Once every while a product arrives at our office that really offers something new and innovative. The Zalman ZM80A-HP is such a product; it actually is a passive heatsink utilizing heatpipe technology to draw heat away from the graphics core of a videocard. Why do we feel it offers something new and innovative? For several reasons actually, first and foremost the attention to detail that has gone into the design, but also the performance and compatibility with a broad range of videocards.





A look at the front and back of the Zalman ZM80A-HP mounted on a ATI Radeon 9700 Pro.

Most people don’t realize that the small fan on a videocard’s heatsink is often the cause of that annoying whine coming from the computer case and there frankly wasn’t much you could do about it either. If your videocard was still under warranty you could contact the manufacturer for a replacement of the heatsink and fan and hope that that would alleviate the problem somewhat. Furthermore there aren’t that many aftermarket solutions that allow you to replace the videocard’s heatsink and fan with something less noisy.