News: Zalman VF900-Cu ti hit market on 6th March

[Cooper]

As K-hardware reported it`s gonna be very soon

Price: 44€ or ~$40 for Europe and US

Few more pics:



REVIEW

[nn_step]

Kick ass.. I want one...

[korda]

Arctic Cooling Accelero X2 is available here now, but i think i'm gonna wait for VF900 instead. This thing looks awesome.

[alexio]

It won't be very impressive. The heatpipes don't look effective at all.

[physics_geek]

Is it enough for GeForce 7900GTX?

[Starscream]

Is it enough for GeForce 7900GTX?

depends atm nothing is really known about the heat production of the 7900.
if it can cool a X1900xt properly it should b enough for the 7900 i think.

[Cooper]

I wonder why heatpipes don`t look efective ? Remember that it`s NOT important how they are situated, cos it`s vacuum inside It`s more important what kinda liquid is inside - resp. it`s boiling T

[nn_step]

depends atm nothing is really known about the heat production of the 7900.
if it can cool a X1900xt properly it should b enough for the 7900 i think.

it's little brother can cool the X1900XT so I think the Big Brother should definately be able to handle that and more...

[Starscream]

it's little brother can cool the X1900XT so I think the Big Brother should definately be able to handle that and more...

usualy yes your right but ive read to many posts about people having temp issues with a X1900 in combination with a zalman.

some X1900 tend to run alot hotter then the ones you usuauly see around in reviews.

[alexio]

I wonder why heatpipes don`t look efective ?

The fan blows most of the air right to the card, missing the heapipes which are situated more to the sides where less air flows. As you will know the closer the heat is taken away from the source the better. That's also the reason why heatsinks don't have 1cm thick baseplates. And don't forget that it only has 2 heatpipes, and they aren't even big. If you compare it to a high performance cpu heatsink you know what I mean, they mostly have atleast 4.
The design of this heatsink looks a bit like the Zalman 9500, where also the most of the air the fan blows misses the heatpipe area intirely.

One other thing is that normally fins are often above the core area, above the heatpipes in the base. You can see this in the Thermalright heatsinks. In the Zalman there are no fins at the base so the area above the core can only loose it's heat trough the heatpipes. You can see that most of the fin surface of the cooler is totally unused as only in the small area of the fins right around the heatpipes the heat is taken away effectively, but in this case most of the air doesn't even pass this area.

Remember that it`s NOT important how they are situated, cos it`s vacuum inside It`s more important what kinda liquid is inside - resp. it`s boiling T

I should have stated the cooler is ineffective, and not the heatpipes themself They are only placed in an inefective position.

[Cooper]

Have to agree with you alexio - yr statements are quite right. But let`s wait for the benches. IMO this one is better than VF700

[onewingedangel]

the heatpipes job is to transport heat from one part of the cooler to another - they arent the cooling surface themselves. thwe design seems to removes a portion of the heat from the centre and move it to the outside edge, whilst heat will also radiate from the centre as usual. This means that the heat will come from both the middle and outside edges, which effectively increases the useful surface area, - as usually the centre is hot with the edges cooler - by having the heatpipes the heat load is spread more effectively over the heatsink - which means greater efficiency in removing the heat.

[Vapor]

If I'm not mistaken, wasn't the design mission to make a single-slot cooler as good as the VF700, nothing more?

Also, the core contact area is scary small

[Cooper]

Small ? Show me GPU that it won`t cover

[guess2098]

i will take one

[alexio]

the heatpipes job is to transport heat from one part of the cooler to another - they arent the cooling surface themselves.

Well, they are damn good as coolingsurface themselves and the pieces of the fins very close to it.

thwe design seems to removes a portion of the heat from the centre and move it to the outside edge, whilst heat will also radiate from the centre as usual.

Seems this is not the case as the fins aren't really touching the base

This means that the heat will come from both the middle and outside edges, which effectively increases the useful surface area, - as usually the centre is hot with the edges cooler - by having the heatpipes the heat load is spread more effectively over the heatsink - which means greater efficiency in removing the heat.

Still even if the fins were attached to the base the heatpipes would still perform better closer to the middle, but in this case the heat isn't spread from the core so the heatpipes are totally wrong on the outer edges, but they chose this as it is impossible to manufacture this design in another way. Zalman has chosen for looks rather than performance with it's 9500 cpu cooler and now the V900.

[Cobalt]

Alexio, seeing as you don't know how it is constructed, obviously don't know the finer points of heat dissapation and are making poor observational evidence sound like a fact, why don't you wait for some reviews before making blanket statements.

Its a pet peeve of mine when people say a product is going to be rubbish before anyone expect the producers know anything about it.

Besides zalman have always gone for silence over performance in the past so I don't expect that to change now.

[DilTech]

When is Zalman going to learn to solder the fins to the heatpipes instead of crimping them? This has been a problem with every zalman heat-pipe cooler, they lose alot of cooling due to this.

It's something thermalright realized real quick, but other companies still haven't learned....

[alexio]

Alexio, seeing as you don't know how it is constructed, obviously don't know the finer points of heat dissapation and are making poor observational evidence sound like a fact, why don't you wait for some reviews before making blanket statements.

I'm waiting and please don't insult me, I know what I'm talking about. My guess is that it will be a little worse on lower power GPU's than the VF700 and a little better on the high power gpu's, but we'll see.

My observations aren't poor, the heatsink is desinged poorly. And you know what? People don't give a damn about the guesses I make now when the reviews are up so I'm hurting nobody here, just trying to share my knowledge. And if you have another opinion than that's fine and you should share it with us. Show us the "finer points of heat dissapation" so we can learn something here at XS.

I know my stuff, so please don't make me look like a fool talking

Its a pet peeve of mine when people say a product is going to be rubbish before anyone expect the producers know anything about it.

They just want to make it look nice, trust me

Besides zalman have always gone for silence over performance in the past so I don't expect that to change now.

The 7000 and 7700 cpu coolers were pretty nice, but the 9500 cooler just can't keep up with the compitition even though it's priced higher.

[alexio]

When is Zalman going to learn to solder the fins to the heatpipes instead of crimping them? This has been a problem with every zalman heat-pipe cooler, they lose alot of cooling due to this.

It's something thermalright realized real quick, but other companies still haven't learned....

You mean they cool the pipes down with for example LN2 so they schrink and heat up the fins so their holes grow and make the heatpipe fit? I guessed they used this kind of technique. You're right that soldering can yield better performance if it is done right.

[nn_step]

with all do respect bickering isn't going to answer any questions, we need benchmarks and measurements for that...

[biohead]

if they only made it twice as big.. cool design, just so teeny tiny

[Absolute_0]

I don't see why the heatpipes won't work... heatpipe is meant to carry the heat from the small circular base to the fins, and the fins are cooled by the fan.

Energy transfer is CPU->base->heatpipes->fins-> fanned into the air

But of course heatpipes are only to help facilitate the movement of heat from the base to the fins. I dont see how it's wrong though... doesn't matter that no air passes over the heatpipes Alexio, they are meant to move heat as stated above - you don't need air flowing over them.

[alexio]

But of course heatpipes are only to help facilitate the movement of heat from the base to the fins. I dont see how it's wrong though... doesn't matter that no air passes over the heatpipes Alexio, they are meant to move heat as stated above - you don't need air flowing over them.

Fins are conductive but if you look at it in another way every material insulates. Heat can be taken away best as close to the heatsource which is in this case the heatpipe. So yes, air passing over the heatpipe will pick up the most heat per cm2 and after that the area just around it and so on. If this wouldn't be the case there would be no need for heatpipes. So indeed cold air flowing the closest to the heatpipe will make the deltaT the highest.

If you have a heatpipe with cirkel like fins around it for best performance the heatpipe would be exactly in the middle. I hope you know what I mean now.

[Raja@ASUS]

alexio is spot on, I fell for this with the zalman 9500, I should have known better since I have played around with heatsink and fans with audio amplifiers that were biased high and gave of massive heat wattage.

Basically the best cooling is always achieved when the base of the heatsink had the fins protruding dircetly from it, the same moulding or piece of metal. Using multiple bases bolted or even soldered to each other actually increases the thermal resistence at the junction. In reality the thinnest of fins always carry the heat away fastest, when these are combined with a fan the results are very good.

Fashion has lead to these trends with heatpipes in pc's when warm air should be directed out of the case. However the jucntion temp is also important,and the best approach in these situations would actuall be a 2 fan approach, one pusing air towards the junction between core and base, and another positioned nearby to pull the warm air towards a vent.

Using thick heat pipes with no fins on the base itself is not as effective. If you study that new design you will see that they are relying heavily on the heatpipes to carry the heat a considerable distance before any cooling begins.

Regards
Raja