Date: January 9th, 2005
Article by: Joe Anderson (Hardware Reviewer)
Edited by: Nathan Glentworth (Owner / Head Editor)
Product was submitted by: Zalman USA
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CONCLUSIONS AND AFTERTHOUGHTS
Well, there you have it. The Fatal1ty FS-V7 from Zalman has performed very well for me this past week and I can highly recommend it. With great looks and excellent performance, this cooler would be an asset to most any compatible graphics board out there. Installation was a snap thanks to Zalman's online installation guides and compatibility charts, and the Fatal1ty's noise-to-cooling ratio is very good. This cooler does pack some weight, but in my case, the stock heatsinks and fan weighed in just one gram shy of the FS-V7, so this really shouldn't be an issue for any user.
In fact, I can only find two things that I don't really like about this cooling solution.
The first is the Multi-Connector supplied with the kit. Let's face facts. Nobody is going to crack open the case to change fan speeds. I had an open channel on my front panel fan controller, so that's how I'll be controlling the FS-V7 from now on.
The second is the cost. The FS-V7 is widely available online for around $40 US. Granted, with the kind of performance we see here, this is not that far out of line, but Zalman has similar coolers for $10 less that probably perform almost as well as the Fatal1ty. A front panel control for the fan speed would easily make up for the larger price tag, and make this issue go away.
Nevertheless, I'm very impressed with this cooler. It performs as stated and does it with some style.
Pros:
- Great cooling
- Great looks
- Great manual (and online support)
- Ease of installation
- Essentially silent in quiet mode
- LED fan
- Availability
Cons:
- Pricey
- Unimpressive Multi-Connector.
If you have any further questions about this cooler, please feel free to post them in our forums HERE.
