To replace or not to replace (a 7600GT), this is the matter!

quest_for_silence · Post by **quest_for_silence** » Thu Dec 04, 2008 12:28 am

Hi all.

I'm wondering to replace a 2 years old 7600GT overclocked and passively cooled video card (the "infamous" XFX Fatal1ty one) in order to get DX10 support but also some video/HDTV improvements.

I guess if there is any suitable card in the wild, maybe an ATI one (as for rumored Nvidia quality problems, see: viewtopic.php?t=49572), which may offer a 3Dmark06 overall score higher than 4000 (a synthetic index in order to facilitate comparisons), no more than ~35-40w power dissipation, and a very good video/HD feature set. Oh, it have to be easily passively cooled (as current system is actually all passive).

Thanks in advance for any thought about my concern, and sorry for my english.

Regards, Luca

Ciril · Post by **Ciril** » Thu Dec 04, 2008 4:31 am

ATI HD4670 if you have PCI-E in my opinion.

edit: Sorry, I missed the power dissipation part. It might not be for you in that case.

lm · Post by lm » Thu Dec 04, 2008 6:37 am

I'd say wait for the next die shrinks. Current models from both companies use a lot of power.

ntavlas · Post by **ntavlas** » Thu Dec 04, 2008 9:32 am

A 4670 could be passively cooled and while it consumes more at load it`s one of the most power efficient cards when idle.

Another thing to consider is whether you`d really benefit from dx10. If you game at lower resolutions like 1280x1024 then probably yes. On a 22 inch or larger monitor it would be better sacrificing some eye candy so you could run the native resolution smoothly. Dx9 would do fine in this case.

The best way to know is to look at benchmarks of your favorite games, and see if the 4670 would give you enough horsepower to enable dx10 at the resolution you`re using.

lodestar · Post by **lodestar** » Thu Dec 04, 2008 9:41 am

If you stay with nVidia then in order to meet your target of 3Dmark06 overall score higher than 4000 you need to look at the 9500gt upwards. There are silent versions of the 9500gt, although they seem fairly hard to find and you will need to check that they have HDMI support.

Here in the UK the only readily available silent 9500gt I can find is the MSI model which has an HDMI socket. See
http://www.quietpc.com/gb-en-gbp/produc ... -md512z-d2

QuietOC · Post by **QuietOC** » Thu Dec 04, 2008 10:02 am

lodestar wrote:If you stay with nVidia then in order to meet your target of 3Dmark06 overall score higher than 4000 you need to look at the 9500gt upwards.

A 9500GT is hardly even an upgrade from a 7600GT. Even the 8600GTS is slightly faster. The best options are a 8800GS/9600GSO or HD 4670. I am quite happy with my $50 9600GSO, but the much lower idle power of the HD 4670 would be nice to have.

lodestar · Post by **lodestar** » Thu Dec 04, 2008 10:40 am

I don't know where the idea comes from that the 9500gt is hardly better than the 7600gt, although it does seem to crop up quite regularly on the internet. To quote an actual user's experience from one of the nVidia forums "...well i went ahead and got the 9500GT... it is a HUGE improvement over the 7600GT... In Gears of War i went from playing at 25fps at 800x600 on medium to playing at 1400x900 on high at 40fps... Pretty big improvement...".

So if you add this to complete silence in the case of the MSI card plus an HDMI port then it ticks some of the boxes for the OP. There is no doubting however that it is a fairly low power gaming card, but then it only costs around Â£70 in the UK.

rpsgc · Post by **rpsgc** » Thu Dec 04, 2008 11:36 am

The 9500GT is slighly faster than a 8600GTS.

A review.

QuietOC · Post by **QuietOC** » Thu Dec 04, 2008 12:18 pm

rpsgc wrote:The 9500GT is slighly faster than a 8600GTS.

A review.

The 9500GT is just a die shrink of the 8600GT/GTS. The core and memory clockspeeds are the only thing that is going to make one slightly faster than another. That review is using an overclocked 9500GT. Going by nViidia's specifications the 8600GTS is faster. All of the "factory" overclocked nVidia cards I've owned have been unstable--so I do not recommend getting one. Most 9500GTs are slower than most 8600GTSs.

The 8800GS/9600GSO and HD 4670 are about twice as fast as any of these with pretty similar power usage.

Post by **CA_Steve** » Thu Dec 04, 2008 12:40 pm

>4000 score and <30W might be a tough combination to meet.

9500GT perhaps, or 3650 @ 40W <shrugs>
Wander xbitlabs reviews for comparisons.

tehcrazybob · Post by **tehcrazybob** » Thu Dec 04, 2008 12:46 pm

I'd suggest an HD4670. According to the SPCR review, it consumes 3 watts at idle and 40 watts at full load. It's probably the best performance-to-heat ratio of any card on the planet, and they aren't even very expensive. You'll probably want an Accelero S2 to keep things quiet, though, because I understand the stock coolers are very unimpressive.

QuietOC · Post by **QuietOC** » Thu Dec 04, 2008 12:55 pm

CA_Steve wrote:>4000 score and <30W might be a tough combination to meet.

While settle for 4,000 in 3DMark06?

9600GSO
9500GT 19W-35W

lechuck · Post by **lechuck** » Thu Dec 04, 2008 1:26 pm

Maybe 4650? Sure, it's slower than 4670, but should be enough to meet performance. This version is passive:
HIS Radeon HD 4650 iSilence 4, 512MB DDR2

Other than that I'd vote for regular 4670 and try to underclock it in 3D mode to target consumption.

Aris · Post by **Aris** » Thu Dec 04, 2008 5:00 pm

4670 is likely your best bet. its about 7watts over your load thermal limit of 40w, but it idles at 10w, and a video card spends about 80-90% of its lifespan at idle.

Powercolor AX4670 512mb for $79.99

It has what looks like a zalman HSF on it, so if you want one passive you'd need to get something aftermarket. I didnt see any stock passive 4670's on newegg. Perhaps there are some elsewhere.

lodestar · Post by **lodestar** » Fri Dec 05, 2008 4:52 am

The performance of nVidia 9xxx series cards has been significantly boosted by the recently released 180 driver. I note from the 3DMark06 graph that the 9600gt was the best performing card, so with the new driver it should be even better.

There is at last one passively cooled version of this card available, that is the Asus EN9600GT SILENT/HTDI GCA-XN96GT512S. It does not have an HDMI port, but does have a HDMI/DVI adapter. Around Â£100 here in the UK, which seems reasonable value to me.

thejamppa · Post by **thejamppa** » Fri Dec 05, 2008 8:50 am

nVidia has known to push some of their drivers optimized for the bechmarks. If we look 3D mark 06, a System with 8800 GT scores more than HD 4850.... even rest hardware would be the same...

Most significant is however the game architechture as nVidia has been managed to push some firm optimize their engines for nVidia engines... and all OpenGL games are mcuh more optimized for nVidia than Ati...

9600 GSO / 8800 GS or HD 4870 looks very good to me. Cheap 9600 GT would be wonderful too.

quest_for_silence · Post by **quest_for_silence** » Fri Dec 05, 2008 9:11 am

First of all, thank you for every your advice.

In a real fanless system it's a matter of balance.

Indeed a Radeon HD4670 seems a good performer with a low impact as for wattage (twice the performance of the elder 8600GT for the same power consumption): but it's still too much high in a totally fanless system (as it is the factory OC'ed 7600GT which I use).

I'm more than a bit dubious about stay with Nvidia (a 9500GT, if in case), as the obscure situation discussed here:

viewtopic.php?t=49572

I mean it should be related to hot temperatures, as there are in a fanless system

If this chart (Legion Hardware) is enough reliable:

I guess I will bet on the advised HIS HD4650 passive solution, or with a classic ATI Sapphire but with GDDR3 and an Accelero S2... anyone may advice about compatibility between the Arctic Cooling heatsink and 46x0 ATI cards?

Cheers, Luca

QuietOC · Post by **QuietOC** » Fri Dec 05, 2008 9:29 am

The 55nm G92s are considerable better than the 65nm G92s. The same should be true for the G94s:

A 55nm version of the new version of the 9600GSO would probably be perfect, but I don't even know if that exists. Even the new 9600GT-based GSO is pretty rare. From here it sounds like both 65nm and 55nm versions do/will exist. The uncrippled 55nm 9600GT might fit the power requirement too.

The 55nm G94 cores will be marked G94-210-B1 or G94-219-B1. The 55nm G96 core is G96-300-B1 (pictures). So, "B" = 55nm, I guess.

From this thread it sounds like all the 9500GTs are the 55nm G96B chips, so don't expect any lower wattage then those tested on the web.

lechuck · Post by **lechuck** » Fri Dec 05, 2008 10:10 am

I'd say no to Sapphire cards, as they don't have proper Bios values. They tend to consume some extra W in idle,
compared to HIS, MSI,... Look in the 4670 thread for more details.

At xbitlabs measured 15W in idle and 36 W load for 7600 GT, really good balance at that time.
For 4670 they measured 9W idle and 47W load (not Sapphire card).

I have a question for you. You say you run 100% passive setup. In idle this is no problem, but do you run
100% passive also with load? A little hard to belive, as at that time also CPU consumption jumps up...

Post by **CA_Steve** » Fri Dec 05, 2008 10:23 am

How about a passive 4650?

quest_for_silence · Post by **quest_for_silence** » Fri Dec 05, 2008 2:26 pm

lechuck wrote:I'd say no to Sapphire cards

Sapphire is the only one I know which sports GDDR3 memory: any recommendation is welcome.

lechuck wrote:A little hard to belive

Obviously, believe what you may easily rather: the system (a stock Intel E4600 undervolted at 0.925vcore) draws about 90w at load and of course it is more than a bit hot, but as previously said, it's a matter of balance. I mean, as an example, if I'd run it under a desk without any air circulation around it, or if I'd try to load it running FurMark or Orthos for more than an hour with an ambient temperature higher than 30Â°C, maybe some problem (as a shutdown) could occurr. It's not a perfect fit, it's just a decent trade off (but it is not the argument of the present thread).

Regards, Luca

quest_for_silence · Post by **quest_for_silence** » Fri Dec 05, 2008 2:34 pm

CA_Steve wrote:How about a passive 4650?

Yes, it is the exact one I mean saying

quest_for_silence wrote:...I guess I will bet on the advised HIS HD4650 passive solution, or...

right here. This card has been suggested to me by lechuck here.

Regards, Luca

lechuck · Post by **lechuck** » Fri Dec 05, 2008 2:46 pm

Very weird power consumptions in that review. No logic at all!
4670 needs 44W more than 4650 at load?

@quest_for_silence: To the heat topic. So if you add VGA card to the pary you get over 100W fast, right?

The Sapphire cards are not yet supported by RBE, they have bit diferent BIOS. Most 4670 have GDDR3 and most 4650 have DDR2.
I guess that is to prevent simple modding 4650 to 4670. But even 4650 with DDR2 could be faster than 7600GT.
I'd vote for HIS or MSI + passive cooler... or do wait for a stock passive version.

quest_for_silence · Post by **quest_for_silence** » Fri Dec 05, 2008 3:31 pm

lechuck wrote:4670 needs 44W more than 4650 at load?

A bit strange, indeed: but also Legion Hardware gives a 37w advantage at load to HD4650 over the HD4670 as for wattage (complete system).
I hope Mike Chin will homage us with a HIS HD4650 iSilencer's review.

right?

No, it still stay under 100w with the card (I beg your pardon lechuck, it's not the argument of the present discussion).

I'd vote for HIS or MSI + passive cooler... or do wait for a stock passive version.

It's one of the very first options of mine.

Regards, Luca

Aris · Post by **Aris** » Sat Dec 06, 2008 1:31 am

quest_for_silence wrote:
lechuck wrote:4670 needs 44W more than 4650 at load?
A bit strange, indeed: but also Legion Hardware gives a 37w advantage at load to HD4650 over the HD4670 as for wattage (complete system).

Those figures are BS. Xbitlabs shows the 4670 drawing a maximum of 47w at load. If that review is indeed correct it would mean a 4650 only uses 10w at load.

quest_for_silence · Post by **quest_for_silence** » Sat Dec 06, 2008 5:13 am

Aris wrote:it would mean a 4650 only uses 10w at load.

I dunno as reported wattage should be for a complete system. More realistic data should may be the following ones (from TechPowerUp):

Idle

Average

Peak

They are referred to the Sapphire's factory OC'ed card with GDDR3 memory, and show a 4w advantage at idle, and a 16w advantage at peak, over the HD4670 reference design
So the OC'ed HD4650 should account at peak for 24-25w (with reference to SPCR's review), or about 31w (with reference to Xbit's one), with almost the same performance of a std. HD4670.

Regards, Luca