Naked core

For those wanting an upskirt look at the card, I popped off the cooler and took a peek myself. Thanks go to W1zzard from TechPowerUp for warning me about the resistor damaging washer. Those with this card, be careful removing the cooler as this washer could easily rip out the component it's stuck on. Use the flat blade of a craft knife to prize it up gently.

Update: Having spoken more with W1zzard, it turns out that the wrong set of mounting holes were used when attatching the cooler. Hopefully future versions of the card won't have this issue.

With the cooler off and the core cleaned up, it looks like this:

Click to enlarge

The underside of the Zalman cooler is also quite interesting, as we can see the base is actually pretty reflective. This isn't always an indicator of good contact with the core as it's entirely possible for a surface to be shiny without being flat, but it does show that effort was put into the core; fingers crossed for good temperatures.

Click to enlarge

Click to enlarge