9800GT vs GTS450 fanless

[rob880]

Hi all, been stuck in a rut with computer problems and you lot seemed like a very knowledgeable bunch so thought I'd see if you could help me.

Recently carried out my first PC build from second hand parts + new fanless graphics. It consisted of:

Coolermaster Silent Pro M 600W Modular ATX Power Supply
ASUS M2A-VM Motherboard
AMD Phenom X4 9550 AM2+ CPU
8GB DDR2 800MHZ RAM
Zotac Fanless GeForce GTS450 1GB DDR3 ZONE Edition

I brought the GTS450 thinking it would outperform my old 9800GT however according to benchmarks it doesn't. Even on my old AMD X2 6000+ system, the 9800GT out performs the GTS450.

I know the GTS450 is fanless therefore probably won't meet the advertised G3D benchmarks, but I was getting really low benchmarks of about 690 compared to around 900+ from my 9800GT.

Can anyone shed any light here? Im not expecting my new system to be lightening, but it should be better than my old X2 system and be able to cope with a card such as the GTS450. Or is the card simply not very good?

Can anyone recommend a quiet or fanless card that would perform well in my new system?

Cheers.

 

[Arzachel]

Yeah, the GTS 450 isn't that great and that one has ddr3 memory makes it worse. How much are you willing to spend? Is fanless a priority or would you rather get more performance?

Here are some decent passive options:
Powercolor scs3 HD6850, the fastest passive GPU you can get. $200
Sapphire Ultimate HD7750 $125
Sapphire Ultimate HD6670, should perform about as well as the GTS450 but costs less. $99

 

[aaksheytalwar]

nvidia x5x and below are crap. Only x6x and above are real gen performance like 460 560 etc. 450 550 etc are all crap, less than half the performance of the next card which itself is 25-50% slower than the ti edition of the same

 

[dave_the_nerd]

XFX makes a range of cards with twin 80mm fans on them. Tend to be reasonably cool and quiet compared to the OEM coolers and derivatives of them.

http://xfxforce.com/en-us/features/doubledissipation.aspx

Radeon 7xxx cards have pretty low idle power, too. A 7770 or 7850 might do the trick for you, maybe even with an aftermarket passive cooler.

(Although I'd probably stick with a lower performance, lower-TDP card for completely passive cooling. A 7750 maybe. The 9800 and 450, comparatively, are very power hungry and can generate a lot of heat.)

 

[rob880]

Wow thanks for all the replies so quickly.

I'm not too bothered about fabless, just want it quiet so it doesn't keep me up if I'm rendering video overnight. I have a decent Silenco case so it shouldn't be too bad.

What got me was that I didn't expect the 9800gt to outperform the GTS450. The benchmarks say it should but obviously that's the regular GTS450 and not the fanless one. Can the GTS450 I had really be that bad?

Any other card reccomendations appreciated! Something that will work well in my system and outperform my 9800GT.

 

[bononos]

Wow thanks for all the replies so quickly.

I'm not too bothered about fabless, just want it quiet so it doesn't keep me up if I'm rendering video overnight. I have a decent Silenco case so it shouldn't be too bad.

What got me was that I didn't expect the 9800gt to outperform the GTS450. The benchmarks say it should but obviously that's the regular GTS450 and not the fanless one. Can the GTS450 I had really be that bad?

Any other card reccomendations appreciated! Something that will work well in my system and outperform my 9800GT.

Look at the THW 2010/2011 gaming charts to see how your 9800 benches against more recent cards. It looks to be performing similarly to the 6670. So an upgrade would start from the 6770 on up.

 

[rob880]

Thanks bononos.

Looking at a card like the CLUB 3D GeForce GTX560Ti, it seems to be fairly quiet, however would a high performance card like this perform well in my system?

It's quite an expensive card (for me) and so I wouldn't want to spend that much without knowing I'm getting the most (or close to) out of it.

Coolermaster Silent Pro M 600W Modular ATX Power Supply
ASUS M2A-VM Motherboard
AMD Phenom X4 9550 AM2+ CPU
8GB DDR2 800MHZ RAM

 

[PhoenixEnigma]

I wouldn't bother - the 9550 is an atrocious gaming CPU, worse than your old X2 6000. I'd address that before you spend more coin on a GPU - the GTS 450 might not be blazing fast, but it should be at least a little faster than a 9800GT. The fact that's it's worse suggests to be that you are likely CPU limited.

 

[toyota]

a gts450 should easily be 30% faster than a 9800gt.

 

[bononos]

Thanks bononos.

Looking at a card like the CLUB 3D GeForce GTX560Ti, it seems to be fairly quiet, however would a high performance card like this perform well in my system?

It's quite an expensive card (for me) and so I wouldn't want to spend that much without knowing I'm getting the most (or close to) out of it.

Coolermaster Silent Pro M 600W Modular ATX Power Supply
ASUS M2A-VM Motherboard
AMD Phenom X4 9550 AM2+ CPU
8GB DDR2 800MHZ RAM

Like poster #2 said the GTS450 you bought was the gimped ddr3 version otherwise it should have been faster than your old card. I would check out the 6770 or the 7770 or other lower end cards suggested by the others since they consume less power and are fairly quiet or very quiet if not quite silent even for the normal fan cooler versions. Check the model that you plan to buy with wiki to check the speeds/# cores/ddr5 etc to make sure its not the cripped version.

The 560ti is a big step up in performance but I wouldn't know how much your cpu will be holding it back since the 9550 is only 2.2Ghz.