ZEROtherm CoolMaxx 2000 GPU Cooler

November 30, 2009 by Lawrence Lee

ZEROtherm, the makers of the Core92 and Nirvana CPU coolers, have produced an interesting GPU heatsink, dubbed the CoolMaxx 2000. With a street price of $55, you may expect a high-end cooler with a couple more heatpipes than usual and/or a monstrous heat dissipation area, but you'd be mistaken. Like most modern video card heatsinks, it sports a basic structure of 4 heatpipes extending over the GPU core with fins running parallel to the circuit board, and actually its overall dimensions are less than impressive. The CoolMaxx is only 6.7" long and weighs in at just 230 grams according to our digital scale.

The CoolMaxx resembles the Zalman VF1000, though the fins are composed of aluminum rather than copper, and the fan happens to sit underneath, rather than over the top or embedded within the main fin mass. Instead of trying to dissipate heat from the heatsink body, the fan is designed primarily to blow down directly on the base to take care of the problem at the source. Unfortunately, the position and size of the fan will undoubtedly make for poor VRM cooling, which some high-end cards desperately need. As such, the list of compatible graphics cards is not extensive, with the hottest supported card being the Radeon HD 4870. Our test card is a HD 4890, so lets hope the CoolMaxx is an overachiever.

Given the high price-tag one would also expect a better assortment of accessories. The package includes only eight low profile memory heatsinks, nothing extra for the voltage regulators, etc. and a manual fan speed controller which is similar in design to Zalman's Fanmate 2, though its has a rather odd shape.