Zalman VNF100-HP fanless VGA cooler (pics added )

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thejamppa
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Zalman VNF100-HP fanless VGA cooler (pics added )

Post by thejamppa » Thu Mar 26, 2009 3:14 am

Hi all!

Fore words:
I'll be posting pictures bit later when I find my bluetooth dongle etc.

While SPCR community has de facto ruler AC Accerlor S1 rev 2 / S2 in VGA card cooling and many favour the Thermalright VGA coolers, sometimes they do not just cut.

Some data and comparisions:
VNF100 HP weight: 180 grams, 3 copper heatpipes, aluminium base.
Dimensions: 166(L) x 92 (W) x 38,5(H) mm's

AC S1 rev2 weight: 268 grams, 4 copper heatpipes, copper base.
Dimensions: 138(L) x 215(W) x 33(H) mm

AC S2 weight: 202 grams. 2 copper heatpipes, copper base.
Dimensions: 140(L) x 188(W) x 32(H) mm

Thermalright HR-03 rev A weight: 350 Grams. 4 copper heatpipes, copper base, all nickelplated.
Dimensions: 133(L) x 156(W) x 38(H) mm

Size Comparasion with Arctic Cooling S1 rev 2 and Zalman VFN100-HP
Image

Background:
My adventure began when I aquired Asus HD 4670 ( EAH4670/DI/512M ) with native HDMI. Asus has slapped Two slot Arctic Cooling Accelero L1 OEM cooler, which had 80mm slim fan attached. Fan and shroud were bristle plastic, giving a ding sound. Similar to all clear fan and not thud.

Fan was always spinning top speed, even my hald-deaf 64 year-old mother could hear that fan over couple of meters away. Most annoying character was the high tone sound and air ripping. But in exchange temperatures were good. Core was 35 degree's C (Ambedient 24 degree's C ) in idle and no fan control what so ever.

After i failed AC S1 rev2 (heat pipe pumped PCI-expansio slot ) and HR-03 GT ( fan connector ) I decided to go for Zalman, since HIS HD 4670 iSilence4 has VNF100-HP cooler as default.

VNF100-HP
VNF100 is composed of 3 nickel plated copper heatpipes and anodized blue aluminium fins. In Size wize, cooler is considerably smaller than AC S1 rev 2. By looking specs, it doesn't seem so obiously smaller but in real life difference is quite bit.

Installation is not complicated, even its puzzle. First you choose from two sockets which has appropriate holes. Socket B was for HD 4670. The mirro shined aluminium center. Yes, its aluminium and not copper as many would have though, with three heatpipe grooves are aseembled with TIM ( Arctic Silver Ceramique in this case ) The assembly reminded of old Zalman passive coolers dating back AGP-era.

Everything went smoothly but Asus card has slightly different component placement, so the final alimnium piece had to be modified slightly with dieamond file, so the attachment piece that secures heat pipes, doesn't bend a soldi condensador. I just wonder why Zalman had to make so excessive design for it as it serves mostly as aesthetics.

The bottom side of the card installed. The bottom fins are excessive size IMHO, I had to use Diamond file to make clearance between a capacitor and fins.
Image

The cooling fins come top of the card and bottom has 3 plastic support bars to keep fins in place.

Due I had previously installed 4 Arctic Cooling Accelero's, I was surprised by Zalman ram sinks. They attached on memories like magnets. There was absolutely no need of pressing them more than a second to secure rams sinks.

Temperatures:

Ambedient temperature was 25 degree's C. Case has one Nexus @ 12v exhaust and Slipstream 500 fan as Intake and PSU has 120mm Scythe S-flex fan RPM'ing 500 rpm's.

In cold boot Zalman gave 35 degree's C. That's two degree's better than OEM cooler with sticky stuff, which gave around 37. OEM cooler with Ceramique gave 33 degree's C in cold boot.

I ran few times Aquamrk and other benchmarks whiel HWmonitor 1.13 was running on background. Highest temperature it recorded was around 52 degrees. I have to install 3Dmark06 to get more stress as 3Dmark01 and 03 are not enough. Aquamark 3 alone rose GPU temperature to 45 degree's.

After benchmarks. temperatures settled around 35-37 degree's C in few minutes.

Temperatures surprised me honestly. Since base was alumnium and not copper but with copper heat pipes and entirely VNF100-HP is smaller than any of Accelero's I quite did not expect these good temperatures. HD 4670 is said to be one cool card, but VNF100-HP did not seemed even sweat keeping its temperatures down passively.


Conclusion:
This Heatsink has surprised me. Even in Finland its roughly 30% more expensive than Accelero S-series, its cooling performance for lower midrange cards and rather compact size makes it worthy candidate for HTPC set-ups. VNF100-HP as completely passive cooler lacks Zalman's weakspot: Fan. The buildquality of VNF100-HP was excellent, nothing short of what we've learned to expect from Zalman.

In other tests VNF100-HP has managed to cool passively Overclocked 7900 GS, which power consumption is somewhat higher than HD 4670. But I would not use this cooler beyond 9600 GT / HD 4670. As passivly coold, this relies heavily on cases internal air flow.

Once again, I'll be posting pictures later and I will conduct experiment lwith Nexus exhaust fan undervolted once I get change.

If you have questions and I will try to answer them.

The card with Zalman installed on µATX system.
Image

Rebellious
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Post by Rebellious » Sun Mar 29, 2009 5:14 am

Neat, with GPU heatsink mounted on the top side of the card it's perfect for a micro ATX mobo,, except I would remove the "Z" logo.

HIS has 2 models H467PS1GP and H467P1GP, do you know what is the difference between them?

thejamppa
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Post by thejamppa » Sun Mar 29, 2009 6:28 am

Difference between models seems to be memory speed.

H467P1GP
memory speed is: 1746 MHz

H467PS1GP
memory speed is: 1700 Mhz

I haven't found other difference in them.

maf718
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Post by maf718 » Sun Mar 29, 2009 6:30 am

Interesting, looks ideal for HTPC use. Just one question, what is the total width of card and cooler combined? (This would be the total height in a HTPC)

thejamppa
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Post by thejamppa » Sun Mar 29, 2009 6:35 am

maf718 wrote:Interesting, looks ideal for HTPC use. Just one question, what is the total width of card and cooler combined? (This would be the total height in a HTPC)
Good question. I need to measure that. I'll pm you once I've done it and posted result also in here. But looking the heatpipes and structure it can be adjusted bit in Zalman. Its pretty much same with HR-03, which I cannot out right remember what was that combinations width.

Rebellious
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Post by Rebellious » Sun Mar 29, 2009 10:40 am

thejamppa wrote:Difference between models seems to be memory speed.

H467P1GP
memory speed is: 1746 MHz

H467PS1GP
memory speed is: 1700 Mhz

I haven't found other difference in them.
The cards look very different, maybe one idles at 15W and the other at 75W, lol.

Does it support PowerPlay & Hybrid CrossFire?

walle
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Post by walle » Sun Mar 29, 2009 10:42 am

Nice user review thejamppa, thanks for sharing.

:)

LodeHacker
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Post by LodeHacker » Sun Apr 26, 2009 12:11 pm

Hei jamppa where did you buy the ZALMAN?

Thomas
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Post by Thomas » Sun Apr 26, 2009 11:41 pm

thejamppa, that's a nice review: Short, exact and covers almost all I like to know. And it's great to have good alternatives to S1/2 and Thermalright.

Coolflow
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Zalman vs Accelero

Post by Coolflow » Mon Apr 27, 2009 12:11 am

Hi,

Don't know if this will be of interest but I currently run both of these VGA coolers driving a triple monitor setup so I can offer some slight insight into their relative performances.

My setup up is an HD 4850 at stock (GPU 625 / Mem 993) &,
HD 4650 also at stock (GPU 600 / Mem 400)

Both cards sit adjacent to each other with only 1mm gap between the two coolers and the HD 4850 sits above the 4650 (so is probably thermally disadvantaged). There is minimal airflow in the case exhaust and intake fans (Antec Solo) set at 5 volts.

The idle temps are:

HD 4850 with Accelero S1 rev 2 - 48 C
HD 4650 with Zalman - 52 C

As one would expect from a much more compact design, the Zalman is significantly less efficient but far easier to accomodate.

I thought this might help people who are considering these coolers.

Cheers

David

frenchie
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Post by frenchie » Mon Apr 27, 2009 8:01 am

Hi,
I loved this cooler when I was using it on my old GPU. It worked like a charm and it small.
Nice review !!

thejamppa
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Post by thejamppa » Tue Jun 02, 2009 3:33 am

LodeHacker wrote:Hei jamppa where did you buy the ZALMAN?
Sorry for taking long time to answer this one: I ordered it from local retailer who used GNT to get it.

i am not sure its avaibility in finland at the moment.

frenchie
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Post by frenchie » Sat Jun 06, 2009 12:01 am

quietpc.com has it in stock apparently. Don't know what shipping is like to finland though...

thejamppa
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Post by thejamppa » Thu Jun 18, 2009 4:44 am

Jimm's PC store has them now at 29,00€'s and if you take regular post package, the shipping is free till last on june. I don't know where Jimm's got their supply from since GNT has appareantly dropped Zalman from their selection pretty well.

LodeHacker
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Post by LodeHacker » Thu Jun 18, 2009 2:18 pm

thejamppa wrote:Jimm's PC store has them now at 29,00€'s and if you take regular post package, the shipping is free till last on june. I don't know where Jimm's got their supply from since GNT has appareantly dropped Zalman from their selection pretty well.
Not really, Turku warehouse stock is -1 now (that's right, negative). No VNF100's in Helsinki either. I asked Jimm's PC store whether or not they really have these in stock and the answer was no. Apparently the number showing up in "Web stock" is a glitch/error of some sort.

Nil Einne
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Post by Nil Einne » Wed Jul 01, 2009 4:15 pm

These used to be available in NZ, but don't seem to be any more. I never really looked that well though, was just wondering if the iSilence4 (which comes with this HSF) was worth it.

zangeena
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Post by zangeena » Tue Oct 06, 2009 10:45 pm

What's the difference between vga cameras and megapixels ? In cellphones, specifications feature either vga cam or megapixels, what's the diff ?
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Chaendler
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Post by Chaendler » Sun Jul 04, 2010 3:51 am

Sorry for refloating this post.

Thejamppa (or anyone else), did you finally measure the total height of the card + heatsink?

I'm interested in knowing if it would fit in a 8cm small form factor htpc (with a small form factor graphic card).

thx

frenchie
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Post by frenchie » Sun Jul 04, 2010 5:23 am

hi,
That depends how you mount the heatsink.
If you mount it like in the pics above, the total height is the height of the heatsink.
If not, I don't know (I just gave my VNF100, can't measure)...

Chaendler
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Post by Chaendler » Sun Jul 04, 2010 6:12 am

Thanks mate.

I've seen in the web that the total height of the heatsink is 85mm, so that won't fit in my case, that has space just for 85mm (and you have to add the height of the motherboard, etc).

thx

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