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Zalman Reserator 2High-end Passive CPU & VGA Water-cooling

Yikes ! First off apologies to the fine ladies and gentlemen from Zalman for posting this review waaay too late. I already received this kit back in August yet with the two server co-location moves and a good number of NDA articles we got delayed. This lovely product we'll test today from the guys at Zalman now finally can be posted as it was postponed far too long.

Who on this planet with a feel for the computer industry does not know Zalman ? Think about that for a moment. Correct .. hardly anyone. And despite the fact that Zalman is not really out there in terms of excessive marketing we can assume they got their brand reputation by actually earning it. I really do believe this as when you think about Zalman then two things will come to mind. Those being cooling and silence. The entire company philosophy has these two main features pounded into the company structure. Zalman makes reputable cooling products with a minimum amount of sound and that's just great as there is a huge market for that. I mean, my office has a good number of PC's, and I just HATE it when a new graphics card arrives with the motto: "While rendering a helicopter it literally sounds like one as well..."

Another issue of modern PC's is that heat is often dumped by a good number of components inside the PC. That heat makes the ambient temperature of your PC and thus other components warmer. So you need to find a method that can absorb heat or simply exhaust it from the PC, and that's of course where today's product comes in. Water-cooling is one of the best techniques available to draw heat from the warm components and move that heat outside the PC, yet most solutions still have large 120mm fans that blow air over the radiator so we still experience that irritating noise at some level.

Zalman two years ago released their Reserator 1, a passive cooled water-cooling kit. Then, last year, they released the Reserator 1 Plus kit, pretty much the same stuff, yet with newly designed water blocks to remove more heat from that precious gear of ours. Passively cooled, you ask? Yeah, no fans are involved at all. No fans people. That means no moving stuff that makes noise! Yay!

I remember that initially I was skeptical about the design concept as Zalman claimed it could not only cool down for example a CPU, but they also claim it can cool down the Northbridge and graphics card as well. All that passively ?? Well the results most certainly did not lie. Cooling down stuff is a huge market my dear readers and that amongst other things is where Zalman's success can be explained. Zalman's other success factor is not their reputation but the quality of products that they bring to market. Over the years we have tested a good number of their products directly or indirectly (Zalman cooled graphics cards) and all with success. 

Today we'll be looking at Zalman's Reserator version 2, a completely redesigned and improved passive water-cooling kit that again will stun and amaze. Not only is the kit really sexy looking, I guarantee you it's cooling is even better as well. We'll be water-cooling a CPU and VGA card passively, meaning no fans are being used. The rest is handled by an inaudible pump and mother nature. To test top-notch gear we'll use warm components; a GeForce 7900 GT 512MB graphics card and a Pentium 4 3.2 Extreme Edition LGA775 processor. So today we'll see if they can cope with the new Reserator 2. What do you think ? What will the temperature be ? Make a best guess and later on in the article we'll show you our temperature results. But first a look at the Reserator 2, it's installation, then the test and obviously also a Guru's verdict.

"Next page please", the man with the blisters on his fingers said.