Zalman VF3000A review

I made a little review of Zalman's new cooler for Radeon HD 58xx-family!
Zalman VF3000A!

Box of VF3000A
http://i882.photobucket.com/albums/a...g?t=1275167792

..and inside of the box i found these:
http://i882.photobucket.com/albums/a...g?t=1275167819

VF3000A itself!
http://i882.photobucket.com/albums/a...g?t=1275167847

Back of the cooler, 120 aluminum fins and pure copper bottom.
http://i882.photobucket.com/albums/a...g?t=1275167886

Mirror polished bottom!
http://i882.photobucket.com/albums/a...g?t=1275167911

Big vrm-sink! It works very well also!:up:
http://i882.photobucket.com/albums/a...g?t=1275167937

Cooler installed on Radeon HD 5870.
http://i882.photobucket.com/albums/a...g?t=1275167974

Components:
- VF3000A
- VGA RAM Heatsink
- Thermal Grease (ZM-STG2M)
- Rubber Rings
- PVC Washers
- Fixing Nuts
- Springs
- Nipples
- FET Heatsink
- Rubber Washers
- Fixing Pins
- FAN MATE 2
- FAN MATE 2 cable
- Double-sided Tape
- User’s Manual

http://i882.photobucket.com/albums/a...g?t=1275233849

Time to show some numbers!:yepp:

Test system:
AMD Phenom II X6 1090T BE @ 4200MHz / 2800MHz
Noctua NH-D14
Asus Crosshair IV Formula
Corsair Dominator GT @ 6-6-6-18 1T 1600MHz
Corsair HX1000W
Samsung F1 750Gb
Samsung DVD-RW USB2
Dimastech Bench/Test Table Hard V2.5 Inox
BenQ G2411HD
Windows 7

Ati Radeon HD 5870 @ stock and oc'd to 1000MHz 1.25v core and 1275MHz for mem!
http://i882.photobucket.com/albums/a...g?t=1275168026

Results:
http://i882.photobucket.com/albums/a...g?t=1275233976

Those are average value's of GPU Temp #1,2 and 3 and VDDC Phase #1,2,3 and 4.
Difference of those were max 4°C and 5°C. Ambient temp was around 23-24°C.

GPU-Z screens:

Stalker:
GPU-Z GPU-Z GPU-Z GPU-Z

Unigine Heaven 2.0:
GPU-Z GPU-Z GPU-Z GPU-Z

MSI Kombustor:
GPU-Z GPU-Z GPU-Z GPU-Z

Fans are little too loud when running at 100% speed, after reducing speed to 70% i couldnt here those back of those Xigmatec fans!

I must say this cooler was better than i thought, price/quality value is very good on this one, costed "only" 45€!:clap:

I Hope You Liked!:welcome:

nice!
it sure looks ugly :D
that pinkish red is pretty meh... reminds me of old gainward cards :D
i like the memory heatsinks though... and the fans look nice n big...
the shroud looks ugly... really hard to believe that this is a zalman heatsink...
ive used zalman stuff for almost 10 years now... this looks like thermalright to me, not at all like zalman...

did you happen to have some numbers of the stock heatsink?
would be interesting to compare stock vs this heatsink!

I didnt run test's with stock cooler cause i had Arctic Cooling Accelero TT Pro installed when i had this.
But i can say that with TT Pro and stock cooler i was unable to pass MSI Kombustor test's without having
temps for more than 90°C and card started throthling, my card might run hotter than most 5870's(?).

Finally someone has a review up of one of these.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by saaya

really hard to believe that this is a zalman heatsink...
ive used zalman stuff for almost 10 years now... this looks like thermalright to me, not at all like zalman...

---

You mean thermaltake? Last I checked thermalright doesn't even put colors on the box, much less the product :shrug:

very nice i like the colors especially the ram sinks that match but is the red covering over the main heatsink a die-cast metal or is it made of plastic?

Good one Asmola... temp differences with the boxed cooler would be nice , you still got info on those ?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Leeghoofd

Good one Asmola... temp differences with the boxed cooler would be nice , you still got info on those ?

---

I tried to find some screens with stock cooler but couldnt find any, but i found furmark screen with TT Pro
and with stock cooler temps were almost the same, but temps didn't rise so quickly with stock cooler.

http://i882.photobucket.com/albums/a...g?t=1275247089

Here some benches with 5870 feat VF3000A, 1100MHz 1.35v was undoable with 24c ambients but
1080MHz with same volts was pretty stable! Good enough i think?

3DMark Vantage
http://i882.photobucket.com/albums/a...g?t=1275216676

Unigine Heaven 2.0
http://i882.photobucket.com/albums/a...g?t=1275216864

Stone Giant
http://i882.photobucket.com/albums/a...g?t=1275216884

Alien Vs Predator Benchmark
http://i882.photobucket.com/albums/a...g?t=1275216912

Finally got another VF3000A and istalled it to my second 5870. Here some cf idle temps and stress with Kombustor Xtreme Burning Mode (5min):

Idle:
http://i7.aijaa.com/b/00295/6308060.png

Kombustor Xtreme Burning Mode:
http://i8.aijaa.com/b/00115/6308055.png

Here pic of VF3000A cf install, there are about 3cm space between those cards:
http://i882.photobucket.com/albums/a...g?t=1276246333

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by saaya

nice!
it sure looks ugly :D
that pinkish red is pretty meh... reminds me of old gainward cards :D
i like the memory heatsinks though... and the fans look nice n big...
the shroud looks ugly... really hard to believe that this is a zalman heatsink...
ive used zalman stuff for almost 10 years now... this looks like thermalright to me, not at all like zalman...

did you happen to have some numbers of the stock heatsink?
would be interesting to compare stock vs this heatsink!

---

you must be confused or maybe you never used zalman before, they are the ones who make fancy coolers with orange/blue colors like the VF800/900/1000 etc etc. As someone rightly pointed out, Thermalright do not use fancy colors even on their box let alone the coolers

How tight a fit is there between if only 1 slot open? Can you post pic of top view to get an idea. I need to pick a good slender double slot only cooler as I need the PCI-E on bottom and have only double spacing for top card. I've always loved the big ThermalRights but he offerings are too think for this build.