A warning about the Gigabyte 6800

[bsoft]

Just a little warning about the Gigabyte 6800:

The unit runs *very hot*. So hot, in fact, that I sent it back to Newegg. Perhaps I had a defective card, but I could not get my card to run stable without mounting a Panaflo on it. Even then, it was the hottest component in my case.

If you want performance, the Gigabyte 6800 could be the answer. For me, however, the card was simply too hot.

Without the card, my PC is cooled (at idle) by the Seasonic Super Tornado 300W PSU. The Yate-Loon ("Nexus") fan in the Nexus at 800rpm is plenty to cool the system. I have a Zalman 7000, which also doesn't run when the CPU is at idle. My A64 (Newcastle) is perfectly stable at 0.8V / 800MHz.

Bottom line: if you think that the Gigabyte 6800 is a "no brainer", as I did, think again. There are some serious challenges in integrating it into a truly silent PC. It draws a lot of power and puts out a lot of heat. Your PSU fan and case fans may have to spin faster as a result, and you may have to add a fan to the card.

Next step: HDD suspension.

[Shaft0rz]

This seems to be a hit or miss kind of thing -- I run mine overclocked with all pipes unlocked. It's totally stable, and I only have an undervolted nexus 120mm and a super tornado cooling the system.

[Tzupy]

This only confirms that passive cooling requires a minimal airflow in order to work well.

[bsoft]

This only confirms that passive cooling requires a minimal airflow in order to work well.

With a Panaflo L1a directly on the heatsink @ 12V, mine still overheated and gave artifacts. The heatsinks got hot, so I don't think it was a transfer issue.

It's possible that I got a card with bad memory, but the card was never stable - even with the Panaflo.

I'm sure that most of the cards work great, but it doesn't change the fact that this card puts off *a lot* of heat. Even with a fan, the heatsinks on mine got quite toasty.

Personally, I'd go for a traditional 6800 with the NV Silencer; unless my card was a dud, it would appear that you need a fan on the Gigabyte card anyway.

[Tzupy]

IMO you don't have enough airflow in the case to run the passive 6800. If you use only the 120 mm fan of the PSU for exhaust - at 800 rpm it has about 30 cfm - the total airflow is too low. Can't you add another 120 mm case fan for exhaust, running at low speed? Or maybe your card ran at a higher voltage than normal? Anyway, if you already returned it and don't want to add a case fan, then a 6800 with the AC Silencer should be fine (maybe the new revision doesn't click).

[Wedge]

Sorry to hear that bsoft. I was indeed wondering just how well the completely passive 6800 worked. Like another poster already mentioned, it seems to be a hit-and-miss thing. I kind of think you probably needed more movement of air, but it is so hard to really assess the "what-if's" without seeing your system in person. But even with more air-flow, a flaw in the card would still cause problems. I'm surprised the panaflo didn't help. Maybe there was poor contact, like you said.

[bsoft]

IMO you don't have enough airflow in the case to run the passive 6800. If you use only the 120 mm fan of the PSU for exhaust - at 800 rpm it has about 30 cfm - the total airflow is too low. Can't you add another 120 mm case fan for exhaust, running at low speed? Or maybe your card ran at a higher voltage than normal? Anyway, if you already returned it and don't want to add a case fan, then a 6800 with the AC Silencer should be fine (maybe the new revision doesn't click).

I did try the system with the case fan at full (1200rpm ~ 40CFM), for a total of ~70CFM of airflow. Even with the case fan at full and the L1a directly on the heatsink, I couldn't get the card to stop locking up.

I'm now suspecting that it was a contact issue - I know that the heatsinks were hot, but I don't think that they were 105C as reported by the card. Either that, or I got bad memory. The card went back to Newegg and will be replaced with a (much cheaper) 6800GT and a Zalman VF700-CU @ 5V.

The bottom line is this: even at idle, the GeForce 6800 puts out a *lot* of heat. With Cool n Quiet, my A64 runs at 50C *with the CPU heatsink off*. Clearly, the idling GeForce 6800 is much hotter. 50C idle is "normal" for cards with those dustbuster heatsinks.

I think that a 6800 could find a home in a gamer's system that also must be decently quiet. It's probably too hot, though, for many of the "die-hard" SPCRs.

We'll see how the Zalman does. So far, I've been very impressed by the CPU heatsink and I hope that the GPU heatsink will be equally good.

[Wedge]

I'm a little confused here. The original Gigabyte card was a 6800 Ultra? You say you are getting a cheaper 6800GT with a Zalman cooler. I was under the impression that the original card was a 6800 (sometimes referred to as the 6800 non-ultra), but I'm thinking now you had the 6800 Ultra? Sorry if I'm dense about what you are saying.

It's confusing to me because every 6800GT that I have seen costs more than the Gigabyte 6800 passive. I've never seen a 6800 cost more than a 6800GT.

[bsoft]

I'm a little confused here. The original Gigabyte card was a 6800 Ultra? You say you are getting a cheaper 6800GT with a Zalman cooler. I was under the impression that the original card was a 6800 (sometimes referred to as the 6800 non-ultra), but I'm thinking now you had the 6800 Ultra? Sorry if I'm dense about what you are saying.

It's confusing to me because every 6800GT that I have seen costs more than the Gigabyte 6800 passive. I've never seen a 6800 cost more than a 6800GT.

Sorry for the confusion. I had the Gigabyte "non-ultra" (not the one with the fan) and I'm getting a cheaper "non-ultra".

[Wedge]

Ah ok. Mind providing a link? I'm just curious.

[Rutger]

My Gigabyte 6800NU is fantastic!
I just wrote this in the Nvnews forum, so I'm quoting myself


"--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Lower temperature by OC'ing.
I've seen this mentioned a couple of times in this forum, but I haven't read that anyone has tried this with a card with passive cooling.

So i overclocked my Gigabyte 6800 NU (passive cooling).
What i noticed is that when I overclock the core for 2d to 350MHz, the idle temperature drop with about 14°C From 70°C to 56°C.

When I play games the load temperature reaches 72°C at maximim. Doesn't it sound weird that when I don't overclock the card the idle temperature is only 2°C lower than load temp?

Benchmarks shows better results when I OC so the card doesn't throttle.

Could it be that the power management isn't activated at lower speeds? Why wouldn't it?"

And later I found out that...
"I've just lowered the cards voltage to 1.1V (like a 6800LE) and now I have a idle temp of 53 running at 350/720 in 2d (375/800 in 3d). The card is very stable with lower voltage, even when overclocked (385 core gives a little artefacts). Not bad for a card with passive cooling"

http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=45488


I run my case fans @5V and my PSU fan stays at a very low level when I don't play games or do other CPU intesive tasks.

bsoft:
Your system seems to be very quiet, but you run your CPU at 800 MHz. Why would you want to have a 6800NU when your CPU will be a bottle neck?

[bsoft]

I don't actually run my CPU at 800MHz when I'm gaming. I use RMClock to vary the clock based on the CPU load. When I do something CPU intensive (e.g. gaming), the A64 throttles up to 1800MHz @ 1.2V.

At 800MHz / 0.8V, the CPU idles around 51C.

Mind you, at 1800MHz / 1.2V, it's still 0.3V below stock. The Zalman doesn't even start spinning (it's thermally controlled through the BIOS) until the CPU hits 55C, so even at full clock / cpu load it takes about two minutes for the Zalman to turn on. It hits full throttle at 65C, which thankfully has never happened.

That's why I love AMD64 - power when you need it & silence when you don't.

[Wedge]

AMD64 - power when you need it & silence when you don't.

I like it. That should be the new AMD tag line

[Rutger]

I don't actually run my CPU at 800MHz when I'm gaming. I use RMClock to vary the clock based on the CPU load. When I do something CPU intensive (e.g. gaming), the A64 throttles up to 1800MHz @ 1.2V.

At 800MHz / 0.8V, the CPU idles around 51C.

Mind you, at 1800MHz / 1.2V, it's still 0.3V below stock. The Zalman doesn't even start spinning (it's thermally controlled through the BIOS) until the CPU hits 55C, so even at full clock / cpu load it takes about two minutes for the Zalman to turn on. It hits full throttle at 65C, which thankfully has never happened.

That's why I love AMD64 - power when you need it & silence when you don't.

Doh! I should have figured that out.
1.2V @1800MHz that's pretty good for a Newcastle.