Verdict: At £24, the Zalman is pricier than the Accelero, but it's worth forking out the extra cash for it, as it's cooler, quieter and better-looking.
Zalman's new GPU HSF, the VF900-Cu, retains the large, all-copper flower design of its predecessor, the VF700, although the fins have now been stretched to accommodate an 80mm fan. The fan is as quiet as the touted 18.5dBA suggests, albeit only when you use the supplied FanMate 2 controller to turn it to its lowest speed. At its highest speed, the fan is still slightly quieter than Arctic Cooling's Accelero GPU coolers (see Issue 34, p63).
The Zalman's base has been polished to the point of bling, although the thin coat of lacquer Zalman has applied will impede the transfer of heat from the GPU to the block, though not by much.
The Zalman fits onto a wide variety of different GPUs - it's telling, in fact, that the box states which cards it doesn't fit, rather than listing those that it does. It supports the latest ATi X1900 and Nvidia 7900 cards, all other ATi X1000s and Nvidia 6-series and later models, as well as some older cards, notably the ATi Radeon 9800.
Fitting the cooler is simple. You don't even need a screwdriver, as the Zalman clamps on using a simple set of thumbscrews and spacers, referred to as nipples, rubber rings and fixing nuts in the manual - stop sniggering at the back! The kit also includes a set of aluminium heatsinks for the memory. When we bolted the VF900 to our Radeon X1900XTX test card, the results were better than expected. With the Accelero X2, our test card's GPU ran at 52ûC when idle, and 76ûC under load. With the Zalman VF900-Cu attached, the idle temperature plummeted to 44ûC, and the maximum temperature under load was 59ûC.
