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Passivly cooled gfx card

Codmate

Codmate

Codmate

Associate
Joined
5 Nov 2002
Posts
1,575
Location
Cardiff | UK
Hi all :)

I'm looking for the fastest passively-cooled graphics card available.
It must be PCI-E and will live in a system with an E6600 Core2 Duo.

I don't want to buy something and rip the fan off, I've gone this route in the past and had great results, but frankly I don't have the time these days.

I know this is a rubbish time to upgrade gfx card - especially potentially to a DX9 card, but I really don't care enough about games to be bothered. I do want something that'll run current games nicely though.

Many thanks for your suggestions!
 
What about fitting a passive HS to a fast card, the Thermalright HR-03 cooler is pretty good.

I know ATI X1600 and Nvidia 7300GS are available in passive versions.
 
Yup - it looks as though the XFX 7950GT is 'the one' in this category.

I think I may go for the MSI Fanless 7900GS however.
The performance is close, but the price is significantly lower.

I'm also worried about the amount of extra heat the 7950GT might pump out.
I plan on running just one 120mm exhaust fan in this system, so any extra heat in the system is bad.

Many thanks for all your help though :)
 
Codmate said:
I'm also worried about the amount of extra heat the 7950GT might pump out.
I plan on running just one 120mm exhaust fan in this system, so any extra heat in the system is bad.
Click to expand...
It is pretty bad, the card may be fanless but you need very good airflow in your system or a quiet fan pointing at the card.

From the review I linked to:
On our test bed, we witnessed temperatures approaching 110 degrees Celsius during heavy gaming sessions without any air flow. With some airflow from an 800 RPM Noctua NF-S12 fan directed in a similar fashion to what you'd get from a front intake, our load temperatures comfortably dropped below the 100 degree mark.
Click to expand...
110C is pretty bad :eek:
 
110oC oh dear. Surely having a fan pointing at it defeats the point of it being fan-less.

Maybe they should just build a graphics card with the mounting for your choice of a 120mm fans...
 
i have the XFX 7950GT XXX and its awesome.

No noise, not too hot and plays games extremely well on my 19" screen.

Its got a higher clock speed than the one posted above
 
does it really have to be fanless? there are sopme extremely quiet coolers out there. Hell i was impressed weith my 8800gtx - they are very quiet indeed unless you ramp the fan speed up
 
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