Hello everyone,

can anyone tell me which Radeon 8500 Boards actually have two holes around the VPU?
I would like to use the new Zalman ZM-80 Heatpipe VGA Cooler on my PowerMagic 8500LE card but I had to find out that it didn't feature any cooler-mounting holes at all...
So can anyone tell me which boards feature those holes?
Does the AIW Radeon8500 (non-DV!) have them? From the reviews I read it didn't really loook like it does... :/

well I had a bit of a looky round for the u and came up with a gigabyte card http://www.digit-life.com/articles/gigar8500/index.html if u look at the graphic in the screen shot of it's monitoring utililty it says 44c now considering that it's got a lil fan setup on it I'd say that u'd have problems trying to cool the radeon 8500LE of yours down to a decent level with just the Zalman ZM17Cu but don't despair! just get a PCI slot cover and bend it so u can mount a fan pointing at the Zm17Cu or any decent sized/shaped heatsink for that matter I managed to acheive nice and quiet cooling at 34-40c with that and my Geforce DDR which runs at like 60c with stock cooling setup good luck

Thanks for the info

The Gigabyte card seems to be alright. The only other card with mounting holes were boards from Xelo, which are supposed not to have a second RAMDAC.
Originally I intendet to buy an AIW Radeon8500 (the newer one clocked at 275MHz), but I guess it wouldn't be possible to cool this one really silently. So I guess i'll have to go with a card that features mounting holes, so the new zalman Heatpipe (not the ZM17Cu!) can do it's job. I know its not the besto cooling option available, but at least it should be able to cool down a radeon 8500 completely passive.
Any otehr suggestions about SILENT cooling of 'stock' Radeon 8500 (without holes, like the AIW 8500) would be appreciated though.

Sorry I don't have an answer for you but if you know a reseller for the ZM-80 please post it, thanks.

I do know one but... It's in Germany, so I guess it won't be of much help to you. it is www.pcsilent.de

my radeon has the holes.

they're ATI Radeon 8500 128mb retail (NON-LE) version.

I know finally got myself a Gigabyte Radeon 8500LE (with mounting holes) but well now i'm not too sure if the zalman HP would be a good solution after all. There have been a many many reviews on this Heatpipe and most of them stated that a *lot* of heat would build up around the graphics card and this might become a problem within my Mini(!) Tower without active ventilation; the only fans are the Arctic Cooling Super Silent Pro CPU Cooler and the Fan within the Zalman ZM300A-APF (mounted right over the CPU Cooler due to the mini tower's size). So I fear the ZM-80 HP might do no good to my system And onother thing that is really holding me back from this product is that t seems to be quiete heavy, and there are more and more users who say they would even remove the heatpipe for transport. This is *no* option for me since my system has to be highly mobile (therefor the mini tower - a suntek bravo).
So now I'm kinda lost.... don't know what to do.
For my CPU (currently an AthlonXP 1700+) I'm sure I will go for the soon-to-be-anounced Verax P14 Cu - Copper Version of the current P14 Model, due in December - which should be sufficent to cool any upgrade CPU I may choose in the future as well (at least that is what the nice guy over at verax told me).
But the rest....?
There is the ZM-300A-APF blowing al the hot air out of my case and actually i think it is too loud with it's stock fan..... so now what? Everyone over there in the USA seems to be swearing on Panaflo or something. Well i read some review covering the panaflo, a vantec and two papst and it seemed clear that the papst was by far the quietest of the pack.
So... papst or verax? I would favour verax because I had some bad experience with Noiseblocker Fans that were *quieter* than anything else I knew until then but still way too loud for my taste (the NB fans seem to be rebranded papst fans, right?).
So well... i read a lot of bad opinions on Verax but most of them seem to come from people stating that they are using "400+Watt PSUs to power their overclocked P4s" and they seem to use the Verax for case ventilation....
maybe i should just take 'NB UltraSilent S2' put it in the Zalman and power it with only 5V or something? (If i find out how to do this best within this PSU)

What to do with my radeon8500LE?
There is a solution available over here with a larger-than-usual heaatsink (for graphics cards that is) and a 'silent' papst 60mm fan, that can be used at 5V which is said to be *really* quiet.... but i don't know i wanted to be sure and cool it passively..... but on the other hand this solution would be sufficent for a future upgrade to a 9700 as well.....

Aaaaany ideas how to aid a desperate soul?



...help?!...

Adapt a Zalman fan bracket & use a quiet 80-92mm fan to blow air on either side of the Radeon 8500. Pull the wee fan off the Radeon; maybe use the ZM-17. I use this perpendicular 80mm fan over the VGA card on every PC. It works great, airflow on both sides on the card, stability is never an issue, and very quiet. BUT I have not had one of the really hot cards on my hands. Is an 8500 that hot?

Well yeah i *think* the Radeon 8500LE runs rather cool. Compared to other Chips like GF2/3/4 that is. So If anyone has an idea how to decently cool this chip without a fan, this would be nice.... the Zm-80 seems to be really heavy :/