Zalman VF2000 LED Hybrid Cooler Review
Our Tests (Cont'd)
Contents
We ran some simple tests to check the performance of Zalman VF2000 LED, measuring the GPU core temperature with the aid of the SpeedFan software, and sound pressure level (SPL) with a digital noise meter set 4" (10 cm) from the video card, with the GPU at full load running folding@Home GPU client. For this measurement, we turned off the CPU cooler, so its noise wouldn’t interfere. Please keep in mind that sound pressure level measurement is just for comparative purposes, because a precise measurement would have to be done in an acoustically insulated enviroment, which we don’t have.
We compared the results from VF2000 LED with the VGA stock cooler, with an Arctic Cooling NV Silencer 5 VGA cooler, a Zalman VF900-Cu LED cooler at minimum and maximum speeds and with an Evercool Turbo2 cooler, all installed on our GeForce 9600 GT. You can check the results in the table below.
| Cooler | Noise | Room Temp. | Core Temp. | Temp. Diff. | Speed |
| Stock Cooler | 56 dBA | 21 °C | 53 °C |
32 °C |
– |
| NV Silencer 5 | 52 dBA | 21 °C | 48 °C | 27 °C | – |
| VF900-Cu LED (min.) | 43 dBA | 21 °C | 46 °C | 25 °C | 1300 rpm |
| VF900-Cu LED (max.) | 49 dBA | 21 °C | 40 °C | 19 °C | 2400 rpm |
| Evercool Turbo 2 | 41 dBA | 18 °C | 50 °C | 32 °C | – |
| VF2000 LED (min.) | 43 dBA | 17 °C | 35 °C | 18 °C | 1300 rpm |
| VF2000 LED (max.) | 51 dBA | 17 °C | 35 °C | 18 °C | 2400 rpm |
On the graph below you can compare the temperature difference between the GPU core and the room. Remember that, the lower the value, the better performance is.
