SUMMARY: After all the buzz about the new Zalman heatpipe coolers for the high-end video cards, there were some of those less fortunate who were feeling just a little left out. But fear not! Come join Mike "Darthtanion" Wright as he takes a look at the Zalman ZM50-HP VGA Heatpipe Cooler. It features the same quiet cooling method as the larger models but is made for those who are still using a low-end video card. Can it still maintain good results in a smaller package? Lets find out!
The Zalman ZM50 cooler is very similar to the larger ZM80A series, but it is built on a smaller scale. Since the lower end graphics boards don’t put out quite as much heat as their larger siblings, the need for so much metal isn’t really there. That said, lets take a quick look at what we’ll get.
The first thing you’ll notice is a pair of large aluminum heatsinks, a mounting bracket and the heatpipe itself. The mounting bracket is actually a pair of aluminum pieces that will fit to both the front and back of the graphics board. After it has been installed, it will allow you to attach the heatpipe and the larger heatsinks. It should be noted that this cooler will only work on graphics boards with the two holes that surround the GPU (or VPU in the case of the ATI boards). If you lack these holes, you cannot make use of this cooler. To give you an idea as to what cards CANNOT use this cooler, they include the Matrox Parhelia boards, any GeForce GTS or Ti series board and the ATI Radeon 8500 board or higher.
The heatsinks are made of aluminum and are of different sizes. The smaller one will be mounted to the front of the board and measures in at 60mm x 50mm x 6mm. The larger panel will be mounted to the backside of the board and measures in at 110mm x 50mm x 6mm. The sinks have a surface area of roughly 400 square centimeters and will work in conjunction with the heatpipe to try to do the same job as an active (fan-driven) cooling setup, but without any noise!
At first glance the heatpipe looks to be a bent piece of copper tubing, but there is a bit more to it than that. It is a hollow piece of copper that has a braided metallic material within as well as a liquid. To keep from boring you with all the details of chemical reactions, we will just state that the heatpipe allows for a reaction similar to a phase change that helps whisk away the heat from the GPU core through the heatpipe itself. This allows the heatsink on the backside of the card to aid in the dissipation of the unwanted heat.
Also included in the package are two small bags with standard and extra parts and a small screwdriver. The kit truly has everything that you will need to get under way and get rid of at least some of the noise within your system.
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