Passively cooled 7600gs???

[freebooter]

I currently have a 9800pro which is quite noisy. I have seen reviews of the 7600gs which show it to be quite a bit faster and the review cards had nice simple passive heatsinks. This would be an ideal card for me as the rest of my pc is not hi-spec and I only play games occasionally and it would be quiet! However all the 7600gs I see for sale have fans on them Why, when the chip obviously runs well passively cooled, did most manufacturers decide to put noisy fans on the cards instead? It just doesn't make any sense to me.

 

[oweneades]

They do them passively cooled on PCI-E although I assume you are on AGP.

It may be that for AGP they don't make a passively cooled version.

 

[nightwish]

Passive AGP 7600gs's do exist - MSI make one.

 

[freebooter]

Thanks for the replies. Yes, I am still on AGP.

I have seen one place with the MSI but it isn't listed on the MSI site so I assume they are stopping them. I have also seen one from Gigabyte but it looks a large fancy cooler instead of the neater reference one and is more expensive.

 

[Chong Warrior]

Just a thought but you could just buy yourself an arctic cooler for your 9800pro, they're very cheap, easy to install and virtually silent.

Buying an AGP graphics card is a bad investment now and going from ATI to nVidia can be a headache with driver conflicts sometimes.

 

[melbourne720]

Chong warrior is right, a passive heatsink (AC or Zalman are good) or a quiet active one would suit you down to the ground. £15 to £30 max would get you a virtually silent card.

 

[freebooter]

Thanks for the cooler idea but it is in a Shuttle SFF so there is no space to fit a large cooler. This is why I was so excited to see the 7600gs with a small passive cooler on it. I can't really justify replacing the whole system and like the small size of the shuttle so I will probably keep it till the mb packs up and I have to get a whole new system. A bit more powerful g.card would have just given it a nice boost in the meantime.

 

[melbourne720]

Thanks for the cooler idea but it is in a Shuttle SFF so there is no space to fit a large cooler.

I have a Shuttle SN41G2, and I fitted one. If you up for a little modding of the case, get a Zalman VF900, fit it to your card, then dremel a whole on the side of your case for the Zalman to stick out of (it pertrudes about 5mm from my case). Then to tidy it up, put a 120mm fan guard over the top.

It can be done in a couple of hours, and it can look quite nice if you use a LED version of the Zalman.

 

[thefishdude]

the gigabyte 7600gs one is for sale and in stock on another webby for £85 i have a x800xl pasive cooled by gigabyte at the moment and its great but the passive cooler is large soo if you short of sapce could be a problem

i have also just seen the msi version for sale online but that costs about £110.

i would posts the links but not sure i am alowed on here ?

 

[Cyber-Mav]

gigbyte do a passivley cooled 7600gs for around £83 inc vat.
best of all is the palit 7600gs which can be had for £78 inc vat and has a oversized cooling fan on it.

both of the above cards are the agp version im on about. im considering getting one to replace the 9800pro i currently have in one of my machines.