Passively cooled graphics cards for gaming - an overview

[o-seven]

Greetings all.

My current graphics card is an Radeon HD4890 OC 1 GB DDR5. While I'm quite pleased with the performance of the card, the noise levels are starting to annoy me. It is soundless while not running 3d graphics, but suffers from a windtunnel syndrome while gaming.

I'm considering buying a passively cooled card, but am having trouble getting an overview.

Now, I understand the (really basic) basics of passively cooled cards. You need a case with a good airflow, which I believe, that I have. Furthermore, there is a limit to how much you can expect from passively cooled cards - the monsters of graphics need to breathe.

I looked around the forums, but the newer threads on this topic - that I could find anyway - were by people, for whom gaming wasn't a big concern.

Well, that was the (rather long) back-story, here's my question:

In terms of gaming performance, what is the best passively cooled graphics card at the moment?
- From my perspective, can any passively cooled card match or surpass the radeon HD4890 1 GB OC in terms of performance? I run 1920*1200 and have 750W to play with.
- I see the Radeon HD 5750 and 4850 mentioned - are they the best bet right now?
- If I see reviews of a card, cooled by fans, can I then trust, that it performs identically to the exact same card, cooled passively? Can I, for example, rely on Anandtech review of the fanned 5750?
- I found this rather odd list of passively cooled cards, some of which aren't passively cooled (?)

Any help and comments would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance,

O-seven

 

[WildW]

Instead of going for a passive card, which you will pay over the odds for, consider a card with a quieter cooler - you can find cards that come with these, or fit them yourself. These are typically big wide heatsinks that you attach a 92/120mm case fan to - you can then experiment with speed controlling that fan down to some inaudible level.

You'll be able to get a higher performance GPU this way than just going for a passive card.

 

[Danube]

I made my own passive card with an Accelero and a 4850. The card idled at 80C when it was new and this was considered "normal"

Once the Accelero was on it idled between 50C and 55C. After a couple hours gaming it will hit 60C -65C.

One thing I did differently was to take the original heat sink and cut off the portion that was over the voltage regulators in the rear. Then I screwed that part back in place. The Accelero comes with little heat sinks for the memory modules but not the voltage regulators. People were buying their own but the old heat sink works great.

 

[yh125d]

Yeah just buy an accelero S1 to use on your 4890. Use the metal plate from the stock cooler to cool the VRMs and memory and use the Acc for the core. Mine has two antec 92mm fans strapped to it on low and I never hear it

 

[Golgatha]

Yeah just buy an accelero S1 to use on your 4890. Use the metal plate from the stock cooler to cool the VRMs and memory and use the Acc for the core. Mine has two antec 92mm fans strapped to it on low and I never hear it

Yes, I can confirm the Accelero S1 works with a 4850, 4870, and GTS 250 very, very well. A 4890 should be no problem at all.

 

[frostedflakes]

I made my own passive card with an Accelero and a 4850. The card idled at 80C when it was new and this was considered "normal"

Once the Accelero was on it idled between 50C and 55C. After a couple hours gaming it will hit 60C -65C.

One thing I did differently was to take the original heat sink and cut off the portion that was over the voltage regulators in the rear. Then I screwed that part back in place. The Accelero comes with little heat sinks for the memory modules but not the voltage regulators. People were buying their own but the old heat sink works great.

Same, put an Accelero S2 on my HD4670 recently. Funny thing, the GPU actually runs a bit cooler with the passive heatsink than it did with the active stock cooler. And this is in a pretty low airflow case, I only have two fans (intake and exhaust) that run at 400-500RPM while gaming.

HD4670 is a pretty low-power card, though, about 50w. But still, with a larger passive heatsink like the Accelero S1, you could probably cool more power hungry cards pretty well. And as Danube mentioned, don't forget that the GPU isn't the only part of the card that gets warm. I don't think it's much of an issue with low-end and mid-range cards, but for high-end ones you'll want to pay attention to the voltage regulators and probably memory as well. Without the fan on the cooler to provide some airflow over these, they'll get a lot warmer if you don't throw some heatsinks on them.

 

[Insomniator]

Why don't you just turn your speakers on? Or use headphones?

Paying more for less seems pointless when you said yourself the card is silent when not playing games. How loud could it be to be annoying during gaming?

 

[Reincus]

There are several sound considerations for your case as well. There are several mods and aftermarket products that lower the noise from inside your case (assuming you didn't get a case that takes noise into consideration). Positioning that case may help too. Under the desk vs on top (make sure it's off the floor and had good air flow though), for example.

If the case has a hole in the side for a fan and it's sitting 2 feet from your face... no surprise you can hear the thing take off.

You can also get software that allow you to make your own fan profiles so it won't get so loud. Just watch the temps.

 

[Binky]

Accelero S1 + Zalman ZM-RHS90 + any slow 120mm fan = near silent

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=310039
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=307072

 

[Zap]

- If I see reviews of a card, cooled by fans, can I then trust, that it performs identically to the exact same card, cooled passively? Can I, for example, rely on Anandtech review of the fanned 5750?

That's like asking if a battery powered calculator will return the same answer for 2+2 as would a solar powered calculator.

Don't do it. Don't run passive cards for gaming. You don't seem to mind noise, just loud noise. "Passive" is 1000x more difficult to cool than using a fan. You can either use aftermarket cooling that will be quieter than the stock cooler or you can switch to watercooling. A decent setup can probably be had starting under $200 (pump, rad, universal block, hardware) which will keep the card cooler and quieter than stock air cooling.

 

[o-seven]

Thanks for all the answers!

1. First off, some questions to my specs and reasoning:

I have a an Antec P182 case, and have selected parts, having noise reduction in mind, among others the Zalman CNPS9700 for the CPU. The case is under my desk. The 4890, however, surprised me. The noise levels are tremendous when under load. I guess I could live with it - I could live with a lot of things - but even with speakers on loud, it annoys. It could be, that I've been spoiled by the fact I had a passively cooled card before.

2. I see quite a few people saying that the accelero S1 is pretty good. My only concern here is whether I can install it - at best, I'm a medium grade techie. I found this guide, and this one, and of course the official guide. Are there better guides out there? And can a rookie-to-medium techie pull this off? At this point, I should break down and confess that, although I picked the parts for my PC, I didn't assemble it myself.

3. Just to get a sense of perspective, would the 5770 be the best alternative in out-of-the-box passive cooling?

4. @ Zap: "That's like asking if a battery powered calculator will return the same answer for 2+2 as would a solar powered calculator."

Point taken - although I asked, because I suspected that some manufacturers would tone down specs for passive cooling to prevent overheating, without actually renaming. And I appreciate your watercooling-tip, but I've seen a couple of guides and suspect that watercooling is beyond my abilities to install

 

[boren]

Don't do it. Don't run passive cards for gaming. You don't seem to mind noise, just loud noise. "Passive" is 1000x more difficult to cool than using a fan.

Some passive cooled cards run colder than their actively cooled counterparts - without compromising performance:

http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/foru...imate-512mb-passive-video-card-review-20.html

 

[deimos3428]

I had a similar situation with a noisy 4870 in an otherwise silent machine. Playing with the fan profiles eventually annoyed me enough to do something about it.

I went with the Accelero Twin Turbo Pro, and it is an excellent and affordable solution. With the 12V adapter it still produces a somewhat pleasing low-voume low-frequency "woosh", but with the 7V adapter it is inaudible. Considering you already have the 4890, that's probably the way to go.

There isn't a passive card that will match the 4890 yet, but you might consider passive cards in CF. Powercolor makes a couple different models, I'm not sure who else. (Though if you've got the budget for that, you may as well go for VGA watercooling.)

 

[o-seven]

Hmm, so I'm considering the accelero S1 rev2 and the Twin Turbo Pro. A couple of questions:

1. I see some people reporting, that they can't control the fan speed of the TTP with catalyst, although that should be possible, evidently - any experiences with that?

2. I've seen reports that the VRM heat sinks are terrible - which is what Binky must have meant with recommending the Zalman ZH-RHS90? Any experiences with that?

3. Does the TTP need separate power for its fans, as in separate from the power supplied to the graphics card? I suspect this is a really stupid question, but I'm not really used to messing about with my PSU, and am worried that I might find it difficult. (The installation guides I've seen always seem to skip this point by just mentioning the 7V/12V adapter - which makes me think I'm missing something obvious)

Again, thanks in advance!

 

[Golgatha]

Some passive cooled cards run colder than their actively cooled counterparts - without compromising performance:

http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/foru...imate-512mb-passive-video-card-review-20.html

Yea, in my experience a passive Accelero S1 will outperform most actively cooled solutions and there is absolutely no chance for a fan to break. Also, dust doesn't build up very quickly, and is more easily blown out of, an Accelero S1 solution. I find them pretty ideal for HTPCs especially.