New RBE 1.18 is out! With this version, changed Saphire and Gigabyte Bios can be saved!

Now maybe Sapphire/Gigabyte users can equal HIS idle Power consumption?
Or maybe beat, if HIS can't physicaly do 0.9V and other cards can?

But PowerColor card was measured by xbitlabs (8.7W) and for HIS card was reported in this thread idle about 13W. So perfect confusion.

TheSilentOne: Very interesting post. That would make sense, that Bios values are just the base for driver settings.
Did you check if your Sapphire cards then goes to 0.9V in idle?

Matija: Just save a backup copy of bios, before you flash. Can you save changed bios in RBE?

Aris: We are not talking about the same issue. It's true what you're saying, but if VGA generates less heat in the first place, than you have less heat to worry about. If VGA needs about 20W in idle, the temp on HS in 100% passive system will be about 60 degC. If VGA needs about 30W in idle, the tem...

Aris: Can we stop now with this in this thread, please? Yes, it's true that VGA can handle up to 100c, but the problem is that you must take this heat out of the PC... and by having so hot VGA, then also MB will heat up, HDD will feel the heat, etc... No good for my setup. So runninig passive is ver...

Very weird power consumptions in that review. No logic at all! 4670 needs 44W more than 4650 at load? @quest_for_silence: To the heat topic. So if you add VGA card to the pary you get over 100W fast, right? The Sapphire cards are not yet supported by RBE, they have bit diferent BIOS. Most 4670 have ...

I'd say no to Sapphire cards, as they don't have proper Bios values. They tend to consume some extra W in idle, compared to HIS, MSI,... Look in the 4670 thread for more details. At xbitlabs measured 15W in idle and 36 W load for 7600 GT, really good balance at that time. For 4670 they measured 9W i...

Maybe 4650? Sure, it's slower than 4670, but should be enough to meet performance. This version is passive:
HIS Radeon HD 4650 iSilence 4, 512MB DDR2

Other than that I'd vote for regular 4670 and try to underclock it in 3D mode to target consumption.

@Aris: I guess you did some research, but your source is not reliable. Why? Even in theory 4670 can't have 70W consumption. Remember, the card has no external power and max. it can get from MB is 75W (on paper). No company would go so close to the limit, so about 50W is more realistic. I didn't test...

@Aris: You know that's not true! Do a little research before you post. Your 8800GT sucks with the power consumtion. It has idle at 35W DC and 3D load at 80W DC. We are talking here about a 4670 card that has idle at 9W DC and 3D load 47W DC. (from xbitlabs) So buy two 4670 cards and you'll have lowe...

It might go.

I saw this problem before and I asked Thermalright support and they replied:
...if you make the cooler at the back of the card, it can be a passive cooler, the distance will be around 7mm
between the PCB and heat pipes, about the fan connector, HR-03 Rev will have no problem.

@ds-ds: Just consider how much heat 9800GT makes. To talk about passive cards make sense only if they don't make a lot of heat in the first place. Look here: http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/radeon-hd4830_4.html and you'll see that at the moment only 4670 is suitable for passive use! O...

Why not overkill?

I think HR-03 should be better, as it brings heat to the back of the card, so it can go up with convection ...

@QuietOC: So, to make better idea how much a real system uses, SPCR should modify method 1b. Modern IGP can use 5W or more and that should be taken into account. SPCR should find an old discrete 2D only card and measure the actual power use. Then they could estimate IGP consumption and then correct ...

Maybe Eizo HD2442W?

1 x D-Sub (analog), 1 x DVI-D (digital), 2 x HDMI

... just bit expensive and according to tests at 'prad.de'
better than Dell.

Has anybody tested Logi mice recently, or are they still the same shit in terms of noise/whine?

I'd go for new MX or VX, but will not repeat MX510 disaster.

@Vicotnik: I wish you'll have sucess with RBE tweaking. Btw, you have excellent power consumption. Is that measured from the wall? Sure PSU is helping a lot. :) But how do you handle 3D load? Did you measure how much you have without 4670, or how much HIS cards adds to the power consumption? @Matija...

@Ksanderash: Now I'm bit confused ... ??? @fanerman91: We can assume onboard GPU's consume few wats (2, 3 maybe 4?). So with 4670 you could come close to that, at least below 10W, as SPCR test showed. I don't have onboard GPU, but I did measure consumption with old Matrox PCI card. That card is so o...

@Ksanderash: Your Bios looks like the reference one - just like HIS one!

Did you set Power Management in Control Panel to Max Battery?
Only that enables PowerPlay modes.

As we discovered in last few days keep away from Sapphire 4670, as it has higher power consumtion in normal windows work! Try to get one, where Power Play is implemented right. We confirmed that for HIS card, SPCR review had stock ATI card - that was also ok. MSI could also be ok, but we need to con...

There was much discussion about that at forums on: http://www.mvktech.net/ Basicaly it's so: if you have voltage 1,25V, you must put that to decimal nummer 1250 - convert to hex value 4E2 and now tricky part - change the order of hex value E2 04! Now if you search Bios for this values you can quickl...

No problem, it's up to you. Btw, I made the same changes as RBE would do, only diference is, that I do this 'manual'. If I open new Bios in RBE I see the changes and correct checksum there. Also RBE has small text - do this on your own bla, bla ... But if you can buy a HIS card, this is a safe way -...

No problem, it's up to you. Btw, I made the same changes RBE would do, only diference that I do this 'manual'. If I open Bios in RBE I see the changes there and correct checksum. Also RBE has small text - do this on your own bla, bla ... But if you can buy a HIS card, this is a safe way - if you can...

@Vicotnik: Thanks for providing Bioses. I saw 3 diferent 4670 Bioses and here is how are they implemented: - HIS: PowerPlay is ok, in idle 165/250 MHz @ 0,9V - Gigabyte: PowerPlay is there, but not optimal - in idle 300/1000 MHz @ 1,1V - Sapphire: PowerPlay is there, but is shitty- in idle 300/1000 ...

@Vicotnik: If PowerPlay is enabled, what is the 'Clock info 01' setting for your bios? Maybe you post this on RBE forum and somebody can look at this issue? I see Sapphire is really lousy with taking care for Bios releases. I bought passive 2600XT and with stock Bios there was no 2D mode - leading t...

Here are Etasis PSUs, there is 500W model: http://www.etasis.com.tw/en/product_list.aspx?cid=C_00000032&cname=300W+%7e+500W I have EFN-300 model. I like the heatpipes on this model. You can't fool physics. Even on low loads with no airflow PSU gets quite hot - finger test. That's also because PSU is...

I think so powerfull passive PSUs are useless. Why? If you need so much power, you'll have plenty of heat in PC, so you'll need many fans to take the heat out. I use passive PSU - an 300W Etasis model. My PC can run 100% passive only at idle where it uses about 70W (from wall). While gaming I need 1...

Eizo S2431W - not 100% silent for silent maniac, for general public I suppose it is. Auto brightnes regulation, no change in noise! From close distance electronic noise can be heard. In normal working distance and in quiet room is panaflo@5V louder (fan motor noise). So, good monitor from silent vie...

[quote="Vicotnik"] Sapphire 4670 here (which I don't recommend btw since RBE has problem with its bios, I would go for a HIS today). [/quote]

Could you describe what problem are with RBE? Is PowerPlay enabled on Sapphire 4670?