List of passively cooled graphics cards

Yomat · Post by **Yomat** » Thu Aug 28, 2003 7:44 pm

Guess we want first or second hand experiences ( One can never trust vendor online images.

) on graphics cards that have passive cooling. Might also be interesting to spot bad cards with active cooling on cards such as 9200 and 9600 without Pro which doesent really need active cooling.

I suppose its safe to say that some of the Sapphire cards do have passive cooling:
SAPPHIRE ULTIMATE 9600 PRO
SAPPHIRE ULTIMATE 9800 PRO

If you're up for it, please go to this thread for image quality discussion on gfxcards: http://forums.silentpcreview.com/viewtopic.php?t=6871

HadroLepton · Post by **HadroLepton** » Fri Aug 29, 2003 4:49 am

this thread should go sticky

but you should differ between cards that are stock passive cooled and gpus that are save to be passive cooled modded

there should be some arrangement on how to list the cards

like this for example

[stock]
the sapphire ultimate edition series

[mod]
radeon 8500 gpus using zalman nb32j
radeon 9000 gpus using zalman nb32j

and then you yomat should collect them every week or so and update your post so people don't have to crawl through the entire thread to find the info

DryFire · Post by **DryFire** » Fri Aug 29, 2003 12:27 pm

stock ati 9600.

9200, 9100, 9200se, 7000(and below)

gf2mx, 5200.

just to name a few

Yomat · Post by **Yomat** » Fri Aug 29, 2003 1:23 pm

HadroLepton wrote: and then you yomat should collect them every week or so and update your post so people don't have to crawl through the entire thread to find the info

Oookay. Thank you for the confidence (And the extra work!).

We could also have "graphics cards" under the recommended section when we can verify enough cards.

mrzed · Post by **mrzed** » Fri Aug 29, 2003 2:20 pm

Matrox G450, G550, P650. The P650 is a cut down version of the Parhelia and one of very few cards that can do dual DVI 1600*1200.

Post by **Rusty075** » Fri Aug 29, 2003 5:53 pm

I think this thread should be limited to stock passively cooled cards.

The reason being that any card can be modded to run passive. The Zalman hp-80 will work on virtually any newer card, and an older card is easily cooled by attaching any big passive heatsikn to it.

Yomat · Post by **Yomat** » Sat Aug 30, 2003 1:55 pm

Rusty075 wrote:I think this thread should be limited to stock passively cooled cards.

The reason being that any card can be modded to run passive. The Zalman hp-80 will work on virtually any newer card, and an older card is easily cooled by attaching any big passive heatsikn to it.

What do you mean "stock"? Sapphire using a third party Zalman HS, is that stock or not?

HadroLepton · Post by **HadroLepton** » Sat Aug 30, 2003 4:40 pm

stock is used to describe products how they are sold by the manufacturer. sapphire's ultimate edition are stock pasive cooled.
the opposite to stock would be mod (modded). usually when you mod something you lose the waranty.
sapphire does use the zalman heatsink but since it is sold that way by sapphire, and you get waranty on it, it is stock.
as long as the manufacturer gives you waranty on it's product it's stock.

some people don't like or can't afford it to lose the waranty (system builders for example). that's why stock passive cooled cards are of interrest for them.

i agree that a limiting the list to stock passive cooled cards is reasonable. but i think a list of succesfully modded passive cards is also interresting, since it is being asked quite often. people can then use that list as a reference. maybe in another thread?

DryFire · Post by **DryFire** » Sat Aug 30, 2003 6:32 pm

anthor thread would be a good idea.

BaconTastesGood · Post by **BaconTastesGood** » Fri Sep 12, 2003 4:59 pm

This definitely needs to be a sticky thread -- MikeC, a "Recommended" section I think would be REALLY helpful since quiet video cooling is one of the key components to a quiet system.

I would divide the recommended section into:

Budget

integrated
ATI Radeon 7000, 7500(LE),
ATI Radeon 9000, 9000 Pro, 9200, 9200SE
ATI Radeon VE
ATI Rage128
nVidia GeForce2 MX200, MX400
nVidia GeForce4 MX420, MX440

Gaming

nVidia GeForce FX 5200 (some cards)
ATI Radeon 9600
Sapphire stuff

2D

Matrox G550
Matrox G450
Matrox G650

If someone wants to donate the gear, I'll write up an article on quiet cooling for a video card with pictures, but I'm not going to spend my own money to do it =)

Dethheat · Post by **Dethheat** » Sun Oct 05, 2003 7:39 pm

Edit: oops you only want stock

MGP · Post by **MGP** » Sun Oct 05, 2003 8:39 pm

It appears that your list is in organized in order of "power" -- if you're not aware, the 9200SE is a stripped-down 9200 that definitely less powerful than the 9000 series ATI cards

Gaming nVidia GeForce FX 5200 (some cards)

Some cards? No cards at all! No serious gamer would ever use the FX5200 to try to run top games at top fps and image quality. The FX5200 is -- in ALL cases -- a decent budget card (with misleading Dx9 support) that is outperformed in its class by the Radeon 9200 (both cards can only be run decently with Dx8.1).

BaconTastesGood · Post by **BaconTastesGood** » Sun Oct 05, 2003 8:45 pm

The list wasn't in any particular order. I do find your "no serious game would ever use..." comment kind of humorous, since no "serious" gamer would put a premium on noise over power.

I guess there are a few out there that would use water cooling and get best of both worlds (in exchange for reliability fears), but really, the FX5200 works just fine with most of today's games. Hell, my ATI Mobility 9000 and GF4 Ti4200 both handle today's games reasonably competently.

Dethheat · Post by **Dethheat** » Sun Oct 05, 2003 9:29 pm

BaconTastesGood wrote:The list wasn't in any particular order. I do find your "no serious game would ever use..." comment kind of humorous, since no "serious" gamer would put a premium on noise over power.

I disagree. A real serious gamer would put the premium on silence and image quality over performance any day as long as all performance is within acceptable levels. Audio is as much of a game as graphics and gameplay.

dago · Post by **dago** » Sun Oct 05, 2003 10:04 pm

update on BaconTastestGood (ummmh, haven't took yet my breakfast this morning) :

- it's matrox P650 and not G650.
- Add Matrox G200, G400, G400Max (basically Matrox G*)

As a declared matrox fan, I just have to state that your classification sucks

For example, the G400 are available for cheap on ebay and are better than the Rage128 in 3d, while having much more features.

Maybe add 2-3 criterias to each cards to distinguish between the cards, such as
- TV Out (for HTPC),
- ability to have more than xxx framerate in game (maybe 2, one old like half life 1 and one new like UT2003) to better classify 3d perf
- dualhead (maybe to few interested ppl).

This would be nice to have that topic the same outcome as the 'undervoltable mboard' thread.

BTW, I also think it'll be better to list exactly the manuf./model and be as precise as possible

For example,
- nVidia GeForce FX5200 is passive with Asus (for sure) and active with some other brands
- Sapphire also makes active cooled cards

Post by **MikeC** » Sun Oct 05, 2003 11:30 pm

Hey guys, I am not ignoring you, just keeping out of this thread until you all hash it out to some reasonable consensus.

BaconTastesGood · Post by **BaconTastesGood** » Mon Oct 06, 2003 6:13 am

MikeC,

I think just having a list of passively cooled cards, period, is a win. For many people, silence is ALL that matters, and so a TNT2 would be fine. It took me forever to build that list by going to newegg and looking at pictures of every video card...

Also, an article on modding cards for silence would be great.

dago: I don't think further classification really helps. By and large everything breaks down into three or four major cards for people that care about specific features (e.g. TV, 3D, etc.) and after that, it's largely subjective.

cliche · Post by **cliche** » Mon Oct 06, 2003 9:32 am

I would class myself as a very serious gamer (up till 330 m playing then off to work for 9 am

; admining a cs server and always on the pc on games).

Like everything in life, it's a compromise. Silence/gfx quality.
Having heard the benefits of silence on my modded oc'd rig, I am going 60/40 silence/graphic quality atm.

Each to their own really. I am trying to get my oc'd and silent 4600 TI running with my 3d spex atm without it melting. J'adore both the 3d spex gameplay and the quietness. I just need to make sure it doesn't fall over again.

Tigr · Post by **Tigr** » Tue Oct 07, 2003 1:36 pm

You have to place the manufacturer together with the model. I have seen cards that use the same processor but from different manufacturers use different cooling, even on the old stuff. Actually, I think even better would be a picture list of the cards to show the size of the heatsink and the outputs.

DryFire · Post by **DryFire** » Tue Oct 07, 2003 3:24 pm

5200 /ultra is not a gaming card by any means. It preforms like a gf 4 mx.

Actaully none of the FX cards are actually Dx9 complaint.

BaconTastesGood · Post by **BaconTastesGood** » Tue Oct 07, 2003 4:10 pm

Actaully none of the FX cards are actually Dx9 complaint.

And very few games today are DX9 dependent. "Gaming", to me, means "can it play enough of the games that you buy today?" An FX is fine for just about any game you can buy TODAY. A Matrox G550, however, is not. That's where I draw the difference.

ez2remember · Post by **ez2remember** » Thu Oct 09, 2003 5:09 pm

Sapphire Radeon 9200 Atlantis l28MB
Passive with a small/medium size HS

Gigabyte Radeon 9200 l28MB
Passive with a medium size HS

Creative Blaster 5 GF FX5200 64MB
Passive with a big HS

PNY Technologies GF FX5200 Ultra l28MB
Passive with a big HS

Terratec Mystify FX5200 l28MB
Passive with a medium size HS

AOpen Aeolus FX5200 l28MB
Passive with a big HS

*** UPDATED: ***

SAPPHIRE RADEON 9000
Passive with medium size HS

Inno3D Tornado GeForceFX 5200
Passive with very large HS (2/3+ size of the PCB)

Visiontek's XTasy GeForce 4 MX 440
Passive with medium size HS

XFX Geforce 4 MX440
Passive with small/medium size HS

Genuine list of stock passive graphics card.

Post by **MikeC** » Thu Oct 09, 2003 5:44 pm

Thanks ez2 -- but keep them coming. There have to be more than that. As soon as we have, say, >20 clear recommendations here, I'll start up the new page.

Here's a couple to add:

Matrox P650 64Mb - best performance 2D dualhead card w/passive cooling (no idea of HS size; never even seen a photo!)

Matrox G550 & G450 - similar dualhead, good 2D performance, lousy 3D - passive cooling, small HS.

Post by **NeilBlanchard** » Thu Oct 09, 2003 8:42 pm

Hi Mike:[

quote="MikeC"]Matrox P650 64Mb - best performance 2D dualhead card w/passive cooling (no idea of HS size; never even seen a photo!) [/quote]

The P650 heatsink is fairly large: it's black and about 2.5" square, with square pins approximately 1/2" long -- they just clear a PCI card in the next slot. I'll also try and see how warm it gets...

dago · Post by **dago** » Fri Oct 10, 2003 12:45 am

ASUSTeK V9520

Matrox G*, put also G400(Max), better 3d perf than G450 or G550 (IIRC) - really good for HTPC (dual framebuffer use)

--- can be modded ---

HIS ATI Radeon 9000Pro
-> with a Zalman NB cooler

> on the P650, yes the HS is really huge (around 4x a NB cooler) and flat (don't eat up 1 pci slot). I took some pictures - have to find them back and put them online), didn't feel that warm, but quickly close the case anyway.

ez2remember · Post by **ez2remember** » Fri Oct 10, 2003 10:03 am

Updated my list of stock passive coolers above.

~2500 members, some of you must have stock passive VGA cards?

Post by **MikeC** » Fri Oct 10, 2003 11:14 am

dago wrote:Matrox G*, put also G400(Max), better 3d perf than G450 or G550 (IIRC) - really good for HTPC (dual framebuffer use)

I have one, I agree, but it is no longer available. I don't think discontinued products should be on the list. I modded mine with a Zalman NB HS. Wroks well, no fan. The orig had a tiny HS w/a 40mm whiner.

dago · Post by **dago** » Sat Oct 11, 2003 12:21 am

MikeC wrote:
dago wrote:Matrox G*, put also G400(Max), better 3d perf than G450 or G550 (IIRC) - really good for HTPC (dual framebuffer use)
I have one, I agree, but it is no longer available. I don't think discontinued products should be on the list. I modded mine with a Zalman NB HS. Wroks well, no fan. The orig had a tiny HS w/a 40mm whiner.

Ok, last one then I suppose we should stop this mini inside semi off topic thread on matrox

* G400TV is still available (here)
* G400 stock passive
* G400Max with fan but I came across one without (???)

bsdgeek · Post by **bsdgeek** » Sat Oct 11, 2003 7:29 am

G400* would be best for HTPC because their TV-Out quality is still unmatched. They use the external maven chip to drive the TV, while the later G-Series cards have an internal on-die TV controller. It's just not as good.

(Another Matrox fan joins the conversation, good to see there are quite a few here at SPCR.

)

List of passively cooled graphics cards

List of passively cooled graphics cards

I'll try and get one, but posting it...