Zalman VF3000F GTX 570/580 GPU Cooler Review

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by Rob Williams on August 10, 2011 in Cooling

NVIDIA’s GeForce GTX 580 is a beast of a card, able to reach 80°C with minimal effort. So what about those who value high performance along with silence? There are some options, such as Zalman’s VF3000F after-market cooler. But with it requiring three slots in your PC, and $75 from your wallet, can it deem itself worthy?

Page 3 – Test Results

To test the difference between the reference cooler (pictured in this article) and Zalman’s VF3000F, I used a combination of GPU-Z 0.5.4 to record all of the temperatures, and Futuremark’s 3DMark 11 at Extreme mode in a loop of 3 to push the card about as hard as it can be.

Here are the specs of the test machine:

Component
Model
Processor
Intel Core i7-975 Extreme Edition – Quad-Core @ 4.05GHz – 1.40v
Motherboard
Gigabyte GA-EX58-EXTREME – F13j BIOS (08/02/2010)
Memory
Corsair DOMINATOR – 12GB DDR3-1333 7-7-7-24-1T, 1.60v
Graphics NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580 1.5GB
Audio
ASUS Xonar D2X
Storage
Seagate Barracuda 500GB 7200.11
Power Supply
Corsair HX1000W
Chassis
Cooler Master HAF X Full-Tower
Display
Gateway XHD3000 30″
Cooling
Corsair H50 Self-Contained Liquid Cooler
Et cetera
Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit

Coolers of any sort can be a little sporadic with their effectiveness from one run to another, mostly depending on room temperature, so for the sake of added confidence in our results, each test was run a total of three times. Due to the equally sporadic nature of my city’s weather, testing took about a week to complete as it was a rare occurrence when my non-temperature-controlled room became cool enough for testing.

First up is a graph containing the best results across the three runs for each configuration. Following that is a break-down of each run to give ourselves a clearer picture of what the VF3000F is capable of.

Zalman VF3000F GPU Cooler

Cooler & Fan Setting
Run #1
Run #2
Run #3
Stock Cooler (Default)
23.3°C Room
40°C / 81°C
23.8°C Room
38°C / 81°C
22.9°C Room
37°C / 80°C
Stock Cooler (85% Fan)
24.6°C Room
33°C / 62°C
22.4°C Room
30°C / 59°C
22.4°C Room
30°C / 57°C
Zalman VF3000F (Low)
24.1°C Room
32°C / 75°C
23.9°C Room
32°C / 74°C
23.9°C Room
32°C / 74°C
Zalman VF3000F (Medium)
23.3°C Room
31°C / 63°C
24.4°C Room
31°C / 65°C
25.0°C Room
32°C / 65°C
Zalman VF3000F (High)
25.2°C Room
33°C / 66°C
25.1°C Room
33°C / 66°C
23.4°C Room
33°C / 63°C
Results in "Idle / Load" format. Bold results are those found in graph above.

Using the VF3000F’s lowest fan setting, which is just about inaudible, it outperforms the stock cooler by a fair margin. It knocked 5°C off both the idle and load, which is more impressive than it seems by numbers alone. The reference cooler’s noise at its default setting is very noticeable during a gaming session if headphones or loud speaker volume levels are not being used. The VF3000F on the other hand is easily overshadowed by every other component in the PC.

At about the 30% mark on Zalman’s fan controller module, the fans begin to become audible. At about 50%, the height of the audio is reached, and judging by our Medium and High results, it’s clear that the fans operate at the same speed when the dial is settled anywhere between 50~100%.

That in itself might be a little odd, but even stranger to me is the fact that the reference cooler, when cranked up to an 85% fan speed, out-performed the Zalman cooler at its highest fan speed quite easily. Of course, the reference cooler at that fan speed made it sound like my PC was about to lift up off the ground, but I still expected a bit more from the Zalman cooler.

Let’s wrap things up on the next page.

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Rob Williams

Rob founded Techgage in 2005 to be an 'Advocate of the consumer', focusing on fair reviews and keeping people apprised of news in the tech world. Catering to both enthusiasts and businesses alike; from desktop gaming to professional workstations, and all the supporting software.

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