360° View - Zalman
FC-ZV9 VGA Heatsink
Information on
Frostytech's test methodology is available
here. | |
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The
Heatsink Fan: The eleven bladed translucent impeller on this
15mm thick 80mm fan creates a moderate amount of airflow through the copper
cooling fins, and practically no noise. Compared to some stock VGA heatsink fans, the
FC-ZV9 is refreshingly quiet. The fan can be controlled with the Zalman Fan
Mate 2 to operate at between 1650-3600RPM. Power comes via a standard 3-pin motherboard fan
header which supports RPM monitoring. When installed, the Zalman FC-ZV9
VGA heatsink will occupy one additional PCI slot worth of space adjacent
to the videocard. |
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Heatsink Top:
The copper fins are 30mm long, 0.1mm thick. A specialized cast aluminum
mounting bracket accomodates five different mounting hole patterns. Because the heatsink is set off-center to
the base, exhaust airflow blows down onto the VGA memory which is located adjacent
to the GPU. |
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Heatsink Side A: The nickel-plated
copper fins are spaced 1.5mm apart along the outer edge, and stand
18mm high. The entire FC-ZV9 heatsink is only 30mm tall. The heatpipes are
soldered to the copper fins to reduce thermal resistance at the joint.
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Heatsink Side B: The thin 4mm
thick nickel-plated copper base is soldered to the two 5mm diameter copper heatpipes,
and the aluminum frame is subsequently screwed into place on top. |
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Heatsink Base:
The base of the FC-ZV9 VGA heatsink is 30mm in diameter, and
the two heatpipes
both pass close to the GPU core. This size base should cover the
vast majority of GPU's on the market, from both the Geforce and Radeon stables. The surface
finish is excellent, no doubt because the copper base has been nickel plated after it
was machined. Surface roughness is at or better than ~2 microinches, which is excellent.
The base is perfectly flat in both axis.
The five sets of mounting holes for different
videocard configurations flank the base here. A small metal post screws into the aluminum
frame, and that passes through the videocard PCB.
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