Sparkle 8800gt passive card review "Anandtech"

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chahahc
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Sparkle 8800gt passive card review "Anandtech"

Post by chahahc » Thu Nov 29, 2007 6:28 pm

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3165

And apparently....The card runs quite toasty.......mmmmm...toasted... :lol:

Blacktales
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Post by Blacktales » Thu Nov 29, 2007 9:22 pm

And apparently....The card runs quite toasty.......mmmmm...toasted...
No it does not. Or at least this is not what the results really mean : They put it in the worst case possible with almost no airflow (2x80mm is nothing especially with the lack of intake sources), surrounded by scorching components and bad cable job without even a fan pointing to the GPU heatsink. And still it survived. That is quite an achievement. To be fair they would have to compare with another passive card.

To know exactly how hot the card becomes, we will have to wait for sensible reviews, not torture reports. Though i admit i expected a larger heatsink and am now questioning whether i will buy this one or combine another with a S1 or HR-03. Now i understand why the original announcement pictures were not clear enough to see the heatsink :-) .[/quote]

Cerb
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Post by Cerb » Thu Nov 29, 2007 9:36 pm

I liked it. The review basically says that in a good case, all will be well. No SPCR member, and I doubt many AT members, would sleep well at night with anything remotely similar to their test setup. I think a follow-up article, with a good case, should be in order, though, or at least an update.

HueyCobra
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Post by HueyCobra » Thu Nov 29, 2007 11:34 pm

Blacktales wrote:Though i admit i expected a larger heatsink and am now questioning whether i will buy this one or combine another with a S1 or HR-03.
Hopefully the ECS 8800GT will be another fanless off-the-shelf option.

Matija
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Post by Matija » Thu Nov 29, 2007 11:58 pm

What a tiny heatsink! :o

But it did its job properly. These are good times for silent enthusiasts - the ATI 38xx series can be cooled passively (probably - we'll see about the VRMs), and the 8800GT(S) as well.

(Still waiting for X-bit and *proper* power consumption tests...)

frostedflakes
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Post by frostedflakes » Fri Nov 30, 2007 12:34 am

Blacktales wrote:No it does not. Or at least this is not what the results really mean : They put it in the worst case possible with almost no airflow (2x80mm is nothing especially with the lack of intake sources), surrounded by scorching components and bad cable job without even a fan pointing to the GPU heatsink. And still it survived. That is quite an achievement. To be fair they would have to compare with another passive card.

To know exactly how hot the card becomes, we will have to wait for sensible reviews, not torture reports. Though i admit i expected a larger heatsink and am now questioning whether i will buy this one or combine another with a S1 or HR-03. Now i understand why the original announcement pictures were not clear enough to see the heatsink :-) .
So true, you really have to take any passive video card review with a grain of salt; case airflow (or lack thereof) can have an enormous impact on temps. What peeves me is when a reviewer thinks that because a card is passively cooled you can just stick it in a case with horrible airflow and it will run at great temps. Even for low-end cards this is far from the truth, you need at least some airflow over these cards, and for best results the heatsink should receive direct airflow from a case fan or indirect airflow through ducting.

fjf
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Post by fjf » Fri Nov 30, 2007 2:45 am

I bet you can put a 80 mm fan at 5V on top of the heatsink and get much better temps. This one is interestingly good because it can work with no mods or spending more money on passive heatsinks.

seraphyn
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Post by seraphyn » Fri Nov 30, 2007 4:36 am

Heatsink on it seems less effective then the S1 in my opinion. S1 has more surface to stick a nice fan (or 2) on, 1 more heatpipe and is better looking (provided you take off the plastic thingies).

What would be nice to see is a review of 8800GT's with all available passive coolers at this time, done from the same case with proper airflow (at least intake + outlet).
Untill that happens it will mostly come down to gut feelings, other peoples experiences with their cooling and how persuasive they are.

Not complaining about the sparkle passive though, always great when there's a stock built passive solution for those that do not want to mess about with it on their own. And it looks better then the asus passive 'solution' on their EN8600GT Silent :P

GavinAshford
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Post by GavinAshford » Fri Nov 30, 2007 5:04 am

i wasnt too sure where to put this since theres a fair few posts about the latest silent graphics cards but anyway.

theres a few photos of the passive Sapphire 3850 512MB on expreview.

URL to follow (since this is my 1st post i'm not allowed to link)

GavinAshford
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Post by GavinAshford » Fri Nov 30, 2007 5:05 am


Ridley
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Post by Ridley » Fri Nov 30, 2007 5:43 am

Cerb wrote:I liked it. The review basically says that in a good case, all will be well. No SPCR member, and I doubt many AT members, would sleep well at night with anything remotely similar to their test setup. I think a follow-up article, with a good case, should be in order, though, or at least an update.
There's no need for any update ;)

Target of this review was finding the usability limit of the card, and they simply weren't able to. That's an achievement, there's no need to try it anywhere else, because the card simply works, and nobody's goin' to put it in a worse situation than that crazy one.

Very nice product.

Giacomo

matva
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Post by matva » Fri Nov 30, 2007 6:27 am

nice card but the 1yr warranty is a deal breaker imo.

SHare
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Post by SHare » Fri Nov 30, 2007 6:44 am

Very nice, I may have to sell my 8600gt and make the jump to this after christmas.

~El~Jefe~
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Post by ~El~Jefe~ » Sat Dec 01, 2007 3:50 pm

matva wrote:nice card but the 1yr warranty is a deal breaker imo.
in one year you wish you bought a new one.

in 1-2 weeks they normally die if they will.

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