoshKorn12]

Will that setup work on a Geforce 6800 gt?

[therealwesty]

It should... but there is a slight chance one of the bits attached to the PCB could interfere with it.

Zalman does offer an optional 80mm low noise fan solution as well. But I had the spare TMD around and I am more concerned with cooling power than the low noise aspect. That said though, the TMD is attached to my fan controller so I can turn it down to low speeds and it's near silent while still keeping the card plenty cool.

[GNXtreme]

Kinda like what I did to my 9800pro.....
<img src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v351/GNXtreme/9800pro1.jpg">

plus I have a 92mm fan in the door of my case that also blows on it....

[grafton26]

It looks cool westy, you might want to mount your fan in line with the fins on the heatsink though, it might get even better lol :D

[photon6786]

I have a question. My stock fan on my 9800xt card is at 73 degrees idle. I am wanting to purchase one of those VGA coolers...if i get the zalman one, could I put a 80mm tornado fan mounted on the heat sink, insead of the other 80mm fans shown attatched to the video card? If so, how much do you think that would help to keeping it cooler

[Avid6eek]

photon6786...Welcome to PCStats!

You most certainly could mount a Tornado to the side of the VGA cooler. 73C sounds extremely warm. I wouldn't think your GPU would run stable at that temp, expecially considering it is idle. Your temp probe may have a wrong reading, so it really is hard to say how much cooler your card will run. One thing that is certain, with a tornado, it would definetly run cooler, so if that's your goal, go for it.

[photon6786]

Hey again. One last quesion. Well i did buy the heatsink and the fan for the 9800xt. Also I am buying a new heatsink for my processor. My question is, what thermal compound should i put on them? like, when i build pcs, i use coolermaster brand compound. I also have read that arctic silver is really good. One thing about arctic silver thats got me kinda staying away from it is that, my friend bought some arctic silver to put on the heatsink for the processor...and when he tried to pull the heatsink off a month later, it pulled the whole processor out too....so im not too sure about that. But what are yalls opinions. :) Because the cooler master compound that i use isnt like glue at all. Would it make that much of a difference between the arctic silver compound compared to the coolermaster compound? :D Thanks

[ElrichMeister]

haha your freind prolly bought artic silver epoxy and actually glued it lol. well artic silver 5 is really good, its not glue at all. all you have to do is but a small paper thin layer across the core of the cpu, and make sure to clean the old junk with rubbing alcohol or acetone. and artic silver is conductive, so make sure it doesnt go anywhere else but the core and heatsink

[therealwesty]

The temperature sensor from the ATi drivers that is found in the display properties tends to read 15-20ºC high. Colin suggested RivaTuner to get more accurate readings.

Regarding the paste, when I assembled my Zalman I used good ol' Arctic Silver 5 on the CPU core and then used the normal white stuff that came in the Zalman kit on all the spots where the heat pipes contact the heatsink.

[photon6786]

How does something like this look?....

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=35-100-008&depa=0

or.....should i just get the smaller one. I do build pcs on the side....so im not sure if i am just tempted enough to buy the bigger one.

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=35-100-007&depa=0

[therealwesty]

Oh the smaller one is really lots. I've had the same 3.5 gram tube for almost a year and I am not half way through it yet. And that's pretty regular useage to, easily more than 25 applications on a CPU or GPU core over the year.

[photon6786]

Alright. MY last questions is, I bought a new heatsink ALX-800 and I purchased a tornade fan to go on it. I have a 2800+ Barton on a Abit NF7-S. My question is how high do you think i could overclock it to? Is there a utility to help me and test how high it can go to? Thanks

[ElrichMeister]

it all depends on your temperatures, and the quality of the processor. I dunno when you got your 2800+ cause all the new ones are locked, so you cant mess with the multiplier. and the way you can find out how far you can go is to run Prime95, and let it run for 10-20 min so that it can check if its stable. and just run other apps like, games n stuff

[photon6786]

Does anyone know of a utility to check the processor temp besides going into the bios....im too lazy :P

[bluegreenshxt]

motherboard monitor 5

[therealwesty]

Most Barton core AthlonXPs seem to top out between 2.3 and 2.4GHz. With the higher multiplier in the 2800 you might not be able to hit the same FSB as some of the guys with 2500s. In fact with the multiplier locked at 12.5 your FSB is likely going to top-out at about 180MHz before the CPU has had enough.

[photon6786]

I have one last question. I bought a zalman zm80d-hp for my vid card. In the package, it comes with its own thermal grease. Should i use that, or should I use the arctic silver thermal compound I just recently purchased

[Avid6eek]

If you already have AS, I would definetly use that.

[Crax]

When in doubt... use AS5 :)