Rant - price of silence

PretzelB · Post by **PretzelB** » Mon Feb 23, 2004 6:12 am

Allow me to rant for a moment on the bias against having quiet computers.

I decided to do a price check and see how the Sapphire 9600xt passive cooled card is doing. My goal is to buy the card for $150 and last I checked it was $215 and out of stock.

First I get hit with an ad for a 9800 Pro for only $214which gets me mad.

Then I see that the passively cooled 9600xt is no longer at NewEgg.

Then I look for Sapphire passively cooled cards and see that a 9800 Pro passively cooled is $329!! which confirms the conspiricy.

Grrrrrr. The graphics card industry is working with the hearing aide industry to keep them in business.

Pjotor · Post by **Pjotor** » Mon Feb 23, 2004 6:42 am

I suppose you pay extra not just for the passive cooling, but also for the warranty covering for the whole shebang (and not just the card, whose warranty is blown to heck when you change the heatsink)... Nonetheless it's a steal (for the manufacturer, that is).

m0002a · Post by **m0002a** » Mon Feb 23, 2004 7:09 am

If they sold lots of them, the cost of R&D, marketing, etc could be spread over more units and there might be competition from other vendors. But it is still a niche market. Most people don't seem to care that much. Maybe because when most people purchase these high-power cards, they use them to play games, which drowns out the PC noise.

Kemokim · Post by **Kemokim** » Mon Feb 23, 2004 9:00 am

Well thats why you have the option to buy the normal 9800 pro and simply install the Zalman ZM80-C and the OP1 i think its called,, this will make it 100% identical to the one at 3xx$ just a lot cheaper..

the thing about the warranty is true, but if you do it without hacking and slashing then you can still put the old cooler back on in case of RMA..

PretzelB · Post by **PretzelB** » Mon Feb 23, 2004 11:53 am

Kemokim wrote:Well thats why you have the option to buy the normal 9800 pro and simply install the Zalman ZM80-C and the OP1 i think its called,, this will make it 100% identical to the one at 3xx$ just a lot cheaper..

the thing about the warranty is true, but if you do it without hacking and slashing then you can still put the old cooler back on in case of RMA..

Yea, I know. It's just that I liked the idea of buying the card with the cooler attached so I don't void the warranty. Like I said, it's a rant.

I will probably just get a regular 9600xt (or maybe a 9800pro) and see how long it takes me to get annoyed with the stock cooling fan. It just a pain when you're part of the minority that is interested in silence.

cbloss · Post by **cbloss** » Wed Feb 25, 2004 1:07 pm

You also have to notice that is the 256meg version of the card, not 128.

Wedge · Post by **Wedge** » Sun Feb 29, 2004 11:17 am

cbloss wrote:You also have to notice that is the 256meg version of the card, not 128.

Ummmm....yeah! That makes a big difference in price wherever you may look. Thanks for pointing that out because I didn't notice.

The 128MB version should be cheaper.

wumpus · Post by **wumpus** » Sun Feb 29, 2004 2:41 pm

Well thats why you have the option to buy the normal 9800 pro and simply install the Zalman ZM80-C and the OP1 i think its called,, this will make it 100% identical to the one at 3xx$ just a lot cheaper..

Yeah, it's really easy to do. I've installed two of the Zalman ZM80's now, and a single VGA Silencer, all very straightforward-- fun, even!

kie · Post by **kie** » Mon Mar 01, 2004 4:03 am

in the uk the ultimate editions are only about £10 more than the regular ones

tbadiuk · Post by **tbadiuk** » Mon Mar 01, 2004 10:23 pm

Two things:

1) I just bought a Sapphire 9700 pro ultimate edition for $200 inc. shipping to CANADA. So, the price of the card was about $180+shipping. This is on Ebay.

2) I decided to go with a 9700 not only because of the excellent deal I got, but also because the 9800 runs a LOT hotter. So hot the some tests have found the 9800 Pro U.E. from Sapphire not to be 100% stable.

See this article and note the temps between the fan cooled 9700 and 9800 pro's (85C for memory!!). Then take a look at the passively cooled one! Now, that is the 256MB version the compare but the same holds true for the 128MB as it's the higher voltage of the 9800's that's the problem. The 9700 should run a good deal cooler and is not all that much slower.

LINK: http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/ ... t-red.html

Ted

Bar81 · Post by **Bar81** » Wed Mar 03, 2004 10:26 am

From my experience those Sapphire Ultimates and the Zalman HP coolers are an exercise is futility. The whole point of removing the average Vid card HS/Fan is to eliminate the noise. Okay, the Zalman does that, but it generates an INSANE amount of heat (I had one with a 9700 pro stock speed and most of the time it's blazingly hot to the touch) that you can't just let sit in your case or it turns it into an oven and raises temps on everything (CPU, HDs, etc). So, you've got to improve airflow in the case and that means adding fans running not so silently to move enough air. I moved to the VGA Silencer and a 9800 pro but while solving one problem (GPU heat was now moved out of the case) I got another - insanely hot RAM on the vid card (I'm talking 50ish C from the feel of it and that created the same problem as the Zalman) as I hadn't really thought about the RAM heat before and the fact that they overvolt the ram compared to the 9700p.

What I think is the best combination on these sick cards is the VGA Silencer, which on low is inaudible unless you're right next to it (the fan is at the bottom rear of the case, *in* the case - a perfect location for silence) and using powerstrip. I find that when I'm not gaming I'm not doing anything that I would consider particularly taxing on my vid card so I set up a profile, basically setting mem speed to min (haven't tried it yet on 9700p but on 9800p it allowed me to set it all the way down to 280) for regular work and then a high perf profile I set it to to game. This keeps the RAM heat more reasonable - around 15C cooler than stock on the 9800p I've got right now.

Defintely agree on the 9700Pro, pretty much 90-95% of the 9800Pro's performance at a lot less heat - the 9800Pro seems to be mostly a card marked by diminishing returns and the gobs of heat it generates in comparison to the 9700 pro versus the performance improvement illustrate that fact.

Personally, even DIY runs up there in cost as I've tried at least three different choices for each component in my current rig trying to strike that delicate balance between perf and heat & noise. I'm moving to an A64 next as I'm really looking forward to seeing what Cool N Quiet can do. Crossing my fingers...

kie · Post by **kie** » Wed Mar 03, 2004 11:08 am

well Bar81's exoeriences contradict mine somewhat.

I run a Sapphire 9800 Pro Ultimate Edition.

I agree that the heat sink does get hot, but in my setup, it is never too hot to touch. Also my case temps did not increase after I installed it - previously I was running a GeForce3, which is nowhere hear as hot as a 9800Pro.

I think a source of the differences may be due to my case airflow. Specifically I have a 120mm fan directly above teh graphics card exhusting hot air and also drawing air over the ulitmate edition heatsink. Maybe this is why the heat sink remains cool enough to touch and my case temps are not effected.

Bar81 · Post by **Bar81** » Wed Mar 03, 2004 12:04 pm

That's probably true, it just depends on your tolerance of fan noise. I'm working on a *silent* system from 2-4 feet away and not just a quiet one - that I already have but it's not good enough for my tastes; I want it so in the dead of night when there isn't a sound, I can't hear my PC besides my mouse as I surf the web. To be quiet in my system, the 120mm fan would probably have to run below 600 rpm, like my PSU fan does when I hit the special switch...

kie · Post by **kie** » Wed Mar 03, 2004 1:16 pm

my 120mm fan is on a rheobus that goes down to 0V and is set to the minimum voltage that allows it to spin up.

I've no idea what the rpm is but the fan is very quiet at this speed.

the only thing I hear from my system are the hard drives.