Artic Cooling Accelero X1 or Thermalright X-1 for a 7900GT?

[davidstone28]

Artic Cooling Accelero X1 or Thermalright X-1 for a 7900GT?

I'm leaning towards the X-1 because presumably I can swap the fan with a Nexus? Is that right?

[Tzupy]

According to the AC site, the Accelero X1 is, quoting: not compatible to most 7900 GT boards! Why is that?

[Ackelind]

Why not go for passive cooling? A 7900GT produces LESS heat than a 6600GT which can be cooled passive.

[Tzupy]

[quote="Ackelind"]Why not go for passive cooling? A 7900GT produces LESS heat than a 6600GT which can be cooled passive.[/quote]

I sincerely doubt that 7900 GT makes less heat than a 6600 GT - that I currently have and am cooling passively with a VM-101. I wish you were right though...

[jjm052]

Why do so many people believe that the 7900gt produces less heat than a 6600gt?
It cant be true check the reviews again?
For a start the 7900gt requires a power connection to the PSU meaning whatever the measurement it needs more watts than a 6600gt and will therefore produce more heat.
A 7600gt at peak will be hotter, only very slightly, than a 6600gt at peak.

Gettin my 7600gt tommorrow, I'm a big HTPC fan (MCE 05), and quiet PCing too! I like to game also but I can't help thinking I may be missing out on the new AVIVO technology, it scores alot higher on any of the HQV tests I've seen, but I've found purevideo to be pretty good so hopefully the difference is only marginal ....

[Ackelind]

This is the reason why i believe it produces less heat.





Compare the 6600GT to the 7800GT. Around 48W for the 6600GT vs 57W for the 7800GT.

Compare them then to this chart:



As seen there, the 7900GT produces 17W (perhaps 14W if 80% efficiency of the PSU is expected) less heat than the 7800GT.

This would mean that the 7900GT produces around 43W which is less than the 6600GT!

[gitto]

But if you look at the X1600XT, the 7900GT in the last graph draws 22 more watts than it. And in the second graph, the X1600xt is drawing 42 watts at load and the 6600gt draws 48. The 7900gt should draw 64 watts, by that reasoning.

[Thomas]

For a start the 7900gt requires a power connection to the PSU meaning whatever the measurement it needs more watts than a 6600gt and will therefore produce more heat.

This assumption aint correct.

My 9800Pro (non-OC'ed, 380/680) has a powerconnector, which is connected directly to the PSU. But it uses less power than a 6600GT:

[Thomas]

Artic Cooling Accelero X1 or Thermalright X-1 for a 7900GT?

I'm leaning towards the X-1 because presumably I can swap the fan with a Nexus? Is that right?

I have the VGA Silencer rev. 3, which probably is the Silencer with the best reputation. Never the less, with the rig in my sig, the Silencer is without doubt the noisiest component ! At low setting, of course... And my Hitachi disk aint known for it's low noise

So, if you have good air-flow, I would go for passive cooling.

Next to that, I believe the Thermalright X-1 with a fan swap is the best choise. But then you have to consider how the speed should be controlled. The 7900 probably have a PWM regulator, and I dont know 1) how good that PWM is in terms of noise, and 2) will a Nexus be noisy, if PWM controlled? Then there's Fan Mate, but then you loose the auto fan speed control.

[Tzupy]

My preliminary evaluation is that the 7900 GT consumes about 5W more than a 6600 GT, when not overclocked. When I'll get my 7900 GT I should be able to tell better.
The problem with the graphs above is that they are from two different sites, Anandtech and Xbitlabs IIRC. One for the full systems, the other claims to be just for the GFX cards. I wish Xbitlabs would come up with a 7900 GT(X) power draw review, even if I don't fully trust their measurements (absolute value), by comparison we should know for sure if a 7900 GT draws less power than a 6600 GT.

[Ackelind]

Even if it is not less than the 6600GT, it is about the same or just a few Watts over, and it should not matter. If it is as tolerant as the 6600GT, you could reach beyond 100C before displaying artifacts.

[widman]

this review stated 7900GT consume 65W and 6600GT is 48W.

http://sg.vr-zone.com/index.php?i=3335&s=8

[Ackelind]

Hmm, all reviews are in contradiction with eachother. I wonder if they measure peak or sustained maximum power consumption.

Which one should you trust?

[Live]

Hmm, all reviews are in contradiction with eachother. I wonder if they measure peak or sustained maximum power consumption.

Which one should you trust?

I havent found one. I'm hoping for more VGA coverage right here at SPCR.

[Aris]

I havent found one. I'm hoping for more VGA coverage right here at SPCR.

SPCR doesnt do alot with vga cards. Xbitlabs will probably do a new comprehensive power consumption review soon. They always do a new one every time a new batch of video cards comes out.

[SometimesWarrior]

When hardware sites post conflicting information, I usually trust Xbit-labs; they have engineers writing for them (see their PSU articles), whereas other sites can look a bit like industry front groups. Xbit publishes press releases too, but the important thing is that they always seem to be correct in their hardware analysis.

Sometimes, though, the best way to measure a video card's power consumption is by looking at the stock heatsink on the NVIDIA/ATI reference board. Here are some thumbnails, courtesy of Newegg:

6600GT
(Anandtech detail shot)

7900GT
(Anandtech detail shot, second image from top)

7800GT
(not exactly the reference heatsink, but close enough)

6800GT


The 7900GT cooler is slightly larger than the 6600GT one, smaller than the 7800GT, and much smaller than the 6800GT. That leads me to believe the power consumption of the 7900GT is only a bit higher than the 6600GT, and any cooling system good enough for one should work for the other.