What's the fastest passively cooled card available?

lorkp · Post by **lorkp** » Tue Apr 12, 2005 1:35 pm

Hi,

I'm about to build a new system for my freshman year in college. What is the fastest card I can get that is passively cooled or capable of being cooled passively with additional aftermarket products? I will not be gaming or be doing any special graphics, but I don't want a slouch of a card. It needs DVI and to be capable of comfortablly driving at least a Dell 2001FP.

Thanks,

Loren

sthayashi · Post by **sthayashi** » Tue Apr 12, 2005 2:01 pm

For PCI-Express or AGP?

For AGP, I think the 6600GT is the best passive one.

For PCI-E it's probably Gigabyte's equivalent for PCI-E or their X800 XL

Though frankly, if you're not playing games, you could save a whole heap of money by getting a Sapphire Radeon 9600 non-pro or X300. Both are fully capable of driving your 2001FP. A good rule of thumb is to get the game first and THEN determine if you need better hardware.

As for what's moddable, I'm not qualified to say.

lorkp · Post by **lorkp** » Tue Apr 12, 2005 2:08 pm

Sorry, I'm a little out of the loop - What are the advantages and disadvantages of PCI-E vs. AGP?

StarfishChris · Post by **StarfishChris** » Tue Apr 12, 2005 2:15 pm

PCI-E has SLI and is more futureproof. Apart from that there is little benefit (the AGP bandwidth still hasn't been exhausted yet - for a single card)

cansan · Post by **cansan** » Tue Apr 12, 2005 2:18 pm

lorkp wrote:Sorry, I'm a little out of the loop - What are the advantages and disadvantages of PCI-E vs. AGP?

For performance there is basically no difference.

PCI-E is more future proof (if there is ever such a thing).

The thing is as far as I know every card that comes out in PCI-E is produced in an AGP version as well these days. It all depends on your motherboard of choice.

(edit: WoW, fast reply Starfish...)

niels007 · Post by **niels007** » Wed Apr 13, 2005 2:15 am

It is worth repeating that you don't really need a 'fast' card, as they don't really make a difference in everyday work. Only games often to a lesser extent OpenGL apps like Solidworks, Maya, 3Ds, Autocad take advantage of a quicker card.

ATI cards had (is that still true?) better DVI output and their TV-out has slightly more features out of the box. The x300 or 9550 can be found cheaply and passively cooled..

lucienrau · Post by **lucienrau** » Wed Apr 13, 2005 5:46 am

ATI cards had (is that still true?) better DVI output and their TV-out has slightly more features out of the box. The x300 or 9550 can be found cheaply and passively cooled..

An integrated chipset would work just fine too.

If you're looking for strictly 2D and text (normal computer use) and no games at all, you may want to look at the Matrox cards since Nvidia and ATI mainly focus on 3D quality and Matrox has some of the best 2D cards out there.

For gaming (read newer games) the Gigabyte 6600 cards are some of the best out there. I'd get one except my ATI 9600XT does just fine with everything I use it for.

AGP vs PCI Express. Not much difference at the moment, if you're upgrading a whole system it might be worth getting PCI express, but AGP is still fine.

bsoft · Post by **bsoft** » Wed Apr 13, 2005 7:20 am

lucienrau wrote:
ATI cards had (is that still true?) better DVI output and their TV-out has slightly more features out of the box. The x300 or 9550 can be found cheaply and passively cooled..

An integrated chipset would work just fine too.

"If you're looking for strictly 2D and text (normal computer use) and no games at all, you may want to look at the Matrox cards since Nvidia and ATI mainly focus on 3D quality and Matrox has some of the best 2D cards out there."

Yeah, Matrox has excellent 2D, though if you use DVI, there's no significant difference.

"For gaming (read newer games) the Gigabyte 6600 cards are some of the best out there. I'd get one except my ATI 9600XT does just fine with everything I use it for."

The 6600 is a killer card.

"AGP vs PCI Express. Not much difference at the moment, if you're upgrading a whole system it might be worth getting PCI express, but AGP is still fine.

"

Basically, yet.

poohbear · Post by **poohbear** » Thu Apr 14, 2005 1:10 am

My vote is for the Gigabyte fanless 6600GT PCI-e as well

TheJTrain · Post by **TheJTrain** » Mon Apr 25, 2005 11:50 am

I really like this fanless 6600GT (PCI-e version), but would love it or something like it with 256MB of RAM. Anybody know of something similar?

Jason

poohbear · Post by **poohbear** » Mon Apr 25, 2005 11:53 am

is there a big difference between 256MB and 128MB? For say an A64 3000+?

OmegaZero · Post by **OmegaZero** » Mon Apr 25, 2005 12:04 pm

The GigaByte GeForce 6800 (AGP) is passive.

GUNNER · Post by **GUNNER** » Mon Apr 25, 2005 12:08 pm

As far as the functional difference in the amount of memory, I don't know.

However, the Gigabyte GeForce 6600 PCI-Express is available in both. The GV-NX66256DP uses 256mb of DDR and the GV-NX66128DP uses 128mb of DDR.

(The code seems to be "G" is Gigabyte, "V" is for video card, "N" is NVidia chipset, "X" is PCI-Express (?), "66" is GeForce 6600 chipset, "128"/"256" is the amount of memory, "D" is DDR RAM, and "P" is Passive cooling, in this case using heatpipes routed to heatsinks on both sides of the card.)

I have just received the GV-NX66256DP, but haven't finished building the machine it will be in, so I don't have any first-hand experience, yet.

m0002a · Post by **m0002a** » Mon Apr 25, 2005 12:08 pm

poohbear wrote:is there a big difference between 256MB and 128MB? For say an A64 3000+?

No, very little difference unless you run extremely high resolutions at 16M colors (32 bit). Even though I could use 32-bit color at my screen resoluton of 1200 x 900, I run with 16-bit (16K colors) because it puts less strain on the system and I can't tell the difference.

OmegaZero · Post by **OmegaZero** » Mon Apr 25, 2005 12:12 pm

This may be a silly question, but why would you get a GeForce 6600 instead of a 6800? Every benchmark I have found says that the 6800 blows it away...

EasyRaider · Post by **EasyRaider** » Mon Apr 25, 2005 12:39 pm

m0002a wrote:
poohbear wrote:is there a big difference between 256MB and 128MB? For say an A64 3000+?
No, very little difference unless you run extremely high resolutions at 16M colors (32 bit). Even though I could use 32-bit color at my screen resoluton of 1200 x 900, I run with 16-bit (16K colors) because it puts less strain on the system and I can't tell the difference.

Are you talking about 2D here? In that case, there is no difference whatsoever. The only meaningful difference is in the latest 3D games (notably Doom 3, EverQuest 2). And even then, having a fast GPU, at least 6600 GT, is much more important than having 256 MB memory.

Edward Ng · Post by **Edward Ng** » Mon Apr 25, 2005 12:55 pm

OmegaZero wrote:This may be a silly question, but why would you get a GeForce 6600 instead of a 6800? Every benchmark I have found says that the 6800 blows it away...

Less cost and less heat for someone who doesn't game much and/or plays not-so-graphics-intensive games.

I have a 6800GT though, so I'm not one of the people I just indicated.

-Ed

mrzed · Post by **mrzed** » Mon Apr 25, 2005 1:16 pm

I think it needs to be repeated that for the original intent of this thread, all talk of 6600, X800, and 6800 cards is massive overkill. If you are not gaming, do not buy a gaming card. Period.

Any modern low end card will be able to deal with 1600x1200 resolution at good refresh rates. Anything with a fan on it is probably too much card for general computing. Thus to answer the original post - if you are looking for a non-gaming computer, you should only be looking at passive cards. The thread title is probably what brought all these innapropriate suggestions on. You don't need the fastest passive card, just a good one.

Even light gaming should not pose much of a problem for recent low end cards or recent integrated graphics. I still game occasionally on my 8500le, which is not much better than the least expensive new cards available.

tabbal · Post by **tabbal** » Mon Apr 25, 2005 1:34 pm

lorkp wrote:Hi,

I'm about to build a new system for my freshman year in college. What is the fastest card I can get that is passively cooled or capable of being cooled passively with additional aftermarket products? I will not be gaming or be doing any special graphics, but I don't want a slouch of a card. It needs DVI and to be capable of comfortablly driving at least a Dell 2001FP.

Thanks,

Loren

You can save a lot and be very happy with this Mobo with VERY capable Onboard Graphics ( no need for a card!), and passive cooling: MSI RS480M2-IL.
I just put together a very quiet /silent PC- out of the box (no additional soundproofing whatsoever!):
MSI RS480M2-IL
AMD 3000+ /939 - 90mm
1 GB Corsair Select Value
1Seagate HD 160Gb
1 Pci modem
Antec Case: 3700 BQE
1 Samsung CD-R
1 LG DVD 4163b
Cost about $800 ... yet it runs as fast as my other pc: P4 3.00C GHZ with a 9600XT graphic card at a lot less than half the cost! And SILENT as a bonus!
Non gamers really don't need a Graphic Card!

Chang · Post by **Chang** » Mon Apr 25, 2005 2:22 pm

mrzed wrote:Even light gaming should not pose much of a problem for recent low end cards or recent integrated graphics.

The problem here (and with the very nice RS480M2-IL) is the DVI requirement. I've only seen prototype boards that offer DVI for the integrated graphics. Some of the low end cards won't offer it either.

Another thing to look at is the resolution the original poster is running at. I disagree with mrzed and feel that going at 1600x1200 can be taxing for the low-end, even if you're not a hardcore gamer.

Go a step up to 1920x1200 (like I'm looking for), and that on-board looks even less attractive. I'd love to use the RS480M2-IL onboard but it looks like I'm going to have to get a DVI capable PCIe card to go with it. The problem is do I go cheap (sub-$100) and get something only comparable to on-board (but with DVI), or do the step up to one of Gigabyte's passive offerings at 3x the price.

poohbear · Post by **poohbear** » Mon Apr 25, 2005 3:17 pm

GUNNER wrote:As far as the functional difference in the amount of memory, I don't know.

However, the Gigabyte GeForce 6600 PCI-Express is available in both. The GV-NX66256DP uses 256mb of DDR and the GV-NX66128DP uses 128mb of DDR.

(The code seems to be "G" is Gigabyte, "V" is for video card, "N" is NVidia chipset, "X" is PCI-Express (?), "66" is GeForce 6600 chipset, "128"/"256" is the amount of memory, "D" is DDR RAM, and "P" is Passive cooling, in this case using heatpipes routed to heatsinks on both sides of the card.)

I have just received the GV-NX66256DP, but haven't finished building the machine it will be in, so I don't have any first-hand experience, yet.

yeah, I think most people would be more interested in the 6600GT fanless versions.

Gigabyte GeForce 6600GT TurboForce Edition 128MB DDR PCI-E w/ TV-Out, DVI (GV-NX66T128VP)
http://www.giga-byte.com/VGA/Products/P ... T128VP.htm

Gigabyte GeForce 6600GT TurboForce Edition 128MB DDR AGP w/ TV-Out, DVI (GV-N66T128VP)
http://www.giga-byte.com/VGA/Products/P ... T128VP.htm

So as you can see, the "X" probably stands for PCI-e version. Not sure about how they come up with the other letters though.[/b]

poohbear · Post by **poohbear** » Mon Apr 25, 2005 3:19 pm

Very interesting about the RS480M2-IL. But I guess many of us want DVI, especially in the long run so we'd want to upgrade the video eventually.

Searched for it on google ..

http://www.msicomputer.com/product/p_sp ... L&class=mb

TheJTrain · Post by **TheJTrain** » Mon Apr 25, 2005 3:25 pm

GUNNER wrote:As far as the functional difference in the amount of memory, I don't know.

However, the Gigabyte GeForce 6600 PCI-Express is available in both. The GV-NX66256DP uses 256mb of DDR and the GV-NX66128DP uses 128mb of DDR.

(The code seems to be "G" is Gigabyte, "V" is for video card, "N" is NVidia chipset, "X" is PCI-Express (?), "66" is GeForce 6600 chipset, "128"/"256" is the amount of memory, "D" is DDR RAM, and "P" is Passive cooling, in this case using heatpipes routed to heatsinks on both sides of the card.)

I have just received the GV-NX66256DP, but haven't finished building the machine it will be in, so I don't have any first-hand experience, yet.

Yeah, right you are. There's also a "T" after the 66 to denote the 6600GT chipset. Unfortunately, it looks like no models exist that are all these things:
- 6600GT
- PCI-e
- passively cooled
- 256MB RAM
Several models can be found that are 3/4 but after reading up a little more on 128MB vs. 256MB RAM, I think I'm going to go with the GV-NX66T128VP, available at ZipZoomFly (formerly Googlegear) for $210 at the moment (I'd rather have a 6600GT with 128 than a 6600 with 256).

Jason

poohbear · Post by **poohbear** » Mon Apr 25, 2005 3:29 pm

yup, a 6600GT is worth more than 6600 no matter how much ram it has.

We have it for $266 and $275 CAD here in Canada. So about the same cost, and cheaper than buying a fanless heatpipe cooler separately.

mrzed · Post by **mrzed** » Mon Apr 25, 2005 3:29 pm

Just as an example, the ATI X300 series does 1920 x 1200 at 100Hz

ATI specs

DVI connections are very common on PCI express low end parts, sadly, it's true they are still rare in integrated systems. I'm fairly confident that nVidia's low end offers similar capabilities. I'm also quite sure that for someone who is not gaming or using other 3d intensive applications, a 6600 or X800 based card is a massive waste of money. 2d resolution capabilities simply do not tax modern graphics cards the way they once did.

For those in this thread looking for 3d performance, a 6600 is fine, but the idea that you need a high end card to run at high resolutions for 2D work is simply not the case anymore.

What's the fastest passively cooled card available?

What's the fastest passively cooled card available?

Re: What's the fastest passively cooled card available?