ZALMAN VF900 – CU 2 Ball VGA Cooler

Pros: I have had tried 3 vga coolers over the past 6 months and this is the best so far. Just before this i had the zalman vf700 which was a solid performer, so i'll compare to that. With this cooler my idle temps are about 6 degrees cooler and under a load about 8 degrees cooler. AMAZING. It allowed me to further overclock my 7800gt to an astounding 550/1200 mhz (great for air cooling) max load temps with call of duty 2 are around 65c.

Cons: be careful not to bend your video card circuit board too much with this new mount, tighten the screws 1 turn at time in a criss cross pattern just until its snug. The new mount can really exert some force on the gpu.... this is a secret to its sucess...

Overall Review: The cooler has these advantages over the vf700

1. more fins for more surface area
2. more mass for more heat capacity
3. heat pips that really help suck the head out of the core and distribute it with max efficiency
4. an amazing mount system that really secures the heat sink to the gpu

Pros: Nice solid build quality and a very quiet fan.

Cons: This cooler could not cool my ati 4890....at all. I paired it with some AS 5 and the ramsinks that came included with it....temps would climb all the way to over 100C at full load. I then tried using the stock backplate to cool the ram and mosfet as well as having the the ZF900 cool the chip......still no dice as temps climbed up to 100C again.

Overall Review: I finally went out and bought a Zalman GV-1000 and installed it over the factory backplate which cools the ram and mosfet/vrms. Temps are now amazing....30C at idle and 50C at full load (amazing...10-15 cooler than stock cooler in both regards).

This 900 HSF simply cannot dissipate enough heat to cool todays hot cards. I'm actually surprised so many people got nice results on their 4850's......4890 owners...BE WARNED.