Zalman VF900-Cu Goes LED

Product: Zalman VF900-Cu LED
Provided By: ZalmanUSA
Price: ~ $54.00CDN

Introduction:

Zalman seems to never let sleeping dogs lie, and when it comes to cooling computers - that is a very good thing.  Zalman has pioneered quiet cooling, and over the past few years they have kicked things up a notch with quiet performance as well.  Quiet, high performance coolers are just not enough anymore so lately Zalman has been adding some eye candy to their coolers.  Today we are taking a look at the updated VF900-Cu LED and show how well this cooler looks, works and performs on today's toasty graphics cards.

First Look:

The VF900-Cu LED comes in a very bright and cheerful box that shows off the new clear LED fan on the top of the cooler and when you look at the back of the box, you get a nice look and the super shiny base.  This package is very eye-catching and will likely have enthusiasts reaching for it on the shelf.

The Whole Bundle

The bundle that comes with the VF900-Cu LED is identical to the VF900-Cu cooler.  Zalman throws in eight BGA ram sinks, a case badge, thermal paste, mounting hardware and the Fan Mate 2 controller and cable.  They also include a very clear installation manual that will help you figure out what holes to use on the HSF base.  As you can see in the picture above, the RAM sinks are a nice anodized blue and they will match very nicely with the blue LED fan as we'll see in a few minutes.

We tested the Fan Mate 2 controller to see how much it varied the voltage and we measured voltages from 5.02v to 10.68v with this particular controller.  At low speed, you cannot hear the fan at all, and even when turned up to 8v the fan is barely audible.  At full speed you can hear the fan when the case is open, but when you close the case side make this fan inaudible at a distance of 1 meter.

Zalman always makes quality products that look very nice and are geared to perform as well as they look.  The pictures below show what we mean.

As is usual with a Zalman HSF, the Zalman name is stamped into each of the many fins on this unit.  As you can see the base of the cooler is polished to a mirror finish as well.  We have noticed recently that some of Zalman's CPU heatsinks aren't finished quite as well as this cooler.  This is a top notch job that deserves a couple of thumbs up on this front.

As you may notice, in this heatpipe design there is no direct contact of the fins with the HSF base.  All of the thermal convection is done through the use of two heatpipes.  Heatpipes have come a long way over the years and are very efficient as we'll see on the next couple of pages.

Features & Specs:

This unit weighs up and has the same features as the VF900-Cu except of course for the Blue LED fan.  We will be testing this cooler out on a different card however.