I have this board and would replace the stock fan/HS with a Zalman ZM80A-HP heatpipe based cooler if I didn't feel uncomfortable with the fact that you NEED to add a lot of thermal paste to insure good contact between the HS and die. Can anyone comment on this combination or on any other queit cooling system for this board?

Thanks,

Hi,
There should be no need to add extra thermal paste to make contact with the gpu core, check out this review:

http://www.frostytech.com/articleview.c ... 323&page=3

I would buy the ZM80A-HP for my R9700Pro, but I'm waiting for the release of the newer Zalman coolers...

The ZM-80 needed quite a bit of paste in the presence of the GPU shim in order to make good contact. The updated ZM-80A has a relief milled around the edge of the GPU contact block, thus avoiding contact with the shim; since this allows for the block to make contact with the GPU, only a thin layer of paste is required.

I use a ZM-80A on my 9700 Pro (non-AIW) and am very pleased with the result. Only recommendation I have is to replace the generic white paste which ships with the Zalman with something better; I used AS Ceramique.

I noticed on the Zalman website they do not recomend on system where the AGP slot would have the card sitting horizontal and since my box is a tower with the AGP in the same plane as the PCI slots my ATI AIW 9700 Pro would indeed be horizontal. Hows your setup?

In fairness, my case has side fans that pull in fresh outside air and blow right at the AGP slot so I would think I could use it. I need to takes some measurements to see it there will be any problems installing both the ZM-80A and the CNPS7000-Cu on the CPU.

Can you tell me if you had any difficulty mounting this HS?

Thanks,

Your system sounds identical to mine, i.e., standard ATX tower config, which is listed as a 'good' configuration here, in section 4.2, leftmost example:

http://www.zalman.co.kr/english/product/zm80a-hp.htm

This setup works just fine for me. My case also happens to position a side intake fan directly over the AGP slot; this works wonderfully in concert with the ZM80.

I have both the ZM80A and the 7000Cu installed in this system; installation instructions for both products were very good and they even supply the correct size screwdriver with the ZM80A. I had no difficulty at all mounting either product, although you'll want to schedule a bit of time for the ZM80A; lots of fiddly parts to assemble, takes a while to get it all put together.

I believe the picture they show that's marked as bad is where the ZM80A-HP will be moving heat to the upper plate of the ZM80A and where there will be no exhaust for the heat.

I have a tower case with a ZM80A-HP on a Radeon 9500Pro, it works fine. I also have a CNPS-7000Cu in the same system.

As DeadBySundown said, the ZM80A-HP isn't the easiest/fastest thing to install as there are quite a few small parts. But, it's not really all that bad. Read through the instructions and try to understand how it fits together before diving into assembling the heatsink and you should be fine.