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Midrange and quiet

Xelene

Xelene

Xelene

Soldato
Joined
27 Sep 2005
Posts
4,673
Location
London innit
Hey guys, I'm looking for a replacement card for my HTPC or a quiet alternative. Currently have a non Ti 560 made but whilst the performance is great at my resolution (720p) the damn thing sounds like a hairdryer when it's going.

I'm thinking maybe 7770 or wait until nvidia nee low to mid cards are released?

Speeling errors introduced by phone :)
 
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Just to clarify, is your HTPC used for any gaming 'at all'. If it isn't, then maybe going for a passive card might be best?

Anyway, since you mention it, here is a video review of the 7770 and 7750.



Personally, due to the cost of the 7770's, I would much rather consider one of the quieter 6850 options. There is a passive one listed on this website, but the one linked below is supposed to be very quiet anyway, and perhaps just as important is that it's a lot cheaper too. Great price for a card than can handle games well if need be, and this can't really be said with as much confidence when talking about the 7770. Of course, if your HTPC rig is never used for games then you can drop down the specifications and look at something like a 6400 series.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-269-AS&tool=3

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/productlist.php?groupid=701&catid=56&subid=1985

I guess the last thing I can think of would be to try and pick a second hand cooler for the 560, though I am not familiar with how much they cost and what they perform like, or any other details etc.
 
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7850. Great performance (faster than the 560Ti at stock), stupidly cool running, single 6pin, they overclock like mad, and are very very quiet.
 
I game a fair bit on it, but clearly at 720p the card doesn't need to be silly top end. Mostly console port stuff - i.e. things that play well with a pad.

Edit: I've thought about coolers - but most of the 560 (non Ti) are on custom PCB's so don't know what will fit.
 
arc@css said:
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/539?vs=535
Click to expand...

That tells me nothing, sorry. My existing card benches roughly the same as the 6850 and anand list all 3 cards at roughly the same noise level.

The 7xxx series cards have some attractive features that clock the card down when the display is inactive - which is a good thing (the machine is *always* on). I've had to run some games through the onboard HD 3000 graphics because the noise from the 560 is seriously objectionable, like turn TV unto 50% volume so you can actually hear dialogue over the fan bad.
 
Your exisiting card is actually faster than the 6850, but yes I appreciate that it's not very much faster. The noise levels listed are based on reference models so that doesn't paint an accurate picture in that regard.

I agree that the 7750 does have some merits and would be one I might consider, especially when as another poster mentioned, the power benefits are attractive over an already power efficient 6850 - so this an impressive improvement. However, I guess it all depends how much you expect this 'midrange' card to deliver in fps, for a mid range card the 7770 / 50's are certainly not that. For the money, the Asus 6850 is quiet and performs so very nearly as fast as a 5850 at stock. The 7750 will have lower power consumption and probably is 'even' quieter which might be the deal clincher for you. Just don't expect it to perform like a mid range card (though it might be worth overclocking it as I reckon at least you wouldn't be on the receiving end of a noticeable increase in noise). :)
 
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Ignore my whole post I just wrote a load of old cobblers, read read the comments I was replying to and realised I had completely mixed up model numbers, doh!
 
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The power thing is a big deal for me, i've been using Virtu which near enough idles the gfx card when not in use - but driver support is falling away so that stuff that used to work no longer works and current games just crash with it. The HD 3000 is okay if you drop settings down. The gfx card is probably idle 90% of the time.

The card is noticebly loud at 5 metres, the same kind of volume as you'd get off a 7200rpm fan running at full tilt. Borrowed my stock cooled 6950 off the other machine and it was a lot quiter.
 
/necro

so I gave up on Virtu, some games that used to work stopped working and others never worked right. I like the performance of the GTX 560, the noise was the issue.

to that end, i've sourced an Accelero Twin Turbo II which theoretically will fit the card. The existing cooler popped off easily enough, and it's not surprising that the cooling is shocking - looks like a standard Retail CPU cooler glued on with a layer of TIM. The VRM's had no cooling at all, just raw chips exposed to the world.

Chip has GF114-325-A1 printed on it.

Will post pics of before and after soon.
 
Got it installed this morning was a bit fiddly, temps peaked at 58c running Heaven. Fans span upto 30% but couldn't really hear them. Job done.
 
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