GeForce FX = Dust Buster: first test

trifin · Post by **trifin** » Wed Jan 29, 2003 11:22 am

crisspy has a really sound point there!

why on earth do gpu's face down not up ??

crisspy · Post by **crisspy** » Wed Jan 29, 2003 1:15 pm

Just remembered this: Does PCI and AGP have a BIG design fault

Talked about AGP & PCI up-side-wrongness. AFAIK it's mostly a matter of getting the GPU to a spot with good airflow and space for a big HS. That, and I suggest something more than a 'normal' HS. We use fancy copper thingies for our less-than-80w CPU's (SLK800 etc.), why would we expect to get away with less on the 80w GPU?

jhh · Post by **jhh** » Wed Jan 29, 2003 3:40 pm

GamingGod wrote:because i want to be able to play games at at least 1280 or 1600 at 60+frames a second with antialiasing and everything else turned all the way up. You cant do that with a 4200, hell you cant turn antialiasing on at all with the 4200 and expect playable rates.

true. I concede, but you must get my point abt features if not bruit rendering force. The GFFX is more abt features than speed.

I have two sugestions for better AGP:

a) cards with the chip facing 'up' (as mentioned) but also a square hole in the middle of the pins so you can get a main heatsink on top of the chip, and a smaller one on the flip side!

b) forget having graphics on cards - we've reached the stage where one DAC is as good as any another. Instead have GPUs that plug straight into mobos just like the CPU, with proper heatsink and all. The GPU has a special bus connecting to a dac mounted near the monitor port and truly direct access to a slice of sys ram via northbridge. Need a faster gfx card? just slip in a new chip instead of whole rendering system. CPU heatsinks fit GPU and vice versa, and everyone is happy becasue their computers look like dulies

Dru · Post by **Dru** » Wed Jan 29, 2003 4:38 pm

Stop stressing over the FX and put it to some good use! This is off-topic but I thought it was pretty funny. Read under "FX Fun":

http://www.rivastation.com/index_e.htm

shunx · Post by **shunx** » Wed Jan 29, 2003 5:09 pm

"the GeForce FX 5800 weighed in at 77 dBA on our sound meter with the fan spun all the way up"
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.html?i=1779&p=3

Ah-hahahaha...

This is a joke.

Dru · Post by **Dru** » Wed Jan 29, 2003 7:30 pm

Want to know what John Carmack himself says about FX's noise?

John Carmack wrote:The current NV30 cards do have some other disadvantages: They take up two slots, and when the cooling fan fires up they are VERY LOUD. I'm not usually one to care about fan noise, but the NV30 does annoy me.

Carmack goes into a lot of detail about his feelings on the NV30 and R300 here.

shunx · Post by **shunx** » Wed Jan 29, 2003 8:47 pm

nice quote. If Carmack has to describe the issue with adverb and adjective in capital letters, it is clearly not trivial.

chiahaochang · Post by **chiahaochang** » Thu Jan 30, 2003 11:11 am

I found this article about Gainward's work on making a GeForce FX that produces only 7dB(!). I do question how are they are capable of measuring such a low noise level (that's going to be one very sensitive SPL and one dead quiet room), and at what distance the noise level is measured. Is it 7dB @ 1m? Depending on the frequency, I'm sure I'd find 7dB @ 1m acceptable.

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=7516

sgtpokey · Post by **sgtpokey** » Thu Jan 30, 2003 11:30 am

I wonder about that press release:

* When will that card come out? Doesn't say and I wonder how long this new cooling design is going to take for production. If it comes out around the time frame of ATI's R350 release, which way will consumers go?
* What is this revolutionary new cooler? If it's really 7db then shouldn't that technology be applicable towards CPU cooling? After all the FX produces a similar heat output.
* I wonder if the new cooling is really a Zalman ZM80A with some kind of fan to blow on it. That's the only combo that I can imagine that may produce low DBs and still conceivably be 'productized'. Unless gainward is eschewing aircooling completely and bundling a water cooler?
* 7 dbs? That's REALLY low.... interested to see if it's true

Anyway, as I'm still in the market for a high-powered quiet video card, I'm still waiting for Sapphire to come out with it's pre-installed Zalman heatsink 9700 pro, and then decide whether to mod a card or buy Sapphire's premodded one...

Post by **MikeC** » Thu Jan 30, 2003 11:46 am

chiahaochang wrote:I found this article about Gainward's work on making a GeForce FX that produces only 7dB(!). I do question how are they are capable of measuring such a low noise level (that's going to be one very sensitive SPL and one dead quiet room), and at what distance the noise level is measured. Is it 7dB @ 1m? Depending on the frequency, I'm sure I'd find 7dB @ 1m acceptable.http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=7516

If it is really 7 dBA / 1 meter I'll eat my Matrox VGA card!

Dru · Post by **Dru** » Thu Jan 30, 2003 12:43 pm

chiahaochang wrote:Depending on the frequency, I'm sure I'd find 7dB @ 1m acceptable.

"Oops! Darn it! We forgot to put the plug in."

Actually, perhaps they are using an extreme water cooling solution? Even water cooling isn't that low in noise, is it? If they were able to achieve this 7db, the cost of their card will go over $500-$600 including their solution possibly? That's just too much, but I'm sure some will be willing to pay for it.

chiahaochang · Post by **chiahaochang** » Thu Jan 30, 2003 12:58 pm

If it is really 7 dBA / 1 meter I'll eat my Matrox VGA card!

Yeah, I really doubt it's 7dB@1m. I actually suspected that there may've been some mis-communication between Gainward and whomever. And, that they were saying it's a reduction of 7dB. With the base noise level of the GFFX being 77dB (by some measures), reducing that to 70dB would move it in my noise scale of "ludicriously noisy" to "ridiciously noisy".

Anyway, as I'm still in the market for a high-powered quiet video card, I'm still waiting for Sapphire to come out with it's pre-installed Zalman heatsink 9700 pro, and then decide whether to mod a card or buy Sapphire's premodded one...

I'm pretty much in the same boat. Hopefully Sapphire is using the "A" version of the Zalman heatpipe heatsink. I found a site that sells Zalman heatsink modded and overclocked versions of the 9700 Pro. They cost a pretty penny or two, or 40,000. http://www.ocsystem.com/videocard.html

Post by **Rusty075** » Thu Jan 30, 2003 1:24 pm

Actually according to Gainward's press release on their website it is 7dba.

All of Gainward’s FX PowerPack! products feature a radical new design of cooling system delivering maximum performance and incredibly low noise levels. Owing to Gainward’s advanced R&D skills the maximum noise is reduced to only 7db, the same as a human heartbeat. Competetive products maximum noise levels can be rated as high as 70db the same level as a domestic vacuum cleaner.

You can read it for yourself here: Next Generation GeForce FX 5800 Ultra Technology Powered by Gainward

shunx · Post by **shunx** » Thu Jan 30, 2003 7:16 pm

chiahaochang wrote:I found this article about Gainward's work on making a GeForce FX that produces only 7dB(!).

Ooh I know, they forgot to put a zero after the 7

I imagine my room is considerably louder than 7dB even when all equipments are turned off and doors and windows closed.

Post by **MikeC** » Thu Jan 30, 2003 7:35 pm

It is VERY difficult to have ambient noise much below 25 dBA, almost anywhere. Simple fact. This does not mean you can't hear lower level noise -- our hearing is selective, not like sound level meters. I know, for example, that in my house, the noise level during the day is NOT below 20 dBA -- yet I can hear my main PC easily , which is at ~18 dBA -- and the hum has been driving me slightly bananas all week! I think I may have to resort to Leo's rubber box for the Barracudas; suspension is NOT enough!

Beyonder · Post by **Beyonder** » Thu Jan 30, 2003 7:38 pm

I would subjectivly guess that my PC is somewhere between 20-25 DB from where I typically sit, and even that noise drives me nuts sometimes.

My monitor, though fairly quiet, has an ever so slight buzz that drives me up the wall. My next monitor is going to be LCD just for sanity's sake.

Dru · Post by **Dru** » Thu Jan 30, 2003 8:15 pm

MikeC wrote:yet I can hear my main PC easily , which is at ~18 dBA -- and the hum has been driving me slightly bananas all week!

You are now starting to scare me Mike! You have a 18db system and aren't satisfied! LOL!

powergyoza · Post by **powergyoza** » Thu Jan 30, 2003 8:34 pm

MikeC wrote:It is VERY difficult to have ambient noise much below 25 dBA, almost anywhere. Simple fact. This does not mean you can't hear lower level noise -- our hearing is selective, not like sound level meters. I know, for example, that in my house, the noise level during the day is NOT below 20 dBA -- yet I can hear my main PC easily , which is at ~18 dBA -- and the hum has been driving me slightly bananas all week! I think I may have to resort to Leo's rubber box for the Barracudas; suspension is NOT enough!

Mike finally looses it goes all the way into the air-cooling deep end. Welcome Mike!

Herb W. · Post by **Herb W.** » Fri Jan 31, 2003 12:29 am

18 db is too loud?

We're getting into borderline (or maybe not so borderline) obsessive-compulsive disorder territory here....

shunx · Post by **shunx** » Fri Jan 31, 2003 7:53 pm

I think any regular reader of this site would have to be slightly obsessive, if not compulsive...

Post by **MikeC** » Fri Jan 31, 2003 8:34 pm

OK, I guess I have to defend my seeming insanity about being driven nuts by my very quiet system: "normal" systems have a lot of fan turbulence noise, white noise -- tends to cover up a lot of other noise. As you drop the fan noise down, there is less white noise to cover up other more specific noises. Mine has almost no fan noise at all, so the noise it does produce is more "pure" tones -- the 120Hz hum of the hard drives, for example, or the similar low level hum of the Panaflos.

I work in a small hardwood floor office, that is very "live". It is a very quiet neighborhod, and during the day, I am virtually alone in the quiet house. I can hear the fridge cycle in the kitchen is 30 ft & 2 walls away...

So yeah, I can hear this slight hum. Maybe it is new?

I crawled down there a few minutes ago to see if it was something specific other than the drives -- it turns out to be a slight buzziness in one of my Panaflos -- the one in the PSU, the one most exposed to the outside. When I stop the blades from spinning, the very slight buzziness fades. Time for a fan swap. Or maybe a drop of oil, as it is subject to a lot of heat in the PSU.

I wan't going crazy after all -- the system noise changed.

jhh · Post by **jhh** » Sat Feb 01, 2003 6:19 am

I agree abt what mike says re white noise. Since I quieted my fans the HDD drives me crazy, whereas before I could hear it under all that solid-sounding turbulance, which didn't bother me quite so much.

Of course I don't have it in me to go back to 12v on my fans, besides I find that the quieter I get my system the more sensitive to the noise my ears become to compensate

My current setup is prob ~22dB, when I first got it to that level I was amazed at the silence, but one week in it's anoying me again!!

maybe all us quietpc guys are just easily annoyed?

PassiveMan · Post by **PassiveMan** » Sat Feb 01, 2003 8:09 am

Who needs this kind of 3D performance anyway which also brings so much noise. Does anyone find the Radeon 9700 Pro slow, I think not!! I don't think it will be even slow for the next 1-2 years, by then so many faster newer graphics card will appear anyway...

Lets be realistic, if it causes that much heat and makes that much noise, do you really want one in your case? More heat means even harder to silent your computer in general.

crisspy · Post by **crisspy** » Sat Feb 01, 2003 8:16 am

My current setup is prob ~22dB, when I first got it to that level I was amazed at the silence, but one week in it's anoying me again!!

during the day is NOT below 20 dBA -- yet I can hear my main PC easily , which is at ~18 dBA -- and the hum has been driving me slightly bananas all week!

I would subjectivly guess that my PC is somewhere between 20-25 DB from where I typically sit, and even that noise drives me nuts sometimes.

It is a steep cliff... watch that last step, it's a doozy! I fully sympathise with your plights folks. Real total silence can be like a tonic for the mind. It is my favorite music, my favorite poem. My farm property is frequently blessed by it. It makes me consider alternative refrigeration, and the ability to turn off all AC power to the house I will build there. The silence cries to the soul. Once you have really tasted it, accepting less is only a forgetting. If you are one of those folks who likes power outages and far distant forests, silence may be your thread.

I live with the buzzzzzz, grind, growl, hummm, and thrummm of this modern world, and I don't complain much. But I don't forget the starting point. When simple little changes and fixes can get us so much closer to that music, then they are a worthy effort. Indeed, particularly fixes for computers: this is a mental environment where I want my mind to dance. Silence is my best music. The principals and tricks we have been learning here together, especially thanks to Mike Chin, are all well worth the work.

18 db is too loud? We're getting into borderline (or maybe not so borderline) obsessive-compulsive disorder territory here....

Have you heard the song of silence?

Dru · Post by **Dru** » Sat Feb 01, 2003 8:19 am

A "guaranteed" method to muffle all your other problem sounds is to stick a GeForceFX in there.

ez2remember · Post by **ez2remember** » Sat Feb 01, 2003 8:25 am

I can see why people think the quest to reach near silence is a obsession, I don't look at it in that way.

I see it as a luxuary, like we appreciate all things in life we want the best. Don't we all wish our ugly PC's looked more like iMacs. I mean if we had a choice would you rather have silent machine or just a quiet machine, I know which one I will choose. We go for the best like all things, so I don't see it as a obsession if you can do it, why not?

shunx · Post by **shunx** » Sat Feb 01, 2003 6:10 pm

crisspy wrote: Real total silence can be like a tonic for the mind. It is my favorite music, my favorite poem.

I suddenly feel that this pursuit of computer silence is somewhat philosophical. There's something almost Zen about it... It reminds me of the pursuit of the dissolution of external senses in introvertive mysticism, such as when a Buddhist medidates to block out the material world in hopes of achieving enlightenment. (Hey, this website is cool, it's actually helping me prepare for my philosophy final!

)

Post by **MikeC** » Sat Feb 01, 2003 11:21 pm

I have simple tastes. I am always satisfied with the best.

So said Oscar Wilde. In our case, the best has not been created yet. We are in pursuit of creating the best -- a silent PC.

Gxcad · Post by **Gxcad** » Sun Feb 02, 2003 12:46 am

Eat your matrox card? Dang Gainward better live up to their promise! Although the only way I can see them actually succeeding is to put a ginormous heatsink on it, passive... Please gainward make an FX with a huge heatsink on it! Seeing Mike eat his matrox is a once in a lifetime thing!

Oh and mike, if you go through with the rubber box I'm sure we'd all like to see it=). I remember back in yahoo groups there was a japanese guy that used rubber to silence and transfer heat away from the drive and he found it to be the most effective. The sandbag is another option...harddrive is the LAST thing in my system that has to be silenced! (Though after that is silenced I'm SURE I will find something else, like my nearby poweramp or my sony trini:(

-Ken

GeForce FX = Dust Buster: first test

A quiet GeForceFX?

Re: A quiet GeForceFX?

Re: A quiet GeForceFX?

Re: A quiet GeForceFX?