X-bit labs

Zalman ZM80D-HP: Make Your Graphics Card Completely Noiseless (page 3)

Category: Video

by Tim Tscheblockov

[ 10/28/2004 | 04:34 PM ]

Following the installation guide you receive with the ZM80D-HP you should perform the assembly easily enough. Just don’t forget to apply some thermal grease to where the heat pipes contact the heatsinks and the GPU block.

Zalman recommends that you attach an insulating sticker to the sole of the base against the graphics core on the back side of the PCB. However, it was hardly necessary with my RADEON X800 XT as the next snapshot shows that the base is 2-3 millimeters above the PCB.

This snapshot shows you the profile of the block’s sole that takes heat off the graphics processor. You can also see that the frame around the die doesn’t prevent a proper contact.

So, the system is complete. The configuration of the system and the dimensions of the heatsinks are selected such as to minimize any problems when it comes to installing the graphics card with the ZM80D-HP on mainboards. Anyway, you have to say good bye to the adjacent PCI slot: the heatsinks of the ZM80D-HP are rather far off the card’s PCB to avoid contact with capacitors and other tall elements of the graphics card’s surface.

I laid the heatsinks down on the memory chips to make this snapshot – to show you a fully assembled system. I remind you once again that I didn’t use the memory heatsinks in my tests.

Now, the graphics card and the ZM80D-HP system are ready for my testing, I only want to make one final warning: having mounted the ZM80D-HP system on the graphics card, try to install the card into the AGP slot without touching its heatsinks. Otherwise, this entire contraption of heatsinks and heat pipes may turn around on the graphics processor, decreasing the efficiency of cooling. So, manipulate the card touching the edges of its PCB only.