We dry fit the heat pipe on the card to make sure it wouldn't be getting in the way of any other components, and to check that the Heatsink Base Assemblies were aligned properly. The heatpipe Zalman use is made of gold plated copper. The gold plating is purely for show, and I suppose to prevent oxidation of the copper surface. The heatpipe is very soft and can be broken easily if bent in the wrong direction. Since heatpipes work only as long as they are not punctured, and oriented properly, be very careful when handling the pipe. If it is bent and cracks, it will be useless.

On the rear side of the card we can see that the Heatsink Base Assembly is not quite aligned right (there is a small bend in the heatpipe), so we'll make a few further adjustments before adding the main heatsinks to the unit.

There are two large heatsinks which screw onto the Base Heatsink Assembly. They look almost identical but are totally different so don't get them confused. To help out, Zalman have labeled them Front and Back. The little arrows which are also on the base assemblies indicates that side should be pointing down.

This is the front side heatsink and in the next few steps this is going to be attached over the heatpipe and base assembly and then screwed into place firmly. To keep the thermal joints between each component as efficient as possible we will be using a small amount of silicon based thermal compound. Apart from maybe upgrading the compound to a ceramic based compound there isn't much you can do. Adding a material like arctic Silver would probably be just a waste of time.