Passive Cards??

[alastair79]

I have a little HTPC (Silverstone SUGO case) which currently has a GeForce 7900GT with a very small and noisy fan. I want to replace the GT with a passively cooled card without losing the ability to play games on my LCD TV (res: 1360 – 768).

Any ideas??




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[Teaf]

Could you not fit something like a Zalman VF900 which are very quiet? Guess it would depend on the space you have in your HTPC and whether it would get blocked by any additional PCI cards.

 

[alastair79]

Quite a bit of space, no additional PCI cards, so maybe a possibility.




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[Skeeter]

yeah, firstly let us know how much space you have around your card? drop a picture.

 

[alastair79]

I'll get a piccy up tonight went I get home




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[alastair79]

Here are some pics:

Any ideas??

 

[psychas]

i think you might fit 8800gt but cooling will be the problem and noisy fan again but card is great

 

[Bomag]

MSI do a passive 8600GTS. I got one by mistake (Bolton's finest sent the wrong one!). It has massive copper heatsink above the card which keeps it at the top end of acceptable temps but needs quite a bit of clearance to the CPU.

It was a bit of a waste as it's now water cooled.

 

[Chris Beard]

Why not just change the cooler on the card? Accelero S1 maybe (if it'll fit)?

 

[Skeeter]

I was about to say the S1, but I dont think it will fit with the slanting fan there.

I take it that fans an outtake, so will draw air accross any passive cooler you have, which will be an added bonus.

basically any passive cooler that doesnt extend above the height of the card but can be up to an additional 2 slots wide will fit.

 

[smilertoo]

Yikes thats a pretty small cooler.

 

[Skeeter]

EDIT: This mite work... still running the risk with that slanted fan...

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=17801366

 

[alastair79]

Yikes thats a pretty small cooler.

Small but mighty (noisy)

Actually that last one might work as I can move the slanty fan upto the top space (see below) so that it doesn't interfear.

 

[Chris Beard]

Several Zalman sinks may work. Check out the vf900 as you can get it cheap at the moment.

 

[Jakus]

You have plenty of room there !

Why not make Your own Passive heatsink, Just the other day I made one for a X800XT, You then have the advantage of getting it into whatever cool air streams the case has.

 

[Building Candy]

I have a Passive XFX 7950GT, works great and not too expensive, worth looking at, it'll actually be a slight upgrade. Or wait for the Passivly cooled Sparkle 8800gt.

 

[fobose]

i think you might fit 8800gt but cooling will be the problem and noisy fan again but card is great

Noisy fan on a 8800GT? I think not. They are silent apart from the 3 sec full speed spin up on boot. I have my CPU fan set to "silent mode" and can only hear my hard drive clicking away when in bed.