matched pair of 7800 GTX from Dell system

[Vesper8]

Hiyas, I found an ebay listing of that looks interesting. It's a matched pair of 7800 GTX taken out of a DELL Dimension XPS 600 Desktop system

this is the pic in the auction

CLICK ME TO SEE PICTURE

my first question is does "matched" mean anything special here other than just saying they're both identical? if I get this.. I'll want to use it in two different systems (so not in SLI)

2nd question is.. what are those green brackets i see on the pic that extend to the right.. is that part of the card or .. what is it.. it looks like those cards are longer than usual because of it.. will i have to make room for those extra long metal plates or can i take em off? what do you think

and lastly.. anyone know if these are original nvidia branded cards ? it looks like the heatsink is different from the one i'm used to seeing on original nvidia cards

also.. any extra thoughts on these?

 

[Leper Messiah]

they look like Dell OEMs, made for the thermal profile of that particular Chassis. Should work fine in another PC, matched just means that they from the same system, so you know that SLi will work. The extra green stuff looks like it extends from one side of the case to the other, just like the old ass VL slot cards did. dunno if they'll fit in a standard ATX case.

 

[DidlySquat]

Weird, that not how my 7800GTX looks like, nor any other 7800 GTX I ever saw. Most 7800 GTX are based on the nvidia reference design which looks VERY DIFFERENT from your picture. First of all, I can't even see the DVI ports on the front end of the card, and there should be a lot of capacitors in the back end which are missing in the picture. Not to mention that the heatsinks (pipes?) and fan are located differently, but that is of course possible. I would stay away from this thing, but at ;east you should ask for a better picture.

 

[CP5670]

Interesting; those cards actually have that huge Quadro heatsink on them. Leadtek makes a GTX with it. I have no idea what those green extensions in the back are though. The DVI ports are probably not visible because of the dual slot plate.

 

[Dubb]

what would be really freaky is if dell is using failed quadro boards, just like with the dell 6800 GTO. the PCB extension bracket just makes me think that's all the more likely.

if you buy those:
1.) take the heatsink off and see what the processer shim says.
2.) get a rivatuner diagnostic report.
3.) sell me one of them (or both) if it turns out to be a quadro in disguise.

 

[jiffylube1024]

Wow, those things look HUGE. As long as they fit in your case, they should work fine.

I also think the DVI ports are hidden in the back. The cooling looks pretty good: the fan is large so it should be quieter, and it still has heatpipes.

Again though, those extra brackets in the front make the cards absurdly long - be sure that will fit in your case because they are several inches longer than regular 7800's, which are quite long in their own right.

 

[gunblade]

Wow, Dell used the Quadro reference design on their regular 7800gtx board. The two slot cooling solution are much better than the standard cheap design on 7800gtx. The fan are alot higher duty than regular consumer card and thermal design point are supposed to be higher on the quadro so that means a better heat dissipation can be expected.

It was actually rumored to be put on a Ultra card to have dual slot cooling for higher clock scaling.

 

[CP5670]

That heatsink is used to cool the Quadro core which runs at 550mhz, so these cards might be good overclockers. It looks like the green things are just screwed on, so it might be possible to remove them.

 

[Dubb]

yes, virtually all of those PCB extension brackets are removeable.

I've done some googling, but I can't find any pics of one of these with the heatsink off.

if the quadro 4500 really is clocked at 550 (I can't find any clockspeed info on the quadro parts), I'm 80% certain those are quadros that couldn't make that speed and were sold to dell with half the ram and a new bios, running at reference gtx speeds.

seriously....if someone can get me a shot of one of these sans heatsink, I'm buying one!