Quick Review: Zalman VF1000 + RHS88

Just a quickie on some new equipment I just bought. I bought my new PC a couple of months ago, and got into overclocking a bit. My PC has a GeForce 8800 GTS 640 MB graphics card in it.. Of course, it overclocks nicely, but the temperatures are scary to say the least! With the stock cooler I did around 70 idle, 85 degrees at full load (fan auto, Windows Vista). With the fan manually turned up to 100% these temperatures were around 68 idle to 80 at load..

The Zalman VF1000 in combination with the RHS88 heatsink definitely knocked off a lot of degrees, 15 to be exact! My new load temperature is around 65 degrees (fan @ 100%). This, of course, is great! I can actually run the GPU stable at 650/1000 MHz at which the temperatures won't even reach 70! Superb!

Installation was quite doable, however I'd advise you to pay a lot of attention when removing the old heatsink! Also, be sure to clean the old cooling paste of properly (using special chemicals, which you can purchase at your local computer retailer).

The price of the set (you need the RHS88 heatsink if you want to use the VF1000 on a GeForce 8800) is quite high, but of course the performance is incredible! Furthermore it doesn't take up any extra space in your case, which is a big advantage over the HR-03 Plus! Good job Zalman, I'd say!

More on Creative X-Fi Xtreme Audio

A month ago, I posted about my frustrations concerning the Creative X-Fi Xtreme Audio soundcard I recently bought. The card is not really compatible with Vista (no control panel, no surround, etc.), so when some time ago the Vista X-Fi drivers were released, I was quite thrilled! This feeling didn't last long however, as the new drivers are only compatible with every other X-Fi card, except for the Xtreme Audio. I let this pass, as Creative has promised it will have proper drivers for it sometime in Q2-2007... But as times goes, I'm getting more and more frustrated.. So I Googled this, and guess what turns up..

The Xtreme Audio version of the X-Fi line does not feature a X-Fi chipset at all! It is merely a tuned up version of the Live 24! card, with some software features that emulate X-Fi functions.

For more information on this, please visit this thread:
http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=200348

I don't know yet what frustrates me the most.. Either the fact that Creative published a card that clearly deceives consumers, or the fact that my computer vendor doesn't mention this (complete misinformation actually)...

Anyway, I hope the above mentioned computer vendor will offer me some solution for my problem..

For now, be warned: if you are looking for a soundcard that actually reduces your CPU load (when gaming, for instance), don't go for the X-Fi Xtreme Audio, instead purchase X-Fi XtremeGamer or something alike!

Creative X-Fi frustrations

When I recently purchased a new computer, I chose for the Creative X-Fi Extreme Audio sound card. That version is actually the cheapest of the X-Fi series and right now I am really frustrated by Creative. There still is not Vista driver available that enables the X-Fi functionalities. Right now the only Vista driver is seriously crippled, which means I can't even get more that stereo sound out of my speakers. In windows testing I do get sound out of the rear speakers and subwoofer, but in applications it just doesn't work. Apparently this has to do with the lack of support for CMSS-3D (creative surround sound of something), but clearly this is just bad service by Creative. Vista has been available for 2 months now, please hurry up with proper driver support!