7900gto or 7950gt

They make noise, too.

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cor
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7900gto or 7950gt

Post by cor » Mon Oct 02, 2006 4:13 pm

I was just about to pull the trigger and buy the xfx passive 7950gt but decided to wait a while till ddr2 prices dropped a bit before putting together my new rig. Meanwhile evga has introduced the 7900gto under the radar, and from what ive read it is simply a 7900gtx with lower clocks. Thus its a fair bit faster than the 7950gt but runs hotter. If you were trying to achieve a near silent solution would you purchase this unit? The stock heatsink is very good, but would the fan noise be very noticeable?

paulesko
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Post by paulesko » Tue Oct 03, 2006 3:28 am

the stock heatsink of the 7900gto is simply the best among factory heatsinks even quieter than iceq atis.

msi has already one 7900gto for in the market, and its not a 7900 gtx with lower clocks, it´s just a 7900 gtx with the same core clock, and 100mgz less mem clock. I think this card is perfect, since here in spain you can buy it for just 239€ which is about 210 dollars isn´t it?

I´ve been searching about the heatsink deep this pasts days and I think the only aftermarket heatsink that is quieter and cooler than the stock one is a zalmann vf900, BUT this heatsink dont throw air out of the case, the stock one does.

I´ve ordered mine and I think is the best option now that dx10 is round the corner I would´nt spent more in a graphic card.

cor
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Post by cor » Tue Oct 03, 2006 7:59 am

thanks, you told me everything I wanted to know. I do agree with you on the pricing. The evga 7900gto retails at ~$250 USD which is a good value. Im not to concerned about dx10 because I dont plan on getting vista right away, and the flagship dx10 cards are supposebly very power hungry

Tzeb
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Post by Tzeb » Tue Oct 03, 2006 4:00 pm

paulesko, take care... 239 euros = ~304$
:lol:

paulesko
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Post by paulesko » Wed Oct 04, 2006 12:07 am

ouch!! I made the conversion the other way round :lol: It´s still a very good value for money anyway :D

Tzupy
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Post by Tzupy » Wed Oct 04, 2006 8:29 am

I just read a rumor saying that the 7900 GTOs are RMAed 7900 GTXs equipped with Samsung memory that doesn't work properly at 1600 MHz.
IMO if they are stable at stock speeds and have a standard warranty they are still a good deal.

RDaneel
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Post by RDaneel » Wed Oct 04, 2006 11:36 am

I'm also going with the GTO - still very good performance for the watt, and maybe I'll even stick with the stock cooler instead of a VF900, who knows...

Anyway, I HIGHLY doubt that these are RMA'd cards - it would be a violation of unfair trade practice law to sell a card that is a return as new. EVGA wouldn't run that risk. However, they very well might be the leftover GTX cards with Samsung ram that had (*some*) problems at 1600mhz memory speeds. I'm guessing all they did was reflash the bios and make new boxes and - viola! - a $250 and stable GTO instead of a stale and risky $400 GTX.

As long as you a) run stock mem speeds or b) are willing to risk having artifacting problems with your card (unlikely as they may be), this is a HUGE deal. I'm going to go with the card and see how I like it. Evga has a trade-in program for 90 days, so if a DX10 part comes out that doesn't totally break the bank (and PSU!), I can always trade up. 90 days gets me all the way into January '07, so all the DX10 parts should be announced by then...

Cheers,
RDaneel

nici
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Post by nici » Sat Oct 07, 2006 6:48 am

Me gots my GTO today :) Only ran it in idle so far, but the cooler is honestly amazingly quiet! I had a VF700 and a 9500 AM2, both fans running at the lowest possible speed they ran at with PWM from the mobo, both were running so slow i can't get any RPM readings from them, 200-300rpm slower than the lowest possible fanmate setting. Anyway, the stock cooler on the GTO is quieter and smoother than the VF700, and i still have a hard time hearing it after i stop the fan on the 9500 :shock: Wich would make it about the same noise level as the NeoHE at idle, wich is pretty damn quiet.

It might ramp up some under heavy load, but i can't imagine it getting that loud then either, and even if it did i don't think i would mind because the fan seems very smooth and theres a lot of noise when gaming anyway.. :P

Edit: I never learn do i :roll: It's not quite as quiet as the Neo, probably more like a VF700 at 5V, the difference being that this fan is very smooth compared to the ticking and buzzing fan on the VF. It idles around 40°c and goes up to about 60°c under load, though temps might rise and noise get reduced once i actually get the front and sidepanels on the case.

WR304
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Post by WR304 » Sun Oct 08, 2006 2:22 pm

The Nvidia cooler is quite good for an active graphics card cooler.

There's a distinctive "plasticky" whooshing noise through the duct on my MSI GF7900GTX though.

One thing to look at is the end of the plastic ducting on the inside: On my card it could rattle against the metal heatsink.

Some electrical tape fixes this easily. :)

Ideally the grill on the PCI backing plate needs cutting out. I'm still trying to work out how to do this without destroying the card. :?

It's also worth making sure that the space where the internal duct blows is as empty as possible. It can get a bit noisy if it's blowing into a mass of cables and hard drives.

Image

nici
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Post by nici » Mon Oct 09, 2006 4:51 am

Seems like we have the same card then.. My card is an MSI, and i could flash it to GTX if i wanted to run SLi with a GTX.. It OCs pretty nice too :)

Anyway, i have not noticed any "plasticky" noises. The fan does not vibrate at all.

Im not terribly worried about the pci-slot grille, it might improve airflow a bit but i dont think it's worth it.

My case is slightly roomier than the P150, so there's no worries about HDDs being in the way.



Image

v3n
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Post by v3n » Tue Oct 10, 2006 8:01 am

Ive just stuck an MSI 7900 GTO into my gaming rig as my 6800GT in BF2142 wasnt enjoyable and GTR2 needed a boost

Ive stuck it in the bottom SLI slot of my DFI mobo ( non-modded zalman NB cooler in way of top SLI slot) and the cooler is 3mm above the X-Fi in the bottom pci slot so it doesnt get much room to breath :shock:

Cant feel any air coming from the cooler but will test it later when ive done more game testing when the gpu is burnt in

Temp wise the gpu is idle @ 46C (ambient temp 25C+) with my 120mm nexus front and back fans maxxed and I cant hear the GPU cooler above them.

Highest ive seen the GPU temp go is 65C which is pretty good considering ive clocked it past 700mhz 8)

Bargain @ £180 considering the fantastic performance of games with 8xAA enabled and very pleased with the noise levels which are better than my VF700-CU except for when it ramps up which isnt very often and doesnt last long either as it cools down very quickly :D

paapaa
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Post by paapaa » Tue Oct 10, 2006 8:18 am

Would you consider 7900GTO quiet/silent? How fast is the fan rotating?

MC FLMJIG
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Post by MC FLMJIG » Tue Oct 10, 2006 8:26 am

YES.

It starts to be audible once the fan get's to 50%. However I've played a few games and it hasn't reached 50%. I found the 50% on rivatuner.

Mine = 710/810...

nici
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Post by nici » Tue Oct 10, 2006 8:38 am

My core wont go past 700, but the memory goes happily up to 850+.. :) i run it at 670/825 though, lower in idle obviously.

I have to check rivatuner, i use ATITool atm..

nici
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Post by nici » Tue Oct 10, 2006 9:12 am

Okay, did some testing in RivaTuner. The fan seems to run at 40% stock, and that noise is about VF700 level as i said earlier. Slowing it down to 25% is easy and works fine and its very quiet then, idle temps didnt rise in a few minutes at least, and loading it got it up to 70c in about four minutes and i got bored of waiting for it to rise further. So it is an incredibly quiet card when you run it at 25%, wich is perfectly fine at idle :) You can set it up to run faster when gaming. At 100% its obviously loud, but running FEAR at 1680x1050 4xAA 16XAF only ramped it up very slightly, if at all, from the default speed so it stays quiet even at load.

v3n--> If you want to run the card int he first slot you could do what i did, get hthe HR05-SLI. If it will fit like mne depends on your CPu cooler, a Ninja wont fit but as you can see the 9500 does. If you only need one PCI card you could run the HR05-SLI upside down and use any CPU cooler.

zhai
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Post by zhai » Tue Oct 10, 2006 10:04 am

Can you get the fan on the GTO to stop completely while in 2d mode?

And if you can, what is the temp?

MC FLMJIG
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Post by MC FLMJIG » Tue Oct 10, 2006 10:05 am

Believe me. At idle the fans spins but you cant hear a whisper. It is silent. you cannot hear because it is going so slow.

zhai
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Post by zhai » Tue Oct 10, 2006 10:45 am

Exactly how silent? What is your system composed of?

My system is very quiet, with all fans on 5v and seasonic s12-430. But it's starting to bug me anyway, so maybe my noise tolerance is lower than average.

Edit: Does anyone know the power consumption of 7900GTO compared to 7950GT?

MC FLMJIG
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Post by MC FLMJIG » Tue Oct 10, 2006 10:52 am

My personal preferance are Yate Loons. At current my system is louder than normal. However, I stop all the fans but the psu and U can't hear the video card. The PSU is an Antec Smartpower, for now, and it is ok in quiet.

nici
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Post by nici » Tue Oct 10, 2006 11:23 am

I have a ducted NeoHE 430, a nexus modded 9500 at 600rpm, two 80mm nexus exhausts at 800rpm and one Raptor inside an mCubed enclosure, two 250Gb samsungs which spin up only when needed and which are soon to be replaced. So its my sig system with some upgrades to the linked gallery thread described in the sig itself. When i compared it to the VF and when i tried the diferent fan settings i obviously had the case open.

In other words: If you have an actively cooled PSU i would be very surprised if you can hear the GTO fan on 25%(the slowest setting). And on any setting the only noise the fan makes is a whoosh, it doens't click or grind in any way.

merlin
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Re: 7900gto or 7950gt

Post by merlin » Tue Oct 10, 2006 11:27 am

cor wrote:I was just about to pull the trigger and buy the xfx passive 7950gt but decided to wait a while till ddr2 prices dropped a bit before putting together my new rig. Meanwhile evga has introduced the 7900gto under the radar, and from what ive read it is simply a 7900gtx with lower clocks. Thus its a fair bit faster than the 7950gt but runs hotter. If you were trying to achieve a near silent solution would you purchase this unit? The stock heatsink is very good, but would the fan noise be very noticeable?
After seeing all these positive comments, I decided to get a 7900gto also.. (hope it gets here soon) planning on seeing if I can try to undervolt and keep temps under 60C with the fan running at a minimal speed.

MC FLMJIG
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Post by MC FLMJIG » Tue Oct 10, 2006 11:29 am

The only time when I can hear it is when the PC is turned on. I don't know if for anyone else... it gets a whoosh for like 1-2 seconds at startup...

nici
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Post by nici » Tue Oct 10, 2006 11:33 am

Yeah it does that, but so do the fans connected to my mobo. It doesn't bother me because when they do that i know they will always start :)

florinp3
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Post by florinp3 » Tue Oct 10, 2006 12:15 pm

Does anyone know if it's possible to have different 2D/3D fan speeds using a modified BIOS with Nibitor? Although, if all the hot air gets out, maybe I could get away with 25% at full speed... but still I prefer BIOS editing to loading Rivatuner everytime... (now I have a 6800XT with VF700 and BIOS set to 35% @250/250 and 75% @435/1200).

MC FLMJIG
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Post by MC FLMJIG » Tue Oct 10, 2006 12:31 pm

All the hot air is NOT going out. Look at the heatsink. Some out some in.

nici
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Post by nici » Tue Oct 10, 2006 12:47 pm

Im not familiar with Nibitor, this is my first nVidia card. However some googling revealed that it does support the 7900GTX o it should support the GTO. If it doesnt it's possible to flash the card to GTX and that way it would surely work.

Anyway, ill look into nibitor, it would be much more convenient to not have rivatuner and/or atitool running all the time.

florinp3
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Post by florinp3 » Tue Oct 10, 2006 12:56 pm

So the GTX has adjustable fan speeds in the BIOS? That would be great... it's between this and the new Radeon 1950Pro... Looks interesting. The drop in power consumption is nice, but I don't know about the stock fan that most will probably use...

nici
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Post by nici » Tue Oct 10, 2006 1:43 pm

Well it certainly looks like the GTO is supported.. I have not tried flashing the bios though.

Image Image Image

v3n
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Post by v3n » Wed Oct 11, 2006 4:16 am

In 2D mode Forceware clocks the GPU to 275mhz 8) (saw this in Everest)

Nici

I'll look into that HR-05-SLi cooler but If im to go SLI which would make sense in the future with this quality card I will probably mod a spare zalman

WR304
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Post by WR304 » Wed Oct 11, 2006 6:54 am

zhai wrote:Exactly how silent? What is your system composed of?

My system is very quiet, with all fans on 5v and seasonic s12-430. But it's starting to bug me anyway, so maybe my noise tolerance is lower than average.
With a single Scythe SFF21D 120mm 800rpm exhaust fan and the GF7900GTX fan running (PSU is a semi-passive Nesteq in ASM mode), the graphics card fan is quite noticeable.

The heatsink is good for a stock active cooler when compared to something such as a 7900GT cooler for example.

It's not as good as having a passively cooled card though.

My card is a few months old now and it's definitely not "silent". :(

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