Performance

Test System:
AMD Athlon64 FX-60
Asus A8R32-MVP Deluxe
ATI Radeon X1800XTPE 256mb
2Gb OCZ PC4800 DDR Memory
74Gb Western Digital Raptor HD
Sony 710A DVD Writer
Enermax Noisetaker 600w PSU
Idle system temp: 40 degrees C.

Idle temps for the card were taken after 30minutes of inactivity on the windows desktop. Load temps were taken after 30minutes of gaming using F.E.A.R at 1600x1200 with 4xAA and 16xAF. The stock cooler was set to vary fan speed according to temperature on ATI default settings.

Here are the results obtained when the X1800XTPE was running on default 2D clock speeds on the windows desktop:

dont have flash installed? then click here for a jpeg

 

In our first test we see that just by changing the cooler to the Zalman model results in a core temperature decrease of 14c. This 14c drop is measured when using the slowest 1350rpm setting. Increasing to 2500rpm results in a drop of only 1c more.

Here are the results obtained when the X1800XTPE was running with 3D clock speeds enabled at all times (Core 700mhz Memory 800Mhz).

dont have flash installed? then click here for a jpeg

 

The temperature measured at enhanced clock speeds again shows a big drop between the stock cooler and Zalman's VF900-CU. The difference in temperatures is 14c and 15c, dependant on the fan speed applied to the Zalman cooler. Things change substantially when we move into 3D and we see a temperature recorded on the stock cooler of 92 decrees Celsius, certainly not ideal. Using the VF900-CU running at 1350rpm keeps the card relatively cool at 79 degrees. 13C lower than the Stock cooler. Increasing the RPM of the Zalman fan to 2500rpm results in a further drop to 72c – 20 degrees lower than the stock ATI cooler.

The above results show some excellent cooling performance, however as stated in our introduction a decent cooler can also increase over clocking potential. With this in mind we ran several over clocking tests to see if we could achieve any increases.

Here are the over clocks we achieved:

Cooler
Stock	716 Core 820 Mem
Zalman 1350rpm	723 Core 821 Mem
Zalman 2500rpm	731 Core 822 Mem

The above results show that Zalman's VF900-CU gives us a very good increase in over clocking potential on the X1800XTPE.

Before we conclude the article here are the temperatures recorded at the above settings:

dont have flash installed? then click here for a jpeg