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Is there a freaking fanless heatsink for high end cards?

Posted: Wed Jan 25, 2006 11:49 am
by oscar3d
Zalman ZM-80, Thermaltake Schonner...

What do they have in common?

They are heatpipe fanless heatsinks that seem to work very well with cards with up to 8 pipelines.

But they are utter crap if you want to try or may I say "fry them" with ATI X850 or any card with 16 pipelines & up?

Both Zalman (VF700CU) and Arctic (Silencers and Acceleros), are very good for cooling. But both are just patch type, non lasting solutions to keep a video card silent!

Why?

Because their fans are utter crap! Sorry for being a compulsive obsessive guy about noise, but I think my opinion after all is honest.

How would you feel when everything in your computer is very quiet except for the video card? The last step to total quietness, but it seems a challenge, so far away to conquer.

Is there any Fanless Solution for a high end video card?

I hate Nvidia and ATI for not taking care of their stupid noisy solutions. Yet I love them and need them at the same time.

It seems only ASUS has managed to create fanless heatsinks for VGA cards, but only if you are willing to pay for the complete card. They don't sell their heatsinks as aftermarket mods, like Zalman and Arctic.

I think we should force the market to start providing decent solutions for quiet VGA cards.

So who the heck is going to step up in the market and provide innovative solutions for cool & quiet VGA cards?

At this point, NOTHING WORKS for HIGH END CARDS! NOTHING!

Posted: Wed Jan 25, 2006 12:02 pm
by nici
You forgot to add the "Life Sucks" option to the poll.

Posted: Wed Jan 25, 2006 12:11 pm
by frostedflakes
:lol:

If anything just get a Zalman 80D-HP and point a 120mm fan at it. Technically not "fanless," but it's better than the <=70mm fans found on most VGA heatsinks.

FWIW, though, a Zalman 80D-HP was able to cool my Sapphire X800GTO pretty well with only case airflow. I don't think passively cooling high-end video is impossible, it just takes a bit more tinkering than with a mid-range GPU.

Posted: Wed Jan 25, 2006 12:23 pm
by rpsgc
Maybe if you ask nicely ASUS will sell you one of their 7800GT passive heatsinks :lol:

Posted: Wed Jan 25, 2006 12:55 pm
by spolitta
do a VF700 fan swap and enjoy the silent with a 7V panaflo low pr nexus.

Posted: Wed Jan 25, 2006 12:57 pm
by openwheelformula1
I don't see why you can't use Zalman's heatpipe cooler for 7800GTs. As long as you have enough airflow it will cool the card just fine. 7800GT is a rare exception though. Perhaps X1600XT as well. Not the 6800GTs and 6800Ultras.

The Zalman cools my 6600GT better than the stock heatsink. Dropped 4 degrees idle and a couple degrees load. It never gets scorching hot like it used to w/ a 5900XT. It heavely depends on how hot the chip gets. Hopefully 7600GT with 90nm process will be even better than 6600GT.

Posted: Wed Jan 25, 2006 12:58 pm
by oscar3d
"Dear Asus,

Can you provide us with aftermarket fanless heatinks, making those avaliable for purchase, to mod our non-Asus video cards?"

Or maybe this one is more convincing:

"Dudes @ Asus,

Make those freaking fanless heasinks avaliable for uz!
Price them @ $70 aftermarket mods and you get my money"

Posted: Wed Jan 25, 2006 1:10 pm
by acaurora
I"m not sure exactly what is the point of this thread. There are quite several solutions available for high end cards to be cooled fairly quietly. Passively, I doubt. But actively with creating little noise, yes. Look at the aforementioned VF700, as well as the NV5Rev3. They are excellent choices for any video card. Heck, I use the STOCK cooler on my 256 GTX, and it is quiet enough for me, never ramps up at all. I mean yes I have heard the thing @ full speed when my computer wasn't working, and yes I know that is utterly unbearable, but again, other than when my computer is malfunctioning I never hear the stock cooler ramp up, and it is pretty quiet at its idle speed.

If you are looking a quiet high end video card from the start, then again like the other people said, ASUS makes a few passive cards, and I do know Gigabyte also is in that same silencing arena.


I do understand your concern for the balance between low noise without creating an excessive amount of heat. Again, there are a few out there that fit the bill well, at least in my perspective. Good luck on your hunt.

Posted: Wed Jan 25, 2006 1:32 pm
by oscar3d
Thanks for your reply acaurora.

The point of the thread is trying to find the best quiet solution for cooling high-end video cards.

But as you said, it seems we are out of choices.

Posted: Wed Jan 25, 2006 1:32 pm
by darthan
The problem is simply one of space constraints. Those 16 pipe high end graphics cards are putting out as much heat as a nice Athlon64 and to cool those even semi-passively, well, you need something the size of a Scythe Ninja. There just isn't that much space left over in the case (and VPU heatsink makers all try to use no more than two slots).

Posted: Wed Jan 25, 2006 3:12 pm
by Chang
In addition to Asus, Gigabyte has their "Silent-Pipe" line of video cards and Sapphire has their "Ultimate" line. I think the later may be suspect though since there hasn't been a new one in a while and a fan may have been added to one of them.

In any case, I do think Sapphire did release an ultimate X800 or X850 that was fanless at the start (some with 16 pipelines IIRC). And I've been waiting forever for the Asus fanless X1600. The Gigabyte fanless version seems to have hit US shores (12 pipeline cards) but they may be priced way too low to be considered high end. Though it'd be interesting to see how two would benchmark -- would a Crossfired pair for a bit over $250 (12+12 pipelines) count as high end above 16 pipes for you?

Posted: Wed Jan 25, 2006 3:59 pm
by j4cbo
I want an Aerocool VM-102, but you can't get them in the US :(

Posted: Wed Jan 25, 2006 5:51 pm
by Mats
Let's look at some numbers. First my reference, the 9800 Pro used together with a ZM80C. The card was factory overcloked from 380 to 398 MHz, don't remember about the RAM. The cooler is the older version with one heatpipe. The card worked perfectly with no fan, only fans was a CNPS7000 at 5 V and the 120 mm fan in the PSU.
All numbers are for stock clocked cards and taken from Xbitlabs.

9800 Pro - 47.25 W, 49 W for my card (47.25 - (52.82 - 47.25) x (398 - 380) / (440 - 380)) :lol: Feels a bit stupid to calculate with such exact and small numbers...

X1900 XT - 120.6 W
X1800 XT - 112.2 W

X1800 XL - 59.2 W
X1600 XT - 41.6 W
X1600 Pro - 30.6 W

X850 XT PE - 71.6 W
X800 XL - 49.4 W

7800 GTX 512 - 94.7 W
7800 GTX - 80.7 W

7800 GT - 56.7 W
6800 Ultra - 77.3 W
6600 GT - 47.8

It doesn't look that bad, does it? As long as you're not going for the absolute top of course, which is above X1800 XL and 7800 GT, both are more than enough for me. Let's just assume that the ZM80D with two heatpipes can manage 60 W with just the smallest amount of airflow, a 80 mm fan at low speed will make a huge difference when put in front of the card and a duct to the back. Currently I'm looking at the 7800 GT, which uses like 8 W more than my last card, big deal.

I think the ZM80 cooler have often been used in a non optimal way. Putting a fan on top of the card is in IMO only an option if you have a hole in the side of the case. The optional 80 x 15 mm fan is just placed wrong. The fan should be in the front, pushing the air through the heatsinks and out through the slots next to the graphics card which are left open. Works like a AC silencer, but you can use any fan you want. I did a simple duct out of a 1.6 l plastic bottle, I cut off the top and bottom, made a cut from one end to the other, and attached a 80 mm fan with adhesive tape. Very easy, and it actually looked pretty good. :D

Posted: Wed Jan 25, 2006 10:50 pm
by halcyon
Mats wrote: I think the ZM80 cooler have often been used in a non optimal way. Putting a fan on top of the card is in IMO only an option if you have a hole in the side of the case. The optional 80 x 15 mm fan is just placed wrong. The fan should be in the front, pushing the air through the heatsinks and out through the slots next to the graphics card which are left open.
Dead on.

ZM80D and the ilk can be made much more efficient with a better fan placement (if the space inside your case allows for this).

Also, there are other types of coolers that probably give you even better cooling, Thermalright V-1 Ultra being a very possible candidate. Of course, even that requires a fan with modern 110+ W GPUs.

Completely fanless?

Sure, with a DIY mod multi-heatpipe system leading to a 10m2 surface area passive radiator.

Remember, the heat has to go somewhere!

Passive cooling needs bigger surface are for heat dissipation and preferably a cooler surrounding temperature (than what's usually inside a case).

Both of these are very hard to pull off inside a normal cramped case (even a super-duper-maxi-tower).

Inside a case at 100W+? Forced air, although much can be done with a properly placed 120mm relatively quiet fan at c. 5V.

Posted: Thu Jan 26, 2006 12:05 am
by frostedflakes
Also, I think the memory power consumption is responsible for a large amount of the power consumption increase in newer cards (especially so it seems with the X1000 series cards, maybe because of the 512-bit memory architecture?). Hopefully GDDR4 will come soon, because it looks like we've pushed GDDR3 about to its limit.

Posted: Thu Jan 26, 2006 7:42 am
by stupid
frostedflakes wrote:Also, I think the memory power consumption is responsible for a large amount of the power consumption increase in newer cards.
The number of transistors in the current generation of GPUs rivals that of CPUs.

Posted: Thu Jan 26, 2006 8:36 am
by frostedflakes
Not saying GPUs don't put out heat, don't get me wrong. But look at the X1800XL 256MB and X1800XT 512MB. I just find it hard to believe that a slightly higher clocked GPU is responsible for a majority of the 50w+ of extra heat! The only thing that makes sense is that it's the memory, as it's running at much higher frequencies than ever before and there's 2x as much of it.

The difference with the GTX 256MB and GTX 512MB isn't as pronounced, but it's still there.

Posted: Thu Jan 26, 2006 11:23 am
by oscar3d
I would like to see Fanless.

Whatever heatpipe heatsink, that will need an extra fan to make it "WORKABLE", would be actually useless.

The idea is to avoid putting extra fan, thus avoid the increase of dB's.

Why is it Germans and in general Europeans are just much more considerate about silencing products, and they come with really nice stuff.

Check this:

http://www.tweakers4u.de/artikel/vga_he ... htm?page=1

At the final page you see products like:

-Polar Freezer
-And the NorthQ NQ-3801

Both considered better than the Thermaltake Schooner.

I bet those 3 products can kick Zalman's Ass (ZM80 models) anytime!
But we don't have these things avaliable in the US...

If we can only be more technology civilized as the Canadians or Europeans and produce quality products with noise prevention.

The problem is,

We don't know wether they would work at least with a 16 pipeline card.

IMHO the Thermaltake Schooner can be a possibility, since it's heatpipes are going outside the case.

Please, please SPCR Reviewers, can you review fanless heatsinks with 16 pipeline cards, and see if it works?

My hands are tied.

Posted: Thu Jan 26, 2006 12:08 pm
by spolitta
here is a fanless idea, heatpipes go though the PCI slots and there will be some fins out side of the case. Its simple but I’m sure it would work. Only down side would be that some might not like the idea of having a big heatsink hanging outside of the case for safety reasons.

Posted: Thu Jan 26, 2006 1:24 pm
by StarfishChris
spolitta wrote:here is a fanless idea, heatpipes go though the PCI slots and there will be some fins out side of the case. Its simple but I’m sure it would work. Only down side would be that some might not like the idea of having a big heatsink hanging outside of the case for safety reasons.
See: Thermaltake Schooner
Think to yourself - how beneficial is that, exactly? There are no fans outside the case, convection cooling has a very limited effect. Bigger internal heatsinks would be more useful.

Posted: Thu Jan 26, 2006 2:11 pm
by frostedflakes
I know Scythe had a few prototype VGA heatsinks based on the Schooner concept. But here's the twist -- heatpipes actually led upward to a heatsink that was installed right behind the case exhaust fan, allowing it exhaust heat out of the case as well as cool the video card. Very interesting idea, but unfortunately I haven't heard anything recently about whether it would make it to production. I did email Scythe about half a year ago and they said it'd be available before 2006, but it isn't, so obviously they've either ditched the idea or have delayed the heatsink.

Posted: Thu Jan 26, 2006 2:12 pm
by mattthemuppet
I'd quite like to see a passive cooler with 2 heatpipes and an open radiator that's fixed over the outside of a 120mm exhaust case fan, but..

it'd be fragile
it'd impede exhaust air flow
to have any effect the exhaust fan would have to push enough air that it probably wouldn't be any quieter than something like a VF700 on the card itself.

just can't beat the laws of thermodynamics :)

something to consider oscar, is that noise is both absolute and relative - a fan produces an absolute amount of noise (on the dBa scale) but if that absolute amount of noise is lower than the ambient noise level then, relatively speaking, the fan is silent. In other words, a little bit of forced airflow from a fan you can't actually hear, is worth so much more than convection and makes cooling that much easier. Eg. my Sempron 2400+ (undervolted, perhaps 50W?) is cooled with a SI-97A and Yate Loon D12SL-90 fan. Run passively, the CPU idles at 50-55C. With the fan at 5V, it idles at 43-45C and is still inaudible.

Posted: Thu Jan 26, 2006 2:21 pm
by spolitta
StarfishChris wrote: See: Thermaltake Schooner
Think to yourself - how beneficial is that, exactly? There are no fans outside the case, convection cooling has a very limited effect. Bigger internal heatsinks would be more useful.

but there is fresh air outside instead of hot air inside.

Posted: Thu Jan 26, 2006 2:30 pm
by StarfishChris
spolitta wrote:
StarfishChris wrote: See: Thermaltake Schooner
Think to yourself - how beneficial is that, exactly? There are no fans outside the case, convection cooling has a very limited effect. Bigger internal heatsinks would be more useful.

but there is fresh air outside instead of hot air inside.
At least the hot air inside is moving ;)

Posted: Thu Jan 26, 2006 3:11 pm
by spolitta
StarfishChris wrote:
spolitta wrote:
StarfishChris wrote: See: Thermaltake Schooner
Think to yourself - how beneficial is that, exactly? There are no fans outside the case, convection cooling has a very limited effect. Bigger internal heatsinks would be more useful.

but there is fresh air outside instead of hot air inside.
At least the hot air inside is moving ;)

This would depend on many different factors. If you have a small case with excellent air flow and ducting then yes probably inside is better, but if you are running a very hot system such as 3-4 hard drives and OCed cpu and all your fans are Nexus at 5v then defiantly outside would be the right choice.

Posted: Thu Jan 26, 2006 4:02 pm
by Mats
If you're totally obsessed with having no fans, then I guess you're having a problem. I don't have that problem though, the solution i talked about before with a ZM80D and a fan in front of it is very efficient. You could extend the duct to the front of the case, thus feeding the card with air from the outside. Using such a superior HS design and still not using a fan with it is a complete waste IMO (unless the card is enough low power). Just look at the design, it's made for a front to back duct, the same goes for Aerocool VM and similar Tt.

Posted: Thu Jan 26, 2006 4:19 pm
by frostedflakes
Yeah, I'm one of those people who likes eliminating fans wherever possible. Not necessarily because it actually helps nosie, just because I like tinkering with parts, pushing the limits, seeing what is and isn't possible, etc. Really silencing has almost turned into a hobby. :)

Then there are those who silence for practical reasons. I agree that for them low-speed fans over your CPU and GPU heatsink would be preferrable, as it keeps parts cooler and isn't much (if any) louder than passive cooling with the case fans responsible airflow.

Posted: Thu Jan 26, 2006 4:28 pm
by oscar3d
Well.. YEAH, of course I'm obsessed with silence. And ultimately aren't we all here concerned about it?

Otherwise I would have to start www.obssesivesilentpcreview.com

Why would I go with the ZM-80 for an X850XTPE radeon & up?

The thing converts your card into a heavy bulk, and for what?
To end up adding a fan on top of it? Because Zalman can't take those types of cards passively yet.

So what's the benefit of it?

So, the best options would be Arctic Silencers and VF-700CU, and sorry for my sincerity, but both are utter crap, patchy type solutions for VGA silencing.

In the meantime I've ordered this:

http://www.buypcdirect.com/product.asp? ... c-sp-52p3p

I'm going to plug the Silencer 5 Rev2 Fan to it, and port it to a FanMate, and then to the Mobo fan plug, or the PSU.

I'm not sure if this will be the Coup De Grace solution.

From both craps (Zalman and Arctic) I'll choose the second crap to give it another try.

Posted: Thu Jan 26, 2006 5:01 pm
by oscar3d
I think you guys want to see this interesting video from PC Extreme

http://www.pcextreme.net/nvidia/NVIDIAFlowFX_video.zip

Quite funny!

Posted: Thu Jan 26, 2006 5:41 pm
by Mats
oscar3d wrote:Well.. YEAH, of course I'm obsessed with silence. And ultimately aren't we all here concerned about it?
It doesn't need to be silent to me, as long as I don't hear it I'm satisfied.
oscar3d wrote:Why would I go with the ZM-80 for an X850XTPE radeon & up?
You wouldn't, unless you already have the card. As shown above, 7800 GT, or the upcoming GS are better choices.
Remember that the ZM80D is two years old, that's a very long time im graphics card business.
oscar3d wrote:The thing converts your card into a heavy bulk, and for what?
To end up adding a fan on top of it? Because Zalman can't take those types of cards passively yet.
Is it really that hard to see? first look at one component at a time. Start with the heatsink, ZM80D and VF700 for instance, without fans. I don't know which one got the largest dissipation area, but you can clearly see that the VF700 is built for having a fan in the middle which just circulates the air, you need another fan for exhausting it. Very inefficient.

The ZM80D is built for fanless operation, though you can make it work with a fan put in front of it. I've tried it and it works very good.

I don't understand what this is all about, no 60 W CPU can be cooled in a case with a <$60 HS and no fans. If you're running the most beefed up last generation inefficient card then that's maybe the biggest reason for your problem. Did you have any idea about how hard it is to cool the X850 XT PE when you bought it? If you want low power then you have to pay for it, just like everybody else. You simply can't say that no 16 pipeline can be cooled silently because they use very different amout of power, and the X850 XT PE is not low power for it's performance today.
oscar3d wrote:So what's the benefit of it?
Have you even tried my idea? Have you any idea what I'm talking about? I've tried to explain, but so far you're only been complaining, instead of being innovative:
But they are utter crap if you want to try or may I say "fry them" with ATI X850 or any card with 16 pipelines & up?
Because their fans are utter crap!
I hate Nvidia and ATI for not taking care of their stupid noisy solutions.
At this point, NOTHING WORKS for HIGH END CARDS! NOTHING!
From both craps (Zalman and Arctic) I'll choose the second crap to give it another try.
It's all relative. If the fans are crap then I guess they're crap compared to something better. Why not get that better fan instead? When I'm looking at a HS I simply don't care much about the fan, because I know from experience that you mostly pay for getting the HS. Changing fan is easy for me, even on a Zalman.