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Zalman Heatpipe Coolers
Zalman is back again with their latest heatpipe cooler, the ZM80D-HP! They are probably the first manufacturer to implement heatpipes on graphic card coolers. They started with the ZM50-HP, which was not too bad, but it would not handle the new generation of graphics cards. Then the bigger brother ZM80-HP appeared with a larger heat dissipating area. However, the product isn't perfect - it was plagued with some compatibility issues on certain motherboards.
Ken Ng has reviewed the older ZM80A-HP, the revised version of the ZM80-HP. Most of the compatibility issues have been solved in this version but there is still room for improvement. So we will take a look at the latest dual heatpipe model - the ZM80D-HP!
We will start by comparing the specifications from the first heatpipe, the ZM50-HP to the current ZM80D-HP.
Specifications
| ZM50-HP |
ZM80-HP |
ZM80A-HP |
ZM80C-HP |
ZM80D-HP |
|
| Weight | 130g |
385g |
400g |
325g |
350g |
| Heatpipe Material | Gold Plated Copper Tube |
Gold Plated Copper Tube |
Gold Plated Copper Tube |
Gold Plated Copper Tube |
Gold Plated Copper Tube |
| Heat Dissipating Material | Aluminum |
Aluminum |
Aluminum |
Aluminum |
Aluminum |
| Surface Area For Heat Dissipation |
400cm2 |
1000cm2 |
1300cm2 |
1200cm2 |
1350cm2 |
The surface area for the ZM80C and the ZM80D are not that much different from the older models, with just minor revision improvements. Anything above 500g is not recommended to be installed onto any graphics card, because anything heavier will put too much stress on the card and this can bend or even break it! So it's nice to see that Zalman managed to reduce the weight, while increasing the surface area on the latest ZM80D-HP compared to the ZM80A-HP.
