SPCR

Posted: **Mon Jul 25, 2005 10:13 am**

French website www.clubic.com has pictures of a new Asus video card slated for august release called the EN6600GT Silencer PCI-Express.

Its basically a 6600GT that is passively cooled by a rather intriguing heatsink/heatpipe combo with a small finned section protruding from the side of the main heatsink.

Pictures and info (for you french speakers out there) at :

Clubic

And for those that don't understand french (and those too lazy to babelfish the page) it basically says that after releasing its silent motherboard, Asus now offers a silent video card.

The SilentCool uses a large heatsink, heatpipes and a small module to dissipate heat.
The first card to use this system is the Asus Extreme N6600GT Silencer PCI-Express. It is a model based on a 6600GT and it's expected to be available towards the end of august.

EDIT: typos

Posted: **Mon Jul 25, 2005 12:38 pm**

are the temps gonna be as high as the gigabyte model?

Posted: **Mon Jul 25, 2005 12:57 pm**

As seen here.

Posted: **Mon Jul 25, 2005 1:01 pm**

I've been looking at the 6600GT's for my next build (dual core athlon), since they provide a good price point/performance, but it really annoys me that none of the stock silent ones have Dual DVI. I have a pair of Dell 1704 FPV monitors, and the digital picture is really sharp and beautiful. Right now it seems like a better move to go with a reserator and the card i want. (course now i have to convince myself to spend the extra money on that).

Posted: **Tue Jul 26, 2005 10:18 pm**

I wish they had some bracing on that card, seems like a lot of weight off the side for just a PCB to support. I'm sure Asus has tested it, but if you moved your case and your video card broke in half I bet you'd be upset!

Posted: **Wed Jul 27, 2005 8:43 am**

Varun wrote:I wish they had some bracing on that card, seems like a lot of weight off the side for just a PCB to support. I'm sure Asus has tested it, but if you moved your case and your video card broke in half I bet you'd be upset!

Actually, PCB is pretty strong. Next time you have a broken computer part, try to split it in half.

Posted: **Wed Jul 27, 2005 9:08 am**

Actually I work with PCBs all the time, I just designed, milled, and soldered a RS232 programming board for an 89C54 microcontroller. PCB is fairly strong but I can still see it cracking over time. I'm sure it would be fine for me since I never move my computer but if people were to transport their computer I think they should remove this card first.

Posted: **Wed Jul 27, 2005 10:32 am**

Do you think the continual heating (you know this bastard is going to get VERY hot) and then cooling (by turning the PC off) would increase the likelihood of the PCB cracking?

Posted: **Wed Jul 27, 2005 11:26 am**

Stock silent dual DVI 6600 not GT though

128MB XFX GEFORCE 6600 PCI-E DUAL DVI

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/ProductI ... tID=200310

Good enough?

Posted: **Thu Jul 28, 2005 8:25 am**

A 6800 is alot closer to a 6600GT than a 6600.

Posted: **Thu Jul 28, 2005 11:35 am**

The weight of the fins and heatpipe that are suspended on that setup couldn't be more than 60 grams, I wouldn't worry about it cracking anything. The pipes themselves would be the weak link, not the PCB. Far more weight hanging on the same mounting bolts if you install a Silencer 6.

I could never use that card in my machine as configured. I have the EN6600GT/TOP, and neither the gap from the video card to the fan on my Freezer64, nor to the VGA duct of the P180 would provide enough space for that raised HS. I can see it working well with a Scythe Ninja in a Sonata II, as long as you are making good airflow from somewhere.

AndyP, there is a vast difference between a 6600 and a 6600GT. Check the VGA charts on THG to see how much closer to a standard 6800 the 6600GT is. I agree with teknerd that the 6600GT is the current breakpoint for price/performance, though with the introduction of the 7800GTX that may change very soon.

Posted: **Thu Jul 28, 2005 1:36 pm**

It looks like it would work very well with the 3000B and the CAG-duct on the side.

Posted: **Sat Jul 30, 2005 8:21 pm**

End of august? If it comes in AGP, I might have to upgrade (or wait a bit, and finally justify an A64 upgrade

). I haven't been feeling the safest in the summer w/ a passive 5900XT. This looks like an excellent solution, and w/o warranty-voiding involved, no less.

Posted: **Thu Aug 18, 2005 8:18 am**

does anyone know what price this card will have?
I have seen a dutch site where it can be preordered for 204€ (250USD) , but that price can be wrong of course

here is a new article with some nice pictures of the rotating heatsink
http://www.frostytech.com/permalink.cfm?NewsID=44135
and here is the card on the asus website (without pictures

)
http://www.asus.com/products4.aspx?mode ... &l2=6&l3=0

edit: I have just got a reply from the store, and they said the price is 204€ (only a slight change is possible due to the dollar currency etc. ) they only ship to the netherlands and belgium though.

has anyone found some early reviews of this card?

Posted: **Fri Sep 02, 2005 4:02 am**

According to matbe, this card is now available in Japan for 27500 yens, which is around $250.89 (USD) based on XETrade's Currency Converter.

(Click on a thumbnail for a close-up)

Posted: **Fri Sep 02, 2005 4:15 am**

Very cool. If it gets down to $200 USD or less in the US by Thanksgiving, they'll have a winner.

Posted: **Fri Sep 02, 2005 11:51 am**

$250US? why would anyone buy a 6600gt at that price when you could get an X800XL?

Posted: **Fri Sep 02, 2005 12:48 pm**

rei wrote:$250US? why would anyone buy a 6600gt at that price when you could get an X800XL?

It's brand new. Also, that's the 256MB model.

"It is equipped with a graphics processor given rhythm GeForce 6600GT with 500 MHz and with 256 Mo of GDDR3 with 1 GHz."

For a 256MB one, around $200 wouldn't be a bad price. Last time I saw Gigabyte's 256MB passive card, it was $200 ($196+$3.50 s&h at Newegg).

Posted: **Fri Sep 02, 2005 12:54 pm**

One good reason is ATI's drivers suck. I am never again using an ATI card because I just found it too painful, with their Windows drivers, Linux drivers, and their drivers for their TV capture card. They make good hardware, possibly the best hardware, but it's all for naught due to their horrible software.

Posted: **Fri Sep 02, 2005 5:44 pm**

CGameProgrammer wrote:One good reason is ATI's drivers suck.

I have no problem with the latest Catalyst drivers, but I use the Control Panel version. The Catalyst Control Center stopped working after an update of the .Net framework, so I uninstalled it and I'm using the Control Panel version instead... No problem so far... I think both companies had their troubles with bad drivers in the past. I remember I had to "downgrade" my Detonators to get some games running when I had my GeForce3. ATI is not as bad as it was in the past...

Posted: **Tue Sep 13, 2005 7:51 am**

an idea I'm playing with:

a thermalright xp-90 with a fan sucking air through the CPU-heatsink and blowing it right onto the rotated heatsink of the silencer. Another fan mounted in the sidepanel sucks air through the heatsink and blows the hot air out of the case.

CPU>XP-90>fan>asus HS>fan>outside

Think this is possible and effective?

Posted: **Tue Sep 13, 2005 4:41 pm**

i think i'll wait for some reviews before i consider a card like this. ASUS is a great brand, but this HS looks a bit ungainly...

Posted: **Wed Sep 14, 2005 4:41 am**

I mailed Asus UK last week for an idea of when these were going to be available. I'm not too impressed by others' feedback on the Gigabyte GT, and am hoping Asus' manufacturing will be more solid. No feedback yet (which means, I suspect, that I'll get none).

Posted: **Wed Sep 14, 2005 6:54 am**

The shop where i'm going to buy my new computer did not know either. I hope it won't take long anymore since I can't build the system without (my first) PCI-e card

Posted: **Wed Sep 14, 2005 6:21 pm**

teknerd wrote:I've been looking at the 6600GT's for my next build (dual core athlon), since they provide a good price point/performance, but it really annoys me that none of the stock silent ones have Dual DVI. I have a pair of Dell 1704 FPV monitors, and the digital picture is really sharp and beautiful. Right now it seems like a better move to go with a reserator and the card i want. (course now i have to convince myself to spend the extra money on that).

New Gigabyte GV-NX66T256D - passive heatpipe cooler, dual DVI - I've been waiting for this, too.

Posted: **Wed Sep 21, 2005 11:32 pm**

Someone posted a review of this card in another thread. Just for completeness I'm copying the link here aswell:

http://www.legionhardware.com/document.php?id=458

ASUS has provided yet another very competitive, very unique GeForce 6600 GT product. The ASUS Extreme N6600GT Silencer is undoubtedly the most impressive looking GeForce 6600 GT solution on the market. Although ASUS has strictly followed the NVIDIA GeForce 6600 GT reference board design, their product is far from generic. The card features a highly modified cooling setup for the GPU which is constructed from copper and aluminum. Not only does this cooling setup do an exceptional job at keeping the graphics card cool, it also allows for quite a bit of overclocking headroom.

The performance of the ASUS Extreme N6600GT Silencer was slightly faster than that of the previously reviewed Gigabyte GeForce 6600 GT. Once again the GeForce 6600 GT proves to be a Doom 3 champion, defeating the Radeon X800 GT with ease. The additional 128MB of memory found on the ASUS card was probably the primary contributing factor that allowed the card to render the few extra frames per second. The fact that this card is not only faster, but is also completely silent is very impressive. With absolutely no active fans the Extreme N6600GT Silencer stress temperature reached 75 degrees with an idle temperature of 51 degrees. However, with just a slight hint of air-flow the stress temperature dropped to just 55 degrees.

Posted: **Thu Sep 22, 2005 6:53 am**

There seems to be more action going on now:
*another review
The temperature of the card was idle at 55-60°C and at load at about 70°C:!:
BUT in the conclusion they say that they asked asus what price this card would be...130$

yeah right

*the idea of placing the heatsink over the cpu (altough my suggested airflow direction will probably be much better

)

Posted: **Wed Sep 28, 2005 1:25 pm**

kruimeldief wrote:an idea I'm playing with:

a thermalright xp-90 with a fan sucking air through the CPU-heatsink and blowing it right onto the rotated heatsink of the silencer. Another fan mounted in the sidepanel sucks air through the heatsink and blows the hot air out of the case.

CPU>XP-90>fan>asus HS>fan>outside

Think this is possible and effective?

I don't know about effective, but at least the height fits, according to this review at ExtremeTech. Picture on second page.

Otherwise review is pretty much useless. It compares it against a 7800GT

, and doesn't give temperatures.

Posted: **Tue Oct 04, 2005 4:55 am**

another useless review: 2 silencers in SLI

Posted: **Tue Oct 04, 2005 6:56 am**

kruimeldief wrote:another useless review: 2 silencers in SLI

What makes this a useless review? The fact that you can't have these in a normal SLI setup is something to note.

Although I think that if you put these copper coolers in an L shape:

Code: Select all

          --
         #  |  <- CPU
         #--
         #       
|--------#-----

|--------#####-

Then they should fit next to each other. It makes more sense from a heat perspective aswell, as the bottom card is no longer warming the top card. Additional airflow would be wise though, I think.

The L shaped setup would only be possible with a normal style cooler, a Tower coller would cause problems... Maybe a flipped L like this:

Code: Select all

          --
         |  |  <- CPU
          --
             
|--------#####-

|--------#-----
         #
         #

Might do the trick, though ASUS cautions that the radiator should always point upwards (or horizontal). Therefore this probably only works in a normal desktop case, not in towers.

With a bit of luck:

Code: Select all

          -- 
CPU ->   |  |  
          -- #
           #
|--------#-----
             
|--------#####-

Too bad they didn't experiment a bit...

Another thing to note is that they didn't do measurements of the heat generated in a tilted setup (like in most tower cases) I suspect most people will use these card in such a way.

Maybe a few things an SPCR review could add

SPCR

New Asus 6600GT Passive Video Card!

New Asus 6600GT Passive Video Card!

Even the big guys are finally getting it--sweet