Looking for Passive video cards

[imported_Seer]

I've narrowed it down to these. If anyone knows of some other ones that might be good, tell me. Also, I'm looking for reviews of these cards to; it seems whenever I put in a video card I just come up with shops. Lastly, I'd prefer not to have to deal with after market coolers.

XFX 7600 GS <--- Best bet?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814150146

Asus X1600 XT
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814121548


This one isn't passive, but its from Sapphire's Ultimate line, aimed specifically at low noise. If anyone knows how loud this is, please tell me!

Sapphire X800 XL
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814102538R


Again, not passive, but all the samples reviewers had didn't have the fan thats now on the back. Was this a possible change from preproduction > retail? Or is there a completely fanless model?

Sapphire X800 GTO
http://hardwarezone.com/articles/view.php?id=1748&cid=3&pg=4

 

[kmmatney]

The 7600GS has a memory clock of only 900Mhz, versus the 7600GT at 1400 Mhz. The core is also slower. It still may be the best bet, but it will be significantly slower than the 7600GT.

 

[imported_Seer]

I'm upgrading from a 9550, so I think one of these should work. What about the x800 XL or the x1600 XT?

 

[BassBomb]

xl will be queit as it has a zalman cooler, just get the 7600GS thought as X800XL is outdated and not that much faster

 

[Termie]

That x800xl will probably give you the best performance - definitely better than x1600xt. But it's a refurb (risky?). It's using the excellent Zalman vf700 cooler, which has a "silent" mode that isn't really silent but doesn't make all that much noise and cools the card well. If you really want silent, I think 7600gs is the way to go. If you want performance, get some other card, and add that vf700 for $30 (which you said you didn't want to deal with, so then you're back to 7600gs).

 

[toyota]

Originally posted by: BassBomb
xl will be queit as it has a zalman cooler, just get the 7600GS thought as X800XL is outdated and not that much faster

the 7600gs runs hot as hell. http://hardwarezone.com/articles/view.php?id=1856&cid=3&pg=9 "With such high temperatures recorded even in the cool confines of our air-conditioned labs, end-users who have a badly ventilated casing should have second thoughts before getting one of these cards." and "We also wish that vendors would soon introduce models with active coolers, especially in light of the rather high temperatures that we recorded with the MSI NX7600GS-T2D256EH."

 

[BFG10K]

Asus has a passively cooled 7800GT. It should be the fastest passively cooled card available.

 

[imported_Seer]

Originally posted by: BFG10K
Asus has a passively cooled 7800GT. It should be the fastest passively cooled card available.

The cheapest I found that one is ~$500, I think. It was a limited edition, AFAIK.

I think I will wait untill the Galaxy's 7600 GT Passive comes out:

http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=5003

 

[TomMe]

ASUS and Gigabyte have a passively cooled 7600GT in the starting blocks as well. Just thought this could be useful info.

 

[Nanobaud]

Along another avenue -
Arctic Cooling has a footnote saying that they will have a passive cooler for 7900GT in June

AC

 

[Towermax]

I'm RMAing my second Asus EAX 1600XT to Newegg. It's incompatible with my Asus A8N5X motherboard--second level tech support at Asus advised me to return it and try something else.

Some googling shows there's a problem with some X1600 cards and some nForce 4 boards. YMMV, but be careful.

The EAX1600XT is a beautiful card though--the heatsink and pipes are very nicely done.