Hi,

I am looking for a graphic card for gaming. It will be placed in a small PC which will be always on.
So basically I am looking for good performance, low profile package and low power/noise at idle.

I thought that the KFA2 GTX 750 Ti low profile would be perfect, but I have 10W consumption at idle with a quite loud fan noise.
It seems that going the AMD route with zerocore would be the best choice. However except for the aging HD 7750, I don't really find a good low profile AMD card.
AFOX HD 7850 low profile would have been also a good contented, but it is quite expensive and almost impossible to find.

Should I wait or are there other options ?

Welcome to SPCR.

Do you:
- have more than one monitor?
- game at 1080p?
- want to max out effects?
- want to describe the rest of the system (case, mobo, cpu, etc) so we can tune the card to it?

Also, what are the typical games?

If you want to build on a small factor, consider
SilverStone RVZ01: A Mini Raven
NCASE M1: Crowdfunded Enthusiast Mini-ITX Case

0 db IMO isn't worth it, you will never reach that, even turning on a PC has electrical noise that will net some. The trick is to build it close or below your ambient noise giving the impression of it being silent, and its more that all the ambient noise overcomes what the PC is producing. Fans can be spind down to where you will never hear them, but they will still move enough air where properly chosen components can net you a virtually inaudible PC.

Hello !

- I have only one monitor (my TV)
- game at 1080p yes (Battlefield, Serious Sam)
- medium effects is OK, high would be better, ultra is a dream
- I am in the process of building the computer so I don't have any real constraints. I just want a small PC (which probably means mini-ITX + low profile card) and which will be always on in my small apartment (so components with low power consumption and low noise, especially at idle).

I almost got it with the KFA2 GTX 750 Ti (I managed to play the games I want), except for the behavior at idle.

Thanks ! I don't have any real constraints for the case except that I want a small one (mini ITX probably).



I was speaking about the graphic card, not about the whole system.
But I see your point. However for a computer which will be always on (most often at idle), I would prefer to have the graphic card fan stop at idle. It would reduce wear, keep the noise down and (I guess) the power consumption down.

So far I only tried KFA2 GTX 75 Ti, and the noise at idle is quite loud and it uses 10W at idle.

To summarize I am not really looking for 0db but for very low noise and very low power consumption at idle.

Thanks !

Then wait for the Asus GTX750TI strix, it will be passive at idle and ramp up after certain temperature, on the GTX780 Strics was 60C. Or wait for the Pali GTX750Ti that will be fully passive.

But if you want to build small, i would suggest the NCase M1 v2, if i werent to be persuing a SLI setup in the near future, i would be on that factor, its just impressive what they achived on such a small case. Check the [H]ardforum NCASE M1: a crowdfunded Mini-ITX case, where you can find tons of build.

Asus Stryx is a good idea and Pali GTX750 TI seems good but they are not low profile and I have some doubt about the power consumption at idle.
If I remove the low profile constraint, there are really a ton of good choices. However I would really like to have a very small case (so low profile graphic card).

Thanks for your input though !

There are very few low profile cards able to game, and those are not quiet, so one has to give, your call.

Now if you still want a very slim case, then consider the Silverstone i posted above, the gpu is mounted sideways, so it doesn't interfere with the height of the case, check the SPCR review on it as well to get some info about noise and heat, to see if it fits what you are looking.

Fan noise during gaming is not a problem (except for horror games ). Only the noise at idle bothers me (and power consumption at idle).

The KFA2 GTX 750 Ti low profile is almost the perfect gaming card : small form, low power consumption during gaming and quite powerful. However behavior at idle is not very good.

AMD cards low profile (like HD 7750) have zerocore, so behavior at idle is excellent. However they are not enough for good gaming (compared to GTX 750 Ti).

It seems that we are almost there (better idle for Nvidia or better performance for AMD). So I think I'll wait a little.



Silverstone case is quite nice, but I was looking to something much smaller (hence the low profile).
I don't need so many hard drive, optical drive and so on.

Thanks again !

Lone industries L2.

http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1810890

That's what I would go to.
Really small case made for the 750ti LP (galaxy, zotac or uppcoming gigabyte).

Perhaps you haven't understood the problem or the title ?

It was not about the case but about the graphic card. So far I haven't found a good enough low profile graphic card for my use : good performance for gaming (Battlefield at medium/high for instance) + good behavior at idle.
So even with the case you propose (which looks nice by the way), the problem still remains.

Perhaps if someone can chime in and propose a small mini-ITX case which can accommodate a full-size graphic card, it would also solve the problem. But somehow I doubt that (I know, I know, "small" is not very precise).

Because such a card cannot exist: the heatsink will be too much tiny (so the fan should spin fast).



There are several "small" mITX case which can accomodate regularly sized graphics but, as you said, you have priorly to determine what "small" means for you (a little volume? a small depth? a low height?).

I am specifically interested in behavior at idle, not during gaming (in fact I use "idle" in almost everyone of my sentences in this topic...).

Cannot exist ? The HD 7850 (which should be as powerful as the GTX 750 Ti) is proof of the contrary. It's just that it is impossible to find at a reasonable price.
AMD has this zerocore feature which reduces at idle the power consumption to almost zero (so the fan is also often stopped).
It's just than Nvidia is not interested in developing this feature otherwise we would have seen it on the GTX 750.

I don't believe there is any kind of constraints given by physics. Just lack of interest by people/Nvidia.



Indeed I have looked at a wide range of "small" cases, and the only ones which are small enough for my taste, have all low profile slots.

I think we'll just have to wait one year or so and I am sure that AMD will issue a powerful enough low profile graphic card (it's about time that they got over their HD 7750).

I don't know whether my english isn't enough good, but you just didn't understand: I was explicitly speaking about your requirement, so no gaming noise or whatsoever.
As "repetita iuvant": an high performance low profile card WHICH is quiet at idle cannot exist. A HD7850 may be low profile, it is still somewhat high performance (for contemporary standards), but such a low profile HD7850 cannot be quiet at idle (the heatsink would be too much tiny for the heat), period: you may easily try to slow down the fans (to lower the noise), but you may likely incur into overheating.
You may rather to don't believe in physics, but you're plainly wrong (at least, up to now, tomorrow technologies perhaps might help).



Which wouldn't be quiet at idle, whether it were based upon current technologies (as any current R9/R7).

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ASUS/HD_7750/24.html


http://www.club-3d.com/index.php/news/m ... value.html


http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/rad ... 35-14.html


http://forum.teamspeak.com/showthread.p ... -series%29


http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showth ... p=21308528


http://forums.aria.co.uk/showthread.php ... 20-minutes


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sl-59jy65bQ
Video showing the fan stop

It seems that all AMD cards current and future cards get the zerocore feature.

I think you are talking about "normal idle" as in "the screen is on, I am on my windows desktop and I am doing nothing for 2 mn", and I am talking about "long idle" as in "screen is off, I am out of the appartment since 5h and enjoying the sun".
Agreed, there is no formal definition of "normal idle" and "long idle", but as I was specifically talking about the AMD zerocore feature.

I'm sorry but your quoting is of little usefulness to me.
Currently I have 3 HD7000 in my builds (2 7850, 1 7770) from two different vendors (ASUS, XFX), and I'm evaluating an XFX R9. No one (with stock vbios) stops the fan at idle (I can't say whether mine are long or normal idlings), despite of zerocore, and they all have big heatsinks.
For what's my experience with Radeons, from the HD3450 up to the current R9, there is no low profile 7850-class card which can be quiet at idle (usual caveat: without likely incurring in overheating, if manually slowing down the fans).

If you still rather to hope to see some day sort of a "flying donkey" in the skies, you're welcome, go ahead: with reference to me, I really hope to be able to see one together with you, and I hope as soon as possible.

If you have a look on the internet, you'll see dozens and dozens of people having problem with zerocore. That surely means that the technology has problems, but that surely doesn't mean that the technology just doesn't exist.

As far as I have read, there are a lot of reasons why your zerocore could fail. For instance HDMI and Display port are reported not to work correctly (or at all) with zerocore.
Or running system processes can also interfere with zerocore.

There are many report on the internet that zerocore is indeed working. How hard have you tried to make it work ?
That's an honest question. I would certainly not get interested in the technology if you can honestly say that you have spent numerous hours of trying to make it work or contacting the AMD tech support.

(edit) Just for helping in your particular case:
- XFX 7850 : http://www.fudzilla.com/home/item/26587 ... nt&print=1
When idle, Black Edition R7850 consumes about 10W, although ZeroCore drops this number to about 1W
- ASUS 7770 : http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=363328
After that ZeroCore works well, the cooler stops immediately and doesn't start while the monitor in standby.

To be fair, I didn't care too much as it was not on my priorities: all I have done is to set up a fan profile which slow down to inaudible levels the fans.
But that's possible because there were substantially sized heatsinks (which a low profile card can't have).

So, it's clearly possible that near in the future some improvements (or a perfectly set up rig) will let zerocore to work flawlessly, but I'm pretty sure that right now no low profile around 100W-card may offer what you're looking for (mainly due to the small-sized heatsink and the necessary aggressive fan profile), and I have some doubts even for what vendors may offer tomorrow (as niche markets aren't well served, usually).

Honestly, I will be glad if you should ever succeed, so please accept my best wishes for your quest.

Just for helping in your particular case:
- XFX 7850 : http://www.fudzilla.com/home/item/26587 ... nt&print=1
When idle, Black Edition R7850 consumes about 10W, although ZeroCore drops this number to about 1W
- ASUS 7770 : http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=363328
After that ZeroCore works well, the cooler stops immediately and doesn't start while the monitor in standby.

As for the low profile HD 7750 : http://www.club-3d.com/index.php/produc ... ity-4.html
"This as a result, reduce the power consumption from 16W at idle to under 3W in long idle, a power level low enough that ZeroCore Power shuts off the fan as there is no heat generated further saving energy"

I think I'll wait a little and if nothing comes out, I'll get this 7750 and see by myself if this zerocore works or not.

You can't compare a 7750 to a 750TI because the 750TI renders three times faster. Games that will run on the Nvidia would shurely have to be drilled down to get similar frame rates on a 7750.

Point is: Low profile cooler have a hard time coping with load temps, will need fast spinning tiny fans. They also have not enough cooling surface, so semi passiv is mostly ruled out.

If you want near 0 DB at long or short or whatever idle, just hybernate your system or suspend to disk.

As soon as internal graphics isn't fast enough you have to start making compromises. Gaming and always on is not optimal. Gaming and silent is difficult. One way is to break it up into several systems. Otherwise you need to compromise. Dropping the low profile requirement seems reasonable to me.

I have never said that the 7750 can be compared to 750 Ti (I own a 750 Ti). I specifically said that the 7750 is an "aging" card.
The 7750 is a good low profile card but quite old and so not powerful enough compared to the 750 Ti.

It's just that I cannot stand the KFA2 GTX 750 Ti noise, and I don't think that Nvidia is interested in developing its own zerocore.
So for the time being, I cannot find anything better than the 7750.





It seems that you are all too focus on power consumption during gaming.
If implemented correctly, if the display is off the card has absolutely nothing to do and should have a very low power consumption (< 4W).
A low profile double slot graphic card should have enough cooling surface to dissipate 4W without turning the fan. This is exactly what AMD is doing with its zerocore technology.

The HD 7750 has similar power consumption profile (but different efficiency) than the GTX 750 Ti (15W at normal idle, 60W when under load). And AMD has managed to shut down the fan during long idle (i.e. when the display is off), so I don't see why it is physically impossible to do the same thing with the GTX 750 Ti.

Given the hard facts, there can be only 2 options :
1) AMD is lying and zerocore doesn't work well enough on a low profile 7750 to stop the fan during long idle (i.e. display off). Won't be the first time that a big corporation is overselling a feature.
2) zerocore is working well enought to stop the fan of a 60W TDP low profile graphic card during long idle. If we don't see it in Nvidia current graphic cards it is because people are not really interested in this feature so Nvidia has no real incentive in developing it.

If I buy the low profile HD 7750, I will report here if the fan can be stopped at long idle.
If I buy the AMD next gen low profile (which should go out in 6 months-2 years), it should have the zerocore feature and I will report if it works or not.
As for Nvidia, they are not really interested in power consumption during long idle (even for normal sized card) so I don't think that I will go with a Nvidia card (shame because the reference GTX 750 was reported to have a power consumption lower than 6W at normal idle !).

Now, as I have yet to see one single people (including me) in this topic who really has tried the zerocore feature before giving theory on what is possible or not possible for stopping the fan at long idle on a low profile card with 60W TDP, I propose to stop the discussion here as it is useless.

It would be very great if graphics cards could idle at low-low levels much like our current CPUs, but I don't think we are there just yet. Zerocore is a nice buzzword. But even if it works great, only AMD cards have this wonderful feature. So sure, if you trust the tech will work fine in a coming card and that card will be a good card in the other aspects as well, go for it. But it's risky imo. Today I would probably go with a non-low profile GTX 750 Ti, slap a passive cooler on it and call it a day.

HD 7750 was a very decent card in its day. I got one when I discovered that Intel HD 4600 wasn't fast enough for my light gaming. But you can't compare that card to a GTX 750 Ti, even if their TDP happens to be in the same range.

If you are getting a low profile HD 7750 today, remember it's rather old. Don't overspend on it.

It took a good while until we got CPUs that idle at a reasonable power level. Graphics cards are more complex. Unless someone drops a nuke in the coming years we will get there though. But for now, Zerocore is a dream. A fairy tale the Man tells the masses, as he puts them to sleep. Erhm, what I mean to say is that the tech needs to mature a bit perhaps.

Everything is useless, but don't let that stop the discussion.

What about the semi-passive (nice buzzword isn't it ?) non-low profile ASUS Stryx GTX 750 Ti ?
It seems to be a nice compromise.
But well for gaming I am more interested in games with big things going boom, so fan noise is not a big factor here.



I wonder why is it so difficult for a GPU ? If the display is off, why is it so difficult to just shut down the whole card because it has nothing more to do ? (it's the zerocore feature by the way).
Hell, we have complete motherboard which can be shutdown and started on demand (wake-on-lan), so why is it not possible to do the same for a graphic card ?
I think it's not that complex from an engineering point of view, it's just that there is no market for this.
Just have a look at that zerocore feature (which is available on many AMD cards) on internet and you'll quickly see that not that many people care about it. Most gamers just power off/standby/hibernate the computer when they are not playing.
Even our friend quest_for_silence here admitted that he didn't really try to make it work. Even though he is more prone than others to have a real use for this feature.

On a CPU, it's more complicated because you always have a dozen processes running at any time so it's difficult to decide when to idle and when not to.

I didn't bother trying this feature too. Just because IMVHO if you want to save power by zero-coring your GPU, the most consistent way to do so is to power off/hybernate/suspend to disk your whole system. In the days of SSD, waking up is fast enough for my liking. Only downside is the BIOS load time when continuing.

And honestly, if in your long-idle, when you spend hours away from the PC, why should it run doing nothing in the first place?

Zerocore has its issues right? If it was uncomplicated, I'm pretty sure it would be done already. It's not a high priority, probably because the demand isn't that great. Most feel that for example the GTX 750 Ti idle low enough. Progress has been made, in the past they didn't even lower the clocks during idle, and when they did it caused problems for some (multi monitor setups).

Huge graphics cards that can turn of the fans while idle is coming, there's a market for it. But there is so much stuff on a graphics card..

Either way, unless you're in the graphics card business there's not much we can do, right? What we can do is assemble our systems using the tech at hand, or wait for promising upcoming tech. Small, silent and powerful has always been difficult. Pretty soon the NUC like stuff will be powerful enough for more than moderate gaming.

WOL just wakes up a computer that is shut down, not a low power state really. It's quite simple and has been around for ages, but still manages to cause problems for me. I have a recent socket 1055 board that don't want to wake up.

We are going a little off-topic, but well.

You have 2 approaches here:
1) Consider that a gaming PC can do more things than gaming, but less efficiently. For instance you can download torrents the whole day, but you will consume a lot of power and you'll have a lot of noise.
2) Consider that a always-on PC can also do gaming, but less efficiently. For instance you can play some games on your NAS box, but you'll have to accept that you cannot play heavy games.

I think you are more focus on case 1 and I am more focus on case 2. Perhaps that's why you have trouble understanding my requirements ?
Really gaming is only a secondary feature for me, the main use is to have an always-on PC. That's why the graphic card behavior at idle is important to me.

And yes, yes, I know that the easiest solution would be for me to just have 2 computers. A Raspberry Pi, cheap Synology/QNAP or a Chromecast with a powerful gaming PC for when I play.
Let's just not go into this as we could spend hours discussing the advantages/drawbacks of each and every solutions.

I don't know. How can we tell if it's not working because of wrong design or because of external factors (PEBKAC ?).
For instance lot of people use HDMI, and the reason why zerocore is not working well with HDMI seems to be reasonable (audio, polling, ...).
So few people is interested by this feature and there are so few review of this feature that it is difficult to conclude.
You can search on this very forum, and you'll find people reporting that it works without problem.

They are already there: you can already buy the Nvidia Stryx for instance.

That's exactly my point. It would be easier to completely shut down the graphic card and there is no artificial physics barrier to achieve that. The only barrier is that nobody is interested. There are even motherboards which allow to simply shut down the PCI-express port power supply, and so you don't have any problem with behavior at idle.
It's just that I don't accept the argument that it is not possible because of simple physic and that I should stop day-dreaming about this because it will ever happen, because you know, physic doesn't change.
Anyway the point is moot as the technology is already there (zerocore). I'm tempted to just buy a low profile 7750 for the fun and prove to everyone there that it is indeed possible to have a low profile card with 60W TDP which can stop its fan at long idle.
Let's have a look on ebay to see if there is something cheap.

If I can take the liberty, I think the situation is somehow different.

Nowadays you can have either a quiet, powerful rig, or a quiet, small rig.
You can't have a system which is small, quiet and powerful at the same time (I will consider the presence of any discrete graphics with a TDP comparable to a CPU one as indicative of a "powerful" rig).

You think that "zerocore" may help you to overcome such a scenario: personally I'm quite sure about the contrary.
Apparently there isn't any definitive, conclusive reasoning about: you have just to try whether you'll be able to properly set up a "powerful" zerocore "small" rig.
As already said, I'll be quite happy if you'll ever succeed.

You seem very sure that it's simple. To me it looks very complicated. I mean, there's no hot-swap graphics cards, right? As far as I know it's a pretty integrated part of the system. Impossible to just shut down, leaving the rest of the system running along without it, and then let it come back again, without some serious work. Of course it's not theoretically impossible, but it's hardly to compare with WOL.
WOL is just a powered down system, listening to not only the power button but also listening for the magic package. Has nothing at all to do with graphics card low power states, not even remotely.