Hey everyone,

What would be the "acceptable" range of PC system (case) temperatures to cool a GF4 Ti4600 passively with a ZM80A-HP? Thanks!

P.S. I was thinking of maybe buying a ZM80A-HP from Fry's Electronics, but to my personal experience and talk with friends, it is to my understanding that the products sold at Fry's are not always too reliable. I would hate to put a ZM80A-HP onto a GF4 and find out that my card fried. Does anyone know if buying the zalman product from Fry's is ANY DIFFERENT than getting it from a place like Sharkacorp.com? Any experiences would be great to hear!

Guys . . . guys?

I'd love to answer, but I don't own a ZM80.


(Just wanted you to know that you weren't being ignored)

Based on the review by Brett W., looks like mid-50s C is about as high as you want the GPU to hit -- assuming the same temp reading point. Ideally, seems like you want it to be below 50C.

Brett's results were obtained with the toughest stress stess he could find, with no case airflow other than that provided by the PSU. With more case airflow, the ZM80 does considerably better.

A 80mm fan over the VGA+ZM80 is probably the most effective quiet cooling for hot VGA cards at this point.

ZM80 and most Zalman HS come in plastic bubblewrap that is sealed, stapled, etc. Why would Fry's do anything to make a passive device bad? I can't see it being a risk to buy the zm80 from Fry's.

The simple answer is you can't unless your case is very cold which is unlikey to be the case unless you have a freezer case. Have you read the review here?

You could cool it with a fan hanging over the VGA coooler running at low voltages though. This will be very quiet..

thanks mikeC and rusty075. but i was kind of wondering if I what case temps would be acceptable to run a zm80a-hp fanless reliably. btw, i don't think Fry's would DELIBERATELY sabotage a passive heatsink device -- my concern is that Fry's ALWAYS repackages returned products regardless if they are defective or not. my friend bought all of his parts for a PC he built a few years ago from Fry's and the 52X creative labs CD-ROM, 1.4 GHz Athlon CPU, and Abit KG7-RAID mobo were all dead parts. When he went to return them, the he told the lady at the return desk that the parts were defective. the lady just had the packages re-shrink wrapped, and put a "Fry's QUALITY GUARANTEED" label on them and had another guy place them back on the shelves! The company's businesses practices are sooo bad, I have never bought anything expensive from Fry's: i think the only thing ive bought from there is a bag of chips and a LAN cable. Nevertheless, though, I must say that Fry's Electronics DOES have the BEST selection in computer electronics for a actual retail store (don't have to pay no shipping and you can return without any extra fees).

I really don't think that your absolute case temp is the issue with using the ZM80. Even when I tested it OUTSIDE of a case in a 23C environment the temps of the GPU went up over 50C. The key to making it work well is to have quiet but sufficient airflow. IMO, even if you used the ZM80 in a VERY COLD ambient environment you would still need some airflow to disipate the heat.

Oh...and quit complaining about Fry's...the best we've got here on the east coast is Compusa.

Brett

Yup, Compusa sucks especially in the cooling department, but it's pretty much the only halfway-decent offline retailer.

I want to get a ZM-50 (my Radeon's fan is loud as hell it turns out). I do plan on having airflow over the top side though, b/c my exhaust fan is right above the AGP slot.

I wonder if a ZM-50 plus an 80mm fan could cool my G4 4200 sufficiently? The ZM-80 is way too heavy, in my opinion.

Dumb question. Is a ZM-50 even mountable on a 4200?

would it be better if i got a setup with an aluminum case with 2 rear 80mm Panaflo L1A's for exhaust, zalman 300 apf, and a zalman fan bracket cooler? thanks guys.




p.s.



brett, i feel for you.

Aluminum won't help keep the case any cooler than if it was the identical case made out of steel. This "aluminum cases are cooler than steel cases" thinking is a crock. Anandtech did a test were they swapped out the guts between a steel SX10x0 clone and one of the aluminum knock-offs of it. The case temps and CPU temps remained virtually identical.

Check into the Antec SLK3700AMB case. It has 120mm fan mounts in the front and the back. I've posted pictures of it in the SPCR Gallery. This case has the best ventilation of any that I've ever used and is the first case that has replaced my beloved Antec SX10x0 case. It's also pretty wide which gives plenty of room for the Zalman fan bracket to mount with unobstructed airflow in front of it. Other pluses are the rubber-grommet mounting points for the HDDs to keep them quieter and the built-in front fan filter to keep dust out of the case.

Also look at the main page for the review of the Antec Sonata. It's kind of the big brother of the SLK3700 and looks like it should be the Top Dog in the quiet case field. Not available yet though.

With a case temperature of around 30 degrees my Geforce TI4400 with the ZALMAN heatpipe heatsink runs at 45 degrees.

I can play Earth and Beyond all day without any problems in this configuration.

I wouldn't put a ZM-50 on a Ti 4200. I tried putting a ZM-50 on the GF3 on my girlfriend's computer (a Dell), and it overheated, crashing frequently during her favorite and only game, The Sims.

Last night, I was bored and started playing around. I made this contraption that cools the ZM80 down to just barely warm levels, under load. It's a fan and a PCI slot cover, with 2 holes drilled through it. I run the fan at 12v, because I can't hear any difference in volume sitting at my desk. Perhaps, if you have room, you could do something like this. (I still don't have a temp monitor, so I can't specify exactly what 'barely warm' is other than it's...barely warm. )

im curious about the zm80, i plan on getting the antec sonata case when it comes out and conviently there is a place for a 120mm intake fan which would blow onto the the heatpipe and then across both sides of the rest of the card, (understand? its a front case fan not a side case fan).
My question is which part of the zm80 gets the hottest/ which part do i need to have airflow on?

@ auxyone: your graphic card is really bended due the zalman

pay attention!

Hehe.. No, it's my digi camera (you'll see that the heatpipe itself looks that way too). It only appears to look so bad, but in reality it's much straighter than that.

The FRONT gets the hottest but in order for the ZM80 to function properly, idealy the fan should only blow on the back side heat sink. Read what I mention in the review towards the end, about the back HS sitting up off of the back of the board, and the reason why it is done this way.

If the front side heat sink is too cool the entire assembly won't function well becasue no heat will ever reach the back (dissapative) part of the heat pipe.

Brett

youve seen the pictures of the antec sonata case right? so if i had a fanless radeon 9700 pro and had the intake 120mm fan blowing across it that would be bad?