Asus ENGTX260: A Quiet Graphics Card for Gamers?

Want to talk about one of the articles in SPCR? Here's the forum for you.
empty
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Post by empty » Fri Sep 26, 2008 6:19 am

rpsgc wrote:What?! The GTX260 doesn't fit in the Solo?
Well, technically it "can" fit if you cut the hard drive cage like I did. If the card was just a tiny tiny tiny bit shorter it would fit no problems. I'll take a pic or two for you so you can see it in detail :P.

Edit: Excuse the hack job, and the dust (I own three cats and a dog..)

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Cryoburner
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Post by Cryoburner » Sat Sep 27, 2008 7:01 am

Not at all related to the card's acoustics, but the art on this particular card makes no sense and looks like a complete hack job. It looks as though someone spent five minutes copying and pasting in Photoshop. I understand that it usually won't be visible once installed, but if they're going to bother placing art on the heat sink, they should at least try to make it look good. Appearances can effect the perceived quality of a product, and can potentially be the deal breaker if one is deciding between two similarly priced cards.

Checking Newegg and their site, Asus apparently uses this same archer on most of their current higher end cards, but they swap the background based on the card's series. The archer herself is well designed, but the background imagery complementing her looks out of place on most of the cards. The only design that makes sense and looks like some effort was put into it is the one used on their Radeon 4800 series, where she's in front of a white and pink cherry blossom backdrop. The GeForce 200 series inexplicably places her in front of a camouflage background with a strange white glow. She looks out of place on the 9800 cards as well, where she's either in front of pastel green vector graphics or mysteriously floating in space.

I suppose they might want to get use out of that archer, but couldn't they at least try to theme the backgrounds accordingly? : )

maarek
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Post by maarek » Tue Sep 30, 2008 10:43 pm

WR304 wrote: According to the newest Rivatuner v2.11 the stock fan runs at 1381rpm when idling however. That fan really doesn't sound like it's doing 700rpm.
Are you sure everything is working fine? The fan should be about 40% in the nvidia ntune, if it's any higher then it's not idling correctly.

If it is at 40% then the card is very quiet in my opinion.

One more VERY IMPORTANT thing. If you use dual monitors the card will not drop it's idle clocks. They will stay at full. It will only drop them when using one monitor. Don't know if this a driver thing, but it does bug me.

WR304
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Post by WR304 » Wed Oct 01, 2008 9:47 am

maarek wrote:Are you sure everything is working fine? The fan should be about 40% in the nvidia ntune, if it's any higher then it's not idling correctly.
At 40% duty cycle I felt the stock GTX260 cooler had a bit of an edge to it. Compared to the two 500rpm Scythe Slipstream fans in my case it was clearly noticeable. The difference in reported fan speeds is down to which software you use. There's a comparison pic I posted on the previous page between the different GPU-Z revisions. :)

An easy test to see whether the fan is doing 1381rpm at 40% duty cycle (or 700rpm as the older software and the SPCR article reports) is to manually turn the fan up to 100% duty cycle. Using Rivatuner you can try adjusting the fan to different speeds to see if it makes any change to the noise levels. If the fan is running at 700rpm and 40% speed it would only be doing 1750rpm at 100%. If you turn the fan up to 100% it sounds like a jetplane taking off. :shock: (3157rpm is reported by Rivtauner v2.11 at 100% duty cycle)

If you look at my last post on the previous page I dropped the duty cycle down to 30% which is a lot better. It increases the GPU temperature to 48c approx but with the fan speed reduced to 1011rpm approx it's a lot less intrusive. At that speed it's a good quiet card that I've been pleased with. :)

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Nvidia GTX 260 GPU temperature at 30% fan duty cycle

=assassin=
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Post by =assassin= » Sun Oct 05, 2008 12:36 pm

empty wrote:
rpsgc wrote:What?! The GTX260 doesn't fit in the Solo?
Well, technically it "can" fit if you cut the hard drive cage like I did. If the card was just a tiny tiny tiny bit shorter it would fit no problems. I'll take a pic or two for you so you can see it in detail :P.

Edit: Excuse the hack job, and the dust (I own three cats and a dog..)

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Eek, looks like I don't have a chance installing it in my NSK4000 then :/ Shorter case than the Solo, although I'm not sure if the hard drive bay is shorter.

Wilhelm-Tell
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Post by Wilhelm-Tell » Mon Oct 06, 2008 6:22 am

My (nVidia) Albatron 9600GT surprised me too. In my config with only two Nexus fans @ 700 rpm its just a level or two above them in noise. I also stopped the fan with one of my fingers and the overall noise level didnt drop that much. I might replace it for a passive S2 some day, but im not in a hurry.

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Suosaaski
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Post by Suosaaski » Mon Oct 06, 2008 9:50 am

My GTX260 is clearly audible too, although the noise it makes is not irritating at all (unlike the HD4870 I had...). It is the loudest component in my system.

Mats
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Post by Mats » Mon Oct 06, 2008 5:01 pm

Thanks for a great review! :D

It's great that you're telling us the card length, I think it's something you should do in all graphic card reviews in the future, even for shorter models.
It's very good to know, but not always that easy to find out by yourself!
Most review sites doesn't mention it unless it's a card that's longer than an ATX card, like this one.
In some situations it's just as important as PSU cable length or heatsink dimensions.
Notes: The card size is 4.376 inches x 10.5 inches

juamez
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Post by juamez » Sun Oct 12, 2008 3:18 am

When I go by these graphs, the HD4850 is considered more efficient at idle than the GTX260. That is not the case in this review, which favors the GTX260 for power consumption at idle.

What gives?

Eagle156
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Post by Eagle156 » Sun Oct 12, 2008 8:15 am

I haven't found my GTX 260 to be as "silent" as this article suggests. At idle @ 40% fan speed, it's similar to a dull roar and is easily the loudest thing in my system, and my computer is far from silent! When gaming this thing really starts going and sounds like a vacuum cleaner several rooms away. Thankfully the sound isn't that annoying - it's mainly an airflow noise. But I don't know about that 19db reading... in my P182 case, it feels more like 25-30db.

johnbentley
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Post by johnbentley » Mon Oct 13, 2008 5:50 pm

Recapping. From the excellent article (thanks MikeC) ...


Asus ENGTX260 with Stock cooler.

* Temps: 43°C Idle (700 RPM/40%), 72°C Load (Fan 880 RPM/50%).
* Noise: 15 dBA Idle (700 RPM/40%), 21 dBA Load (Fan 880 RPM/50%).
MikeC in Article wrote:GPU temperature was more than acceptable at only 72°C.
What about in game behaviour?
WR304 wrote:In games my stock clocked GTX260 doesn't actually seem that much louder than at idle.
Wow! Impressive.

What about a harder test than in the article? Thanks to WR304 for the following ...
WR304 wrote:In the review the card was stress tested with ATI Tool to get a load temperature. It only reached 72c approx which is still below the 78c Operating Temperature. That's when the fan speed really starts ramping up.

A good benchmark to use is Furmark v.1.4.0...

The fan speed starts to increase at 70c but it isn't until you reach 78c that you can really hear the fan start to speed up. The temperature stays constant and you can see the fan speed increasing over time. ...

With my card running Furmark v1.4.0 it reaches 78c after 3 or four minutes.
Does anybody have experience with running a GTX 260 with Triple Head To Go, Digital Edition to get triple monitors going? Does this push the card from 72° to 78°?

Consider a competing solution....


HD 4870 1 GB with the Accelero Twin Turbo

From Falcon26's Forum Thread: Got the Twin Turbo on my 4870 1 gb

* Temps: 44°C Idle (50% fan speed), 60°C Load (50% fan speed).
* Noise:
Falcon26 wrote:Idle about 44 and load about 60 at 50% fan speed. Dead silent... Even at 75% the fan is quiet. At 50% its dead silent. 55%-75% is quiet also but their is a faint whirly sound, nothing bad still quiet.
Deciding between the two

The 4870 is a tad better than the reviewed 260. 60° V 72° @ Load. Further, presumably one has more assurance and control with an aftermarket cooler that the card will not go to full speed.

However the 4870 does not support the triple widescreen resolutions under Triple Head To Go. That makes it unattractive for me.

Thanks WR304 for
If you don't like the stock cooler there's a Thermalright HR-03 cooler coming out sometime
Indeed the yet to be released Thermalright HR-03 GTX promises 67° at load for the 280. That is not too much better than the 72° for the reviewed 260 with stock cooler. Mmmm.

WR304
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Post by WR304 » Tue Oct 14, 2008 2:59 pm

You need to be careful when comparing temperatures between GTX260 and GTX280 cards. At stock clock speeds the GTX260 does seem to run a lot cooler and use less power than the GTX280. In this Bit-tech.net review for example the GTX280 uses 25 watts more than a GTX260 under load .

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2008/0 ... roundup/15

At a room temperature of 19c approx my GTX260 doesn't spin up much at all in games. I played 3 hours of Colin McRae: Dirt this evening, although the GPU temperature reached 78c the fan only increased to 41% fan duty cycle (1450RPM approx) and that was as high as it went throughout the three hours. That increase was from my modified idle setting of 30% fan duty cycle.:)

It goes a bit higher in Crysis Warhead but not that much higher: 45% fan duty cycle or so. It seems to only really be artificial benchmarks that heat my card up much more than that.

Remember that at higher room temperatures the card will run hotter also. In the middle of summer in Sydney, Australia you could find the fan will run a lot faster than here in the UK where it's late autumn now.

The Thermalright HR-03 GTX uses exactly the same heatsink as their previous HR-03 GT and HR-03 Plus heatsinks. It just has a different mounting bracket (The hole spacing on a Nvidia GT200 series card is different to both the G80 and G92 8800 series cards) and a heatsink for the VRMs. It has the same benefits but also the same drawbacks of taking up at least three PCI slots and not exhausting the GPU heat from the case.

johnbentley
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Post by johnbentley » Thu Oct 16, 2008 9:30 pm

WR304, thanks for more helpful info.

Your warning on comparing the 280 with the 260 makes sense. We ought, then, expect the 260 with the Thermalright HR-03 GTX to do better than 67°C at load. Further, point taken about different ambient (room) temperatures.

It is good of you to emphasize that your Leadtek 260 stock fan doesn't spin up too much under gaming conditions.

On the Thermalright HR-03 GTX
wr304 wrote:The Thermalright HR-03 GTX uses exactly the same heatsink as their previous HR-03 GT and HR-03 Plus heatsinks. It just has a different mounting bracket (The hole spacing on a Nvidia GT200 series card is different to both the G80 and G92 8800 series cards) and a heatsink for the VRMs. It has the same benefits but also the same drawbacks of taking up at least three PCI slots and not exhausting the GPU heat from the case.
A quick skim of an old forum post, HR-03 PLUS, shows a controversy about whether the cooler permits SLI due to blocking the SLI connector/bridge.

Then, if a GTX260 has a reasonable stock cooler, going to the Thermalright HR-03 GTX doesn't seem very attractive.

Eagle156
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Post by Eagle156 » Sun Oct 19, 2008 6:17 am

WR304 wrote:
That increase was from my modified idle setting of 30% fan duty cycle.:)
Can you tell us how you did that? I tried messing around in Rivatuner, but usually the fan forgot to spin up and the Nvidia driver happily crashed during gaming. 8)

WR304
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Post by WR304 » Sun Oct 19, 2008 10:39 am

I used this tutorial: :)

http://www.vaguetech.com/index.php?page ... advcontrol

http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=270679

I'm using Windows XP SP3, Rivatuner v2.11 and currently the Nvidia 177.92 driver.

You first need to open Rivatuner and go to the Power User tab.

Under the Rivatuner\Fan entry change "AutoFanSpeedControl" to 3 and click ok.

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Change the Rivatuner\Fan "AutoFanSpeedControl" to 3 to modify fan speed settings

You then go to the Low Level Settings tab (click "Customise" on Target Adapter)

"Enable Low-Level Fan Control" needs to be selected and set to auto.

Double left click on the Duty Cycle Min number and it will allow you to manually type in a figure. I chose 30% as at 25% duty cycle the card temperature kept climbing.

The fan settings need to be applied at startup, and it's worth saving it as a seperate profile so you can re-apply it if needed.

That's been working quite well for me. :)

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Manually type in the required figure for "Duty Cycle Min" in the Low Level Settings tab



@johnbentley:

The other issue with a Thermalright HR-03 GTX on the GTX260 could easily be the VRMs on the card getting too hot and causing stability issues. I used my old Nvidia 7900GTX graphics card with a Thermalright HR-03 cooler mounted above the card for a year. Although the card didn't break the VRM heatsink on the card would get so hot you couldn't touch it. With a long card like the GTX260 that whole section of card where the VRMs are wouldn't get much airflow. :(

This thread by Matija about his experiences of using a Thermalright HR-03 with an ATI Radeon X1950 Pro graphics card is worth looking at:

viewtopic.php?t=40671

You can use two Thermalright HR-03 coolers for SLI. So long as you have a ribbon SLI cable it's possible. :)

http://forums.slizone.com/index.php?s=c ... ntry219271

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Miami Borcua's PC with two Thermalright HR-03 Plus coolers on SLI'ed 8800GTS graphics cards

SLI has plenty of negatives too though: Dual cards use far more power and will heat the case up a lot more than a single GTX260 would. You're reliant on SLI profiles being made available for the games and you usually don't get double the performance from having two cards either.

If you really want dual graphics cards and a quiet pc your best bet would probably be to water cool it and use full cover blocks on the graphics cards.
Last edited by WR304 on Sun Oct 19, 2008 10:52 am, edited 2 times in total.

TD22057
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Post by TD22057 » Sun Oct 19, 2008 10:44 am

I have to say I really like this card. I just got a 260 GTX core 216 and it's surprisingly quiet. It's definitely not silent but the normal fan controller on it works very well. In normal email/web stuff, I can't hear the card at all (or it blends with the other slight fan noise from my case). At full speed it is quite loud but that only happens under gaming to it doesn't matter very much to me.

johnbentley
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Post by johnbentley » Sun Oct 19, 2008 11:35 pm

@ WR304
myself wrote:[there is] controversy about whether the [HR-03 PLUS] permits SLI due to blocking the SLI connector/bridge.
WR304 wrote:you can use two Thermalright HR-03 coolers for SLI. So long as you have a ribbon SLI cable it's possible. ...
There is pleasure in a controversy settled with photographic evidence :)

So, with further issues in mind, the 2 X 260 in SLI, with the HR-03, is a possible option. The further issues you noted: VRM heat, games to have SLI profiles, extra heat, and (far) less than double performance. At least if one was to go 2 x 260 in SLI with stock coolers, and there was something undesirable about that setup, there is the backup option of experimenting with HR03 plus.

@ TD22057
It is good to read of your quiet experience! This thread seems to suggest some variation on the quietness between manufacturer/model. Which manufacturer/model of 260 GTX core 216 did you get?

TD22057
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Post by TD22057 » Mon Oct 20, 2008 6:33 am

@ TD22057
It is good to read of your quiet experience! This thread seems to suggest some variation on the quietness between manufacturer/model. Which manufacturer/model of 260 GTX core 216 did you get?[/quote]

EVGA 896-P3-1265-AR

WR304
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Post by WR304 » Mon Oct 20, 2008 8:58 am

johnbentley wrote:This thread seems to suggest some variation on the quietness between manufacturer/model.
You can't expect there to be much noise difference between the stock coolers on standard Nvidia GT200 series cards. Most graphics cards (from both Nvidia and ATI) are made by a few large manufacturers in the same factories. Apart from the stickers and branding you're getting the same card and cooler no matter who you buy from. Unless there's a particularly good software bundle or warranty offered it's usually best to just buy the cheapest version of the card that you can find.:)

There are cards from some manufacturers that vary from the reference designs by using different circuitry and aftermarket coolers but I don't think anyone offers a custom GTX260 or GTX280 at the moment. BFG sell a card with a Danger Den waterblock pre-fitted but the actual card is still a standard model. When you see pre-overclocked cards this just means that the graphics card has had the BIOS changed to run at higher clock speeds. You can do exactly the same thing with a standard card yourself easily. An overclocked card will run hotter than one at stock speeds, so you'll probably find that a card at stock speeds will be quieter. :)

johnbentley
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Post by johnbentley » Mon Oct 20, 2008 9:55 pm

@TD22057 . Thanks.

@WR304
wr304 wrote:You can't expect there to be much noise difference between the stock coolers on standard Nvidia GT200 series cards.
I'm going to leave others to contest that claim, I'm not in a position to. I do note your showing different versions of the same software reporting different RPM values on the same card.

At least in MikeC's article and other user reports (including you) we have a small list of GTX260 with stock coolers that are either objectively or subjectively reported as reasonably quiet.
wr034 wrote:When you see pre-overclocked cards this just means that the graphics card has had the BIOS changed to run at higher clock speeds. You can do exactly the same thing with a standard card yourself easily.
Thanks for this tangent! As a newbie I had been wondering whether you can overclock graphics cards yourself.

WR304
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Post by WR304 » Tue Oct 21, 2008 2:18 pm

You can easily overclock a graphics card using programs like Rivatuner, ATITool or Ntune. For basic overclocking it's simply a case of moving a slider to increase GPU/ shader/ memory clock speeds. This section of the Rivatuner tutorial explains how to do it using that software:

http://www.vaguetech.com/index.php?page ... #overclock

When you have a stable setting it's possible to flash them to the cards BIOS using nvflash.

http://www.mvktech.net/component/option ... 42/page,3/

If you want to heavily overclock the card it means doing some hardware voltage mods on it. That's a lot more risky and could destroy your card. It isn't necessary unless you want to go for some sort of benchmarking record though. :)

http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1355827

Eagle156
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Post by Eagle156 » Thu Oct 23, 2008 1:29 pm

WR304 wrote:I used this tutorial: :)

http://www.vaguetech.com/index.php?page ... advcontrol

http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=270679

I'm using Windows XP SP3, Rivatuner v2.11 and currently the Nvidia 177.92 driver.

You first need to open Rivatuner and go to the Power User tab.

Under the Rivatuner\Fan entry change "AutoFanSpeedControl" to 3 and click ok.


Change the Rivatuner\Fan "AutoFanSpeedControl" to 3 to modify fan speed settings

You then go to the Low Level Settings tab (click "Customise" on Target Adapter)

"Enable Low-Level Fan Control" needs to be selected and set to auto.

Double left click on the Duty Cycle Min number and it will allow you to manually type in a figure. I chose 30% as at 25% duty cycle the card temperature kept climbing.

The fan settings need to be applied at startup, and it's worth saving it as a seperate profile so you can re-apply it if needed.

That's been working quite well for me. :)


Manually type in the required figure for "Duty Cycle Min" in the Low Level Settings tab

Thanks, that works well. I did some fooling around with the fan controller and changed the T min to 55 (62C actual), T range to 53 (the max it will go?), T operating and T high limit to 110, and T low limit to 0. As far as I understand, this means the fan will start ramping up at 62C and the higher the T range, the more gradual the fan response is to each degree C. This produced pretty good results. I'm very confused over the T operating, T high, and T low settings, however, and pretty much no guide I've read explains them well. Anyone have an idea? :?

rpsgc
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Post by rpsgc » Thu Nov 13, 2008 3:40 pm

Don't tell me this is going to be another mystery like the Velociraptor... supposedly very quiet/silent in spcr's test chamber but found to be noisy by various users.

Reading the data one can compare it to the HD4830, which in turn uses the same stock cooler as the HD4850 (AFAIK), the latter being described as very quiet by all. So what's wrong with this picture?


I really wanted to believe this card is quiet so I could buy it, especially now that it's cheaper than the HD4870 1GB :(

TD22057
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Post by TD22057 » Thu Nov 13, 2008 8:04 pm

rpsgc wrote:Don't tell me this is going to be another mystery like the Velociraptor... supposedly very quiet/silent in spcr's test chamber but found to be noisy by various users.

Reading the data one can compare it to the HD4830, which in turn uses the same stock cooler as the HD4850 (AFAIK), the latter being described as very quiet by all. So what's wrong with this picture?


I really wanted to believe this card is quiet so I could buy it, especially now that it's cheaper than the HD4870 1GB :(
I don't think it's a mystery - just different perception of what "quiet" is. Some people want silence, some want reasonably quiet, some people are used to no noise at all so any noise sounds loud, some people are used to loud systems so any reduction sounds quiet, different systems, different components, different case locations (under a desk vs. on top of it), etc, etc. Noise is a very subjective thing...

rpsgc
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Post by rpsgc » Fri Nov 14, 2008 12:37 am

Ban the bot please :roll:

rpsgc
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Post by rpsgc » Sat Nov 22, 2008 2:04 am

For those of you that say your GTX260 is louder than spcr's sample, what's your core voltage? I just read the xbit article comparing the HD4870 1GB and the GTX260 216 and their 216sp card had its fan running much slower (and the card cooler) than their 192sp sample. They looked at the card's BIOS and it was the core voltage.

Leadtek 216sp 1700rpm @ 1.06V
BFG 192sp 3300rpm @ 1.12V


If anyone wants to take a look at the BIOS, they uploaded it here.
(thanks xbitlabs)

WR304
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Post by WR304 » Sat Nov 22, 2008 10:50 am

I don't think my card is necessarily louder than the SPCR review sample. As TD22057 points out people have different perceptions of how noticeable a particular noise is. :)
My Leadtek GTX260 192 card is running at the stock clock speeds and voltages. Here's the Nibitor screen showing BIOS revision and voltages:

Image
Leadtek GTX260 192 Stock BIOS Voltages

The Rivatuner graph in that Xbitlabs.com article for the "ordinary GeForce GTX 260 (192 stream processors) from BFG" is the second graph down on page 7. They've cropped the pictures so you can't see the card type that appears on the upper tab of Rivatuner.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/ ... 024_7.html

Do they state anywhere what program was used to test the card and how long the stress test was for? Rivatuner graphs read from left to right so the Xbitlabs graphs are showing the hottest temperature the card reached and then how it cools after the test is quit.

My card with the same voltages doesn't get anywhere near 100% fan speed. I did a quick test of 30 minutes in the Furmark 1.4.0 stability test.

Room temperature: 17c approx

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Furmark 1.4.0 Settings

Here's a Rivatuner v2.11 graph showing the fan response of my GTX260 192 card at stock speeds in Furmark 1.4.0. for the first 15min of the test. I've taken some of the readings out to make the graph more readable. For the second 15min of the test the fan speed and GPU temperature stayed stable and didn't increase. Although the GPU temperature reached 82c the fan didn't spin faster than 1711rpm. In all the games I've played using it the GPU temperature and fan speed don't get anywhere near that level.

The number underneath each graph is actual time rather than elapsed time. The left hand side of the graph shows the card at idle before the test is started.

Image
GTX260 Furmark temperatures

If you want a look at the original Rivatuner .hml logfile it's here:

Rivatuner_v211_GTX260_Furmark_Logfile.zip (17kb)

You'll need Rivatuner installed to be able to view the log. :)

angelkiller
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Post by angelkiller » Thu Dec 18, 2008 12:22 pm

I'd just like to post my experiences with a GTX 260.

My findings exactly match the results that WR304 has gotten. I had an EVGA card, non overclocked, same voltages. Stock fan speed is 40% which was 1350rpm for me. At this level it's certainly not quiet. I think my system is pretty decent in terms of noise.... noise sources are 2 800rpm S-Flex's, the 'louder' WD3200AAKS, and a NeoHE 500W. You can clearly hear the GTX's fan over everything else. At 30%, I'd call the fan quiet. It was still noticible in my system, but only slightly. This is the maximum that I'd say is quiet. The lowest setting was 25% which blended into my system nicely. But then the card has temperature issues.... The GTX idled at 61C. I'm sure that's perfectly acceptable, but that's pretty hot to me.

But I had other issues too. For some reason my system crashed under any 3D load. Naturally, you'd think it'd be drivers or temps.... both were ok. Then you'd think its a power/current issue. My 500W NeoHE has 3 17A 12v rails. 450W cobined.... I'm 100% certain that's enough power/current. I made a thread at EVGA and the voltage of the 12v rail became a possible issue. I measured 11.95v under 100% CPU load. Still, the card crashed whenever it got up to its full clocks. BUT, I don't fault the card for these issues. I'm leaning on saying its a PSU issue, but I can't say for sure. Either way, I don't have enough money for a new PSU. Not just that, but you'd think that a 500W PSU with 90% of its power on the 12v rails would be able to power any single graphics card.... The fact that it was noisy, had no aftermarket cooling support ($50 for HR-03 is too much), and it didn't work in my system was enough for me to give it back.

So I began looking for alternatives. Preferably something you could cool passively with a S1. Literally a few days later, Tom's posted this godsend article. 4830 Crossfire. Perfect. The setup would outperform a GTX 260 and since the heat was spread across two GPUs, they could be easier cooled. Plus the setup cost only $30 more, which included the second S1 I'd be needing.

So in sum, I found the GTX 260 to be too loud and difficult to cool. YMMV.

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